What Does a Military Recruiter Do?

The draft system refers to a system in which the state relies on administrative means to forcibly recruit nationals to supplement the army. In modern times, in order to effectively recruit soldiers, many countries have stipulated in the constitution or other laws that military service is the obligation of citizens.

Conscription system

Chinese name: Conscription system
Meaning: System of state recruitment of national supplementary army

Purpose: Effectively recruit soldiers
main content: Organizational leadership, military service registration, physical examination

China's conscription system

In our country, recruiting troops is an important task to strengthen army building and defend the socialist motherland. An important task of people's governments at all levels and military leadership and command agencies at all levels is directly related to the modernization of troops and the improvement of combat effectiveness. The main contents of the recruitment work include: organization and leadership, military service registration, physical examination, political review, approval of recruits, transfer of recruits, transport of recruits, quarantine and withdrawal, funding, rewards and punishments.

The current military service system in the United States is a full-volunteer military service system, that is, the military recruits qualified young people to volunteer to join the army. The military is currently one of the largest employers in the United States. The system was announced by President Nixon in March 1973 after all U.S. forces withdrew from Vietnam. This system not only emphasizes patriotism and promotes its effectiveness for national and American values, but also emphasizes the attraction of outstanding talents to join the army through higher benefits and higher education opportunities. Previously, the United States had implemented military service systems such as the militia system, the recruit system, and the draft system. After nearly 30 years of improvement, the U.S. military's current all-voluntary military service system has basically matured. In terms of salary, at present, a soldier who has been in the army for one year earns about $ 20,000 a year, and at the same time enjoys free medical care and various insurances, and the income of military officers is even higher.

In addition, soldiers can get government-funded opportunities to go to college after they are discharged. In 1944, the US Congress passed the "World War II Soldiers Rights Act", which stipulates that soldiers who have expired in service have the right to receive scholarships and enter university. So far, more than 20 million soldiers have benefited from it. The current US Army policy states that soldiers who have served for two years can receive a scholarship of $ 26,000 after retiring, and soldiers who have served for four years can receive a maximum of $ 50,000 in scholarships. Public universities are perfectly fine. This regulation has attracted many children from poor families to join the army. In addition, the US military is also targeting a large number of foreign immigrants. According to regulations, all foreign immigrants with permanent resident status (that is, with a green card) can apply for military service as long as they meet the conditions, and they can be converted to citizenship after staying in the army for a certain number of years. This provision is attractive to foreign immigrants who have not been able to obtain citizenship for many years. This has also made the US military an army with a high proportion of minority soldiers.

Two sets of institutions

The current military service organization in the United States is divided into two sets of institutions: one is the government military service registration system under the responsibility of the National Recruitment Administration; the other is a military recruiting system under the various branches of the Department of Defense. Under U.S. law, young men in the United States who have reached the age of 18 must register with the Recruitment Agency and its military commissions across the country. This military service registration system divides the entire United States into six regions: the Northeast, the South, the Midwest, the Southwest, the Midwest, and the West. Each region has a regional bureau that governs military service in several states. Its grass-roots units are located throughout the country. More than 2,000 military commissions. The military's recruitment agencies are coordinated by the Ministry of National Defense, and each service is conducted separately. The names of the recruiting agencies are also different for each service. The Army is called the Recruitment Command, the Air Force and the Navy are called the Military Staff Center, and the Marine Corps is called the Human Resources and Reserve Service.

Recruiting propaganda

In late May of each year, New York City holds a "Fleet Week" event to celebrate the death of US officers and men for the country. During the "Fleet Week", in addition to the routine fleet parade and coast guard life-saving performances, reporters saw that the major services have seized this good opportunity and issued recruitment advertisements. The Air Force recruitment leaflet vigorously promotes the various skills courses and excellent salaries and benefits that the Air Force can provide, claiming that soldiers retired from the Air Force will be "extremely competitive" in the job market, which is very tempting.

The U.S. military has always focused on publicity. Over the past 20 years, the annual publicity funding for conscription has been above $ 100 million. Its routine practices are: mailing nearly 20 million copies of promotional materials to young people of appropriate age every year; freely mailing various magazines including military career introductions to more than 3 million high school students nationwide; conducting public welfare activities to enhance the image of soldiers in the public mind and many more. In recent years, the US military's propaganda activities have even demanded refurbishment and weird tricks. One of them is to frequently engage in "military life experience" activities with television stations, newspapers, and websites. The lucky ones will have the opportunity to live in military camps for a few days and even have the opportunity to learn to operate F-15 fighters. In order to attract young people, the famous American West Point Military Academy has specially designed a game software called "American Army". This game allows players to receive various basic military training online and fight in multiple virtual battlefields in order to complete various difficult tasks.

Interestingly, the survey shows that the more prosperous the US economy is, the lower the civilian unemployment rate, and the less the military can recruit. Statistics say that for every 1% drop in unemployment in American society, the army's recruitment rate will decrease by about 9%. Compared with the average annual unemployment rate of 4% in the 1990s, the US unemployment rate has now risen to about 6%. In some ways, this is not necessarily a bad thing for the military, because it means that more young people who are under employment pressure may switch to military camps.

Germany has created many miracles in the history of World War II. It has stirred up the entire world with a small amount of land and resources, including tactics, technology, industry, spirit, endurance, and the impact it suffered, which are beyond the understanding of ordinary nations. of.

And Germany, which has a small population, defeated many of its opponents dozens of times its population in the early days of the war, and squeezed out 10 million troops throughout the war. It was really a mobilization. It can be said that it was also a mobilization. miracle.

Until Napoleon's time, all European countries used mercenaries as standing troops to carry out operations. However, after the French Revolution, based on the principles of a democratic country, the French army was no longer the "king's army" and became a "national army". This also resulted in a "conscription system" in which citizens must be compulsorily enlisted. This system greatly increased the strength of France Therefore, other countries in Europe have also started to adopt the draft system.

Among them, the Kingdom of Prussia, the predecessor of the German Empire, had a relatively small population compared to France. Even with the conscription system, it was still less powerful than France. In order to make up for this inherent defect, the Kingdom of Prussia also assembled veterans to form the "Landwehr" as a regular army auxiliary. This system later became the prototype of "wartime mobilization orders" in various countries around the world.

The so-called "wartime mobilization" also means that soldiers who have completed military service are classified as "reserves" and can be re-recruited if necessary; compared to these reserve services, of course, those who are serving in the military are of course "reserves." With this system, as long as a small standing army is maintained during the flattening period, the country can form a large-scale military force in a short time when necessary. Of course, this system was immediately imitated by other European countries and became the world by the time of World War I. General systems in major countries.

However, the biggest shortcoming of this system is that the reserve soldiers had already adapted to the lives of ordinary civilians before being called, not to mention that they had already tasted the "bitterness" of being a soldier, and they knew how to mix in the army, so even if they were recruited An army composed of reserve soldiers must not be as effective as an active force. France therefore only placed such troops on the second line for general service and did not even consider putting reserve soldiers on the first line. It was only in the First World War that due to the attrition of regular frontline troops, the reserve soldiers had to be sent to the front line. As for Germany, from the beginning it took France and Russia as its imaginary enemies, and it was inferior even if it could recruit troops through conscription. In addition, Prussia had a tradition of "homeland defense", so it did not put reserve soldiers on the second line. Instead, they are put into the forefront like active duty troops !! However, the shortcomings of reserve soldiers are not as good as active duty soldiers.

In order to make up for this shortcoming, Germany did not set up a reserve army unit like France alone, but adopted the practice since the Prussian era: mixing the reserve army with the active service army! That is to say, a division was not fully staffed during the flat period, during wartime After recruiting reserve soldiers to fill up the shortfall, it reached the strength of a division. Although such troops cannot reach 100% of the combat power of active service personnel, the advantage is that each unit can be moved according to the same line of troops !!!

Recruit training is replaced by non-military organizations

After World War I, in order to prevent Germany from returning to a military power, the Versailles Convention not only disbanded the German staff headquarters, but also imposed detailed restrictions on military details such as heavy machine guns, chariots, and fighter aircraft. One of the most underpaid is to limit Germany to only 100,000 active duty troops, and the active duty must be as long as 12 years.

If the military service period is two years, Germany can have 100,000 reserve soldiers after two years, and it can increase by 100,000 every two years. However, if the military service period is 12 years, it will only take 10 years. 10,000 reserve soldiers, it will take 24 years to get 200,000 reserve soldiers. Therefore, when Germany was rearmed in 1935, there were only 100,000 active soldiers and 100,000 reserve soldiers in the country. In addition, only those veterans who had participated in the First World War had regular military training or military experience! So Nazi? How did the German Army dissolve in such strict restrictions?

The first was the establishment of the Hitler-Jugend, which actually provided military training in the name of educating young people for their survival skills in the wild; in addition, the National Labor Dedication Group was established in 1935 to require ordinary young people to enter the society after education. Before taking office, they have the obligation to participate for more than one year. They are nominally a road construction organization set up to solve the economic downturn. In fact, they are given military management. At the same time, they attach great importance to physical training. It can be said that they use shovel to replace rifles to recruit recruits. Training, young people have such experience, even if suddenly recruited into the army in the future will soon be able to enter the situation. Relying on the above two organizations, the German youth can also say that they have already completed the basic training of recruits when they formally joined the army, so that the new military training units can give higher levels of military training within a short period of time after the recruits join the army.

Recruitment of the German Army and the role of the defence zone

In March 1935, Germany began to implement a draft system. It is required that men who have reached the age of 20 must undergo a medical examination in the fall of that year, as long as they have no major physical or mental disabilities and immediately enter the military service. The military has even achieved the goal of cultivating a large number of reserve forces (that is, reserve soldiers) in a short period of time. At first it was announced that the service period was one year, but it was immediately extended to two years. Mainly because the recruit training period was half a year. If there is only one year of military service, there will be half a year of active military members who have not completed training in the army since November of the following year! After the service period expires, they will be included in the reserve and reach the age of 45. If so far, the state has the obligation to re-enter the camp if it has recruited. Even if the state issues a convening order, if there is no shortage of regular troops, it will be included in the "Homeland Defense Force" (but East Prussia also has a "Landsturm" composed of 45-55-year-old retired soldiers).

With this system, the military has active soldiers aged 20 to 22 and reserve soldiers aged 23 to 45. Theoretically, the population of these age groups will be recruited to exhaustion, and the German army will continue to supplement its forces.

In addition, among the reserve soldiers, those who have served as the army chief in the First World War, or the old soldiers who were forced to retire due to the Treaty of Versailles are listed as reserve officers, and are recruited as officers.

Another feature of Germany's conscription system is that it is responsible for convening in "Wehrkreis" units. The military divided Germany into 15 defense zones and assigned Roman numerals 1 to 13, 17, 18 (I to XIII, X, X). The last two areas were actually the merged Austria.

Before the Second World War, divisional units composed of various defense zones were added with the defense zone code after the troop number, and the defense zone headquarters were located in metropolitan areas. After the wartime mobilization orders were issued, these defense zone commanders The ministry directly became a division-level unit under the defense command.

For example, during the war in the III Defense Zone, where Berlin was the headquarters of the Defense Zone Command, the 1st Division, 13th Division, and 23rd Division were formed, and the III Defense District Command directly became the Third Army Command. , Under the jurisdiction of three infantry divisions. In addition, the 14th, 15th, and 16th (XIV, XV, XVI) defense zones of the jump number are reserved for the upcoming mechanized forces, and in wartime they are planned to be directly under the Army Command.

Below each defensive zone is divided into two to three conscription zones. Each conscription zone has several subareas responsible for conscription and new training tasks within the conscription zone. After annexing the Czech Republic in 1938, Germany set up a new Morava defense zone in Bohemia. Later, after annexing Poland, Danzig (Gdansk in Poland) and Posen (Poland) Poznan) set up another defense zone, and was later assigned 20, 21 (XX, XXI) defense zone numbers. The rest of Poland merged to form a "government-administered defense zone", so the total number of defense zones in German jurisdiction reached 19.

Of course, the soldiers recruited by these defense areas are not only allocated to the Army. The German Defense Forces' army, air, and air forces all come from here, but only two-thirds belong to the Army.

Volunteer service is also available in addition to voluntary service. Volunteer service must be at least 17 years old. After joining the army, the soldiers receive the same training as ordinary soldiers, but those who perform well will be reported to be promoted to non-commissioned officers, or sent directly to the waves. Four military schools, including Potsdam, Muenchen, Hannover, or Dresden, will serve as officers after graduation.

Recruitment system with two phases

The army formed by the above system also has a system of supplementing combatants for the loss of soldiers in combat. Recruiting, convening, and training tasks are directly held by the "new training camps" that have been staying in the defensive areas. That is to say, the defensive areas do not send all recruited soldiers to the frontline troops. Instead, they stay. The next soldiers are here to train the recruits. These "new training camps" have the same troop numbers as the frontline troops, and are only responsible for training the soldiers sent to their own wing. As an easy-to-understand example, there is a "new training camp" under the first infantry regiment of the frontline operations. The "new training camp" has been staying at the original resident in the country and is responsible for the soldiers to be replenished by the regiment. Recruitment units remain in their hometown !! This is also mainly because the Germans attach great importance to local consciousness and believe that the army composed of soldiers from their hometowns is a supplementary soldier system designed to help morale.

Of course, this "new training camp" is divided into several company-level units according to different tasks. There are "recruitment squadrons" specifically responsible for recruiting and "training squadrons" specially responsible for training. The "stand-by squadron" stands by and waits for the troops to reach the front.

However, when the "Transfer Squadron" from the "New Training Camp" was sent to the field forces, they did not report directly to their field forces. Instead, they first arrived at the "Joint Training Squadron" of the Field Wings. It is selected by the "joint training team", not directly by the "new training camp". This is the German two-stage recruiting system.

In addition to the "joint training brigade (battalion-level unit)", in addition to receiving new recruits from the "new training camp", wounded soldiers discharged from field hospitals and soldiers on vacation were also sent here to receive orders. The "joint training brigade" formation has the same formation as the frontline combat troops. It consists of three infantry companies and one weapon company. Here, the recruits and veterans are mixed to receive training. The advantage is that the recruits can adapt to the field. The actual situation of the army, and at the same time the veterans who have been able to recognize the army when it was actually deployed, will greatly help the recruits' psychology and increase the centripetal force of the army.

In addition, the establishment of the "joint training brigade" is the same as that of the general field infantry battalion, which is basically equivalent to the reserve force of the field force, and can be directly used as a general force when necessary for the dispatch of forces. The above is an example of an infantry unit. Other artillery engineering communications units also have similar supplementary systems.

35 mobilization orders issued for expansion

Relying on the above-mentioned mobilization method, the German Army quickly expanded from the abolition of the first 7 infantry divisions of the Versailles Treaty and 3 cavalry divisions to 100,000 troops to 36 infantry divisions, 4 mechanized infantry divisions, 1 cavalry division, and 5 heavy armors. Division, the size of 4 light armored divisions. | In August 1939, in order to prepare for the invasion of Poland, the Army urgently issued a four-stage mobilization order within this month. The first stage first made 35 divisions expanded after the contract was abolished (1st Division to 46th Division, There is a jump number in the middle), 16 divisions in the second step (infantry divisions with a troop number of 50 to 60), and 3rd and 4th stages are expanded with 21 and 14 divisions (starters in the troop number 200).

In fact, the German army's expansion of each wave of its troops will be changed due to personnel quality, weapons and equipment production speed and updates, tactical changes, so each step of the infantry division is very different. Another feature is that when a new unit is established, one-third of its strength is usually allocated by the existing field division to become the backbone of the newly formed unit, that is, one of the infantry brigades or infantry regiments is upgraded to a division. Then supplement the troop strength by division. This is also related to the German tradition of using mixed formations of veterans and recruits.

After the war, the Army continued to issue mobilization orders. With the British and French officially declaring war on Germany, the German army launched a fifth run (September 15 to 18, 1939) and the sixth and seventh run in December. In the following year, the eighth run in February 1940, the ninth run in March, entered the battalion at the tenth run when invading France. By the tenth run, the infantry division expanded to 90, and the other 100, 200, 300 Infantry divisions also began to appear. Of course, the general infantry divisions starting with these hundreds of numbers and the 500 infantry divisions specializing in border guards are different. The infantry divisions beginning with 400 managed by domestic supplementary battalions are different. Units with a prefix of 500 or 400 will not be transferred. Of the army is only organized by the administrative command).

On the eve of the Soviet war against Soviet Union in 1941, the German armored unit's doubling plan was also expanded in the same way as the puppet division. Because the infantry division of the armored division required only two-thirds of the infantry division, it was also possible that some infantry divisions were assigned three points. After one went out to set up a new infantry division, the remaining two-thirds were directly converted into armored divisions.

The 12th Panzer Division was composed of the 2nd Infantry Division, the 13th Panzer Division was composed of the 13th Infantry Division, the 14th Panzer Division was composed of the 4th Infantry Division, the 15th Panzer Division was composed of the 33rd Infantry Division, and the 16th Panzer Division was composed of the 16th Infantry Division. The 17th Panzer Division was adapted from the 27th Infantry Division, and the 19th Panzer Division was adapted from the 19th Infantry Division during this period. In addition, the 18th Panzer Division was established by the 4th and 14th Infantry Divisions, and the 20th Panzer Division was established by each of the 19th and 59th Infantry Divisions allocating a third of their strength. Of course, these armored divisions' chariots were transferred from the original armored troops in the same way.

However, the "new training camp" in the rear can no longer be expanded like a field division. The one-to-one relationship between the frontline troops and the rear reinforcement barracks before the start of the war can no longer be maintained. At this time, several infantry divisions share a "new training." Camp. "

In fact, as soon as the war started, it was impossible for the field forces that actually fought on the front line to redeploy one-third of their strength for the army to use as the backbone for the expansion of the new troops. Therefore, after the end of the Polish campaign, it was the field divisions "Joint training units". These field forces only created their own "joint training units" on the eve of the war against the Soviet Union. In other words, the Germans on the French front at the beginning of the war were actually only temporarily expanded by the "joint training units".

Due to long-term consumption of troops, the German army began to find a new reinforcement system

By the frontline operations until 1940, the Germans continued to expand and replenish their troops and swept Europe by relying on the above mobilization methods. The Soviet Union s plan for combating the Soviet Union in 1941 was finalized. In order to expand its armament, the military issued 11th to 14th mobilization orders. In 1940, 37 infantry divisions were expanded.

However, in 1941, operations against the Soviet Union really began. Due to excessive expansion in a short period of time and the increase in the loss of frontline soldiers, the problem of insufficient equipment and strength began to appear in Germany. As a result, the 700-character infantry division expanded on the 15th run had only two infantry brigades under it, which could only be used as garrison troops in French and Belgian occupation. However, at least this way, the regular troops originally stationed can be deployed to support the front line.

The 16th mobilization, the expanded troops began to become "guard divisions", because there is only one infantry brigade, one artillery battalion, and the combat power is about one-third of the regular infantry division. It had to be stationed in Germany and responsible for rear security. .

The battle against Soviet Union was defeated, and the troops expanded by the above-mentioned methods almost exhausted in the eastern battlefield. From 1941 to the winter of 1942, the Soviet front had lost more than 1 million troops. In the meantime, 17th to 20th mobilization orders were issued, but at the Battle of Stalingrad, the German Third Army was completely destroyed, and three armored divisions, two mechanized infantry divisions and 13 infantry divisions were lost. Ten thousand people. At this time, the existing conscription system could no longer sustain the loss of troops.

At this time, the German military began to include all SS armed guards and foreigners in the occupied territories under the command of Himmler into the recruitment and mobilization system.

The mobilization system's response to the deterioration of the war situation

Starting from this period, every six "new training camps" in each area were organized into a "new training brigade", after which every six "new training brigades" were organized into a "new trainer", each training batch completed The entire division was sent directly to the front-line field troops without breaking up. The field army was upgraded to a regular field division directly after the frontline education. Because it was trained at the front-line station, after the training, it had a high adaptability to the battlefield environment. The Germans began to relocate new training units abroad in order to help recruits adapt to the environment earlier.

Since Germany was originally a country with a dense population, the venues for military exercises were limited, so it gradually became a domestic convocation, and then recruited directly at the exercise grounds of the German-occupied countries. After the training, they directly stationed there. The benefits are as above. Adapts quickly to the environment. However, this measure created a major flaw after the Allied landing in 1944.

As the Allied troops marched in and out, often after the Germans recruited recruits in the country, they were sent to the French training camp in the new training camp area for training. Only then did they find that the camp area had become the first-line battlefield. In addition, the occupying area was gradually shrinking. The new training was changed back to Germany.

In this situation, Hitler began to ask the Army to expand the new army. Both frontline troops and senior military officials believe that the shortage of existing troops should be replaced as a priority, which at least allows veterans with hundreds of battles to adapt their recruits to the battlefield. However, Hitler did not believe that these excessively damaged units had no residual value. The military then had to dissolve these ruined units, and then the same personnel set up a new army. Therefore, after 1943, some units had the same unit number (disbanded) as the units that had been dismantled in the past, but in fact they had no relationship at all. And during this period, the formation of newly formed troops has become very small. The infantry brigade originally composed of three infantry battalions now consists of only two infantry battalions, and one infantry division has also changed from 17,000 to 10,000. On the surface, it seems that the number of troops is okay, but in fact each army has less than half its previous combat power.

In 1943, the Germans lost battle in Kursk, so Hitler changed the name of the infantry division to "National Grenadier Division" in order to improve morale. The new troops mobilized after the 30th run in 1944, or reorganized by the old troops, were crowned "National Grenadier Divisions." Of course, there are also troops that originally had a prefix of 500. They also have the name of the disbanded army, and there are also "national grenadier divisions" behind.

At this time, the military began to expand the age of recruitment, from the original 20 to 45 to 17 to 61. This time the scope has expanded to include the age group of veterans who had participated in the First World War. It can also be seen that Germany has gradually Human resources are exhausted.

In addition, the personnel eliminated so far due to physical examination have also been included in the conscription, for example, a unit composed of soldiers suffering from gastric ulcers, using dietary therapy in the unit to perform combat tasks. There is also a troop made up of deaf people, and all orders are entirely based on sign language.

In addition, the captives of the Soviet army, the local commandos of East Prussia, and the "national commandos" composed of elderly and children outside the conscription range, although there seem to be many available troops in number, but in fact These forces were not able to fight at all. Not only did the National Commando have no uniforms, rifles, and training were simply insufficient.

At the end of the war, Germany relied on this mobilization system to send its troops to the battlefield. With the continuous defeat, the 2 million reserve soldiers retained in 1943 had fallen below 1 million by the second half of 1944. During the year of 1944, the German Army lost 75 infantry divisions and about 230 infantry brigades. Although 60 infantry divisions were added during the same period, about 200 infantry brigades. Regardless of their quality, at least this mobilization order remained valid. Operation. Although the Soviet Union lost more troops than the Germans in the early days of the German-Soviet war, by the end of 1943 the Soviet troops were stronger than they were at the beginning of the war.

In 1945, Hitler issued another order: "It is forbidden to expand or dispatch troops in the name of training, supplementation, and reserve !!". So all German troops were sent to the front line battlefield, and there were no more active soldiers who could train new recruits.

Germany did not have six years of national strength with Europe, and finally ended in defeat in May 1945 after exhausting all its forces.

In a word, history is made by man, and the decisive factor in war is man.

What Does a Military Recruiter Do?

Conscription system

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