Army draws down, Reserves build up

Forced out of the Army, soldiers find careers in the Reserve
Army Times
By Michelle Tan
Staff writer
January 4, 2014

Frustrated by his inability to get promoted and the looming Army drawdown, then-Sgt. James Davis left active duty in 1995.

He used his separation bonus to buy his mother a house and then moved on to serve with the U.S. Capitol Police. But Davis quickly began to miss being a soldier.

“I had 13 or 14 years in, and I really enjoyed the lifestyle,” he said. “The only reason I got out was because I couldn’t get promoted, and I decided if I could do both [a civilian career and be in the military], I wanted to.”

In 1998, Davis returned to the Army, this time in the Army Reserve as a counter-intelligence soldier. Today, he is the command sergeant major for the 203rd Military Intelligence Battalion in Maryland, and he still serves as a K-9 handler with the Capitol Police.

“If you would have told me that 30 years ago, I would have very seriously laughed at you,” Davis said about attaining the highest enlisted rank. “There’s no way I could have ever imagined that being possible. I’ve been extraordinarily fortunate.”

Over the next two years, the Army will trim about 38,000 soldiers from the active force as part of an overall drawdown of 80,000 soldiers.

And the Army Reserve, which is struggling to fill critical shortages in mid-career noncommissioned officer and officer ranks, wants to catch as many as 8,000 of these soldiers as they leave active duty.
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Soldiers want Playboy:Magazine ban could hurt morale

Soldiers: Magazine ban could hurt morale
By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, May 4, 2008
GRAFENWÖHR, Germany – Legislation that would restrict the sale of certain men’s magazines on U.S. military bases around the world would be bad for morale, according to soldiers at Grafenwöhr.

U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., has introduced legislation that would close a loophole in the current law that allows the sale of some sexually explicit material on military bases by lowering the threshold required to deem material “sexually explicit.”

A Department of Defense committee that reviews materials sold on bases ruled last year that magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse are not pornographic. But Broun’s Military Honor and Decency Act includes language that could make those magazines eligible for the ban.

The prospect of missing out on men’s magazines was not welcomed by soldiers at Grafenwöhr.

“We all read ’em,” said Pfc. Paul Rubio, 31, of Bakersfield, Calif. “There are times we just read ’em for the technological parts like the new gadgets that come out. They have good stories sometimes too.”

Sgt. Simon Brown, 34, of Daytona Beach, Fla., said men’s magazines build morale. “It’s not all about the pictures, although 80 percent of it is,” he said.
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http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=54541

Time to chime in here. Considering what they see on a daily basis, especially in combat, I doubt very much looking at Playboy or Penthouse would be such a bad thing. Yes I'm a Chaplain but I'm still a human. I can understand the "value" of these magazines to some people. The military has a much bigger issue they need to confront instead of taking away these magazines. That is the rape and abuse of women in the military. Seems to me that would be a much bigger issue when it comes to morality and enforcing the law than some magazines are.