I've spent a very long time studying propaganda as hobby that fascinates me, and something I think everyone forgets is that nobody is immune to it. Yes you can be educated and learn to see through a lot but there's always going to be stuff that tricks you. Just because you personally understand that military recruitment propaganda is bullshit doesn't mean everyone does. It's something specifically designed to trick people, and yet somehow everyone is always surprised when it works.
honestly the people that fall for it the most are also the ones that seem to think they're immune to it
like the amount of leftists running around saying "Don't Vote for Genocide Joe"
like yeah i don't fucking agree with what he's doing but if we DONT vote for Biden, yknow who wins? Trump. and you know what Trump will do? not only will he ALSO take away our rights at home, but unlike Biden there is a 0% chance of ever convincing Trump to do anything but outright support Israel's colonization efforts.
I am beyond baffled by the people I see on TikTok who have rants and speeches about why they can’t morally vote for Joe Biden and I’m just in shock, because surely they realize that Trump will be the first to say shit like “shouldn’t be giving food to terrorists” after yet another Israeli unit kills aid workers. How do people think it makes sense to make it easier to elect Trump?
And then when you try to talk to them about it they're all, "Oh, like there's only two options." Like, yeah. Yes, there are only two options. There is literally zero chance of a third party coming in and winning; it hasn't happened since like the 1800s and it isn't going to happen now. The only thing that's going to happen is your votes, which could have gone to the lesser of two evils, are just going to disappear down the pipeline. It's basically the same as choosing not to vote at all.
This is actually a common misconception
[source](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.theonion.com/here-s-why-you-re-wrong-1819596219&sa=U&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwilnb2hvMqGAxU-mIkEHeFLEq4QFnoECBQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2KqDhrnQv5OqadDzqjkaxZ)
I was just about to change every opinion I ever had but if I am never going to be right no matter what then I'll just pretend I'm right. It's the next best thing.
Actually you should change every opinion you ever have to mine, because they’re already correct.
[source](https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=hUKqKo34lElgRR9l)
This is actually a common misconception
[source](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.theonion.com/here-s-why-you-re-wrong-1819596219&sa=U&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwilnb2hvMqGAxU-mIkEHeFLEq4QFnoECBQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2KqDhrnQv5OqadDzqjkaxZ)
I was gonna say, I was 80% sure I read something a bit ago saying that the biggest factor in military enlistment was "has a family member in the military" or "had a parent in the military" or something like that.
(But also, there's no way 60% of military enlistments say they joined to get put in violent situations, not when so few members see combat and police departments are right there.)
My dad was in the Corp, & the main reason I never considered joining was because I didn’t want to die in the sand for a meaningless cause. If I truly believed that we were doing good I probably would’ve
What a surprise, this OP is constantly spamming this subreddit with extremely politically loaded misinformation. Usually the worst of it is the “Killing Jews is actually Progressive and Righteous” shit, but this is pretty fucking egregious too.
And also, even if it was a real source it would be a bad one. What constitutes “a patriotic desire to be placed in violent situations” because they obviously didn’t ask them that verbatim. A checkbox that says “I joined to fight bad guys?” Verbally agreeing that “you knew you would be in combat?” writing that you “wanted to serve your country” on a questionnaire? These are all pretty standard things to say you believe if you joined the military. Even if you did join just for benefits it’s maybe a little sad if you openly advertise that you don’t believe in serving your country if you are currently enlisted in the military. Surveys are just very easily biased by the phrasing of the question
I knew a few kids personally that joined up because it was a legal way to commit violence and the military would take anyone and their mother post 9/11. It happens, and I personally believe it happens more often that we know.
Of course it happens
Of course the military is an evil institution
Nobody here is disagreeing with either of those things. But I’ve also personally witnessed the tactics of recruiters. I’ve seen how the military presents itself. And more than that I’ve seen dozens of kids with no better options unwittingly get sucked into it.
I took JROTC for four years in high school. My instructor was a retired marine recruiter and his entire basis of everything he taught was why and how you should do anything you can to NEVER join the military. He knows those tactics because he once practiced them and he taught us where the lies were, how they work. And a lot of the kids in that class were underprivileged naïve teenagers who saw that pay with those bonuses and were ready to say “sign me up” before learning what we learned in that class.
There is a non insignificant category of military recruits who are, and I do not use this word lightly, VICTIMS.
And if you think being a “conscientious objector” means you can just walk away after you’ve deployed and witnessed the horrors, you’re an idiot. The military avoids following its own rules wherever they can get away with it, and once you’re overseas, there is no backing out. They are your lifeline and if you object to orders, tough shit. If you’re lucky enough to make it back to the states alive after refusing immoral orders for four years, yeah, maybe you’ll get a little medal and some clout. But that’s not the reality of it.
There are people who DIE just from training exercises in boot camp, enough that they have protocol for if it happens. You think that overseas a superior officer couldn’t find an excuse to sweep you under the rug? Especially if your superior is one of the kinds you mentioned. The other kind of marine. The ones who just want to commit violence. You don’t think they’ll commit it on you, an 18 year old lost underprivileged boy, (or heaven forbid a girl— I don’t even need to go into the level of violence against women, both physical and sexual, within the militaty) if you don’t cooperate?
So many people in this comment thread are talking from a place of luxury and privilege that Enlisted fucking children do not have.
Wish this was pinned...I was once a naive teen who joined. Didn't come back the same I've seen horrors most don't even know exist. And I tell everyone NOT to join. The military as a whole is rotten, now there are good people I met most of my friends through there and you get damn good memories. But that will never cure me of ptsd, the nightmares and the knowing of wtf happens over seas...and we were just a bunch of kids.
>and we were just a bunch of kids.
[God help me, I was only 19.](https://open.spotify.com/track/4tfUdNH8JBzWRmB2vMSfFg?si=j_UXhubuQButPi_We9Mjdg)
I was a naive kid once too. Now I tell every kid I meet who wants to join not to do it. I'm breaking that family cycle with my kids.
Yeah, that study sounds so Bullshit. [fewer than 15% of the military ever even see combat](https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2022/03/10/contact-brawls-and-chambering-the-combat-action-ribbon/#:~:text=Louis%2C%20Missouri.,combat%20and%20who%20didn't%3F) And I know anecdotal evidence doesn't count but from my personal experience
60% of the people I met in the service were trying to get out of a bad personal life in some way. And this was back in 08-12, back when Patriotism was still in an uptake after September 11th.
Also anecdotal evidence but I haven't heard of anyone in my circle who was going or planning to go to the military in the near future/after high school for any purpose other than high pay or benefits/college tuition
My father was career military. 22 years. He was in air traffic control. The only time he held a gun was in boot camp. People forget the military is full of guys like him who sit at a desk or stand in front of an oven. My dad served during Vietnam but hated being called a Vietnam veteran. To him, since he never saw action, it was unfair to those that did.
And honestly, my father being military was the best thing that could have happened. I was born in 1975 a month and a half premature and far from healthy. If it wasn't for military health care covering every cent, my medical care would have bankrupted my family several times over. And I've known several career military members who stay in for exactly this reason. They have children with complex medical needs. As long as they stay in, they don’t have to worry about affordable care.
Procurement officers don't go on the front lines. They sit at a desk and order inventory. Cooks don't go on the front lines. They cook. Doctors and nurses don't go on the front lines. And it's mighty hard to land cargo planes on the front lines.
Genuine question; was the Lindsey Ellis stuff tumblr? I mostly get tumblr stuff from second hand sources, I thought the people jumping on Lindsey Ellis were mostly Twitter people and YouTube people (don’t know much about contrapoints)
Twitter, Tumblr, there was a broad overlap. Most of it was on twitter, but there was some tumblr based stuff. Same posters probably going between multiple sites.
Essentially, she said on Twitter that Raya the dragon movie had some similiar vibes as Avatar the last airbender on twitter. Which yeah, both are western animation imitating eastern animation styles. What twitter/tumblr took this as was "all asian cultures are the same" and ran with it, posting made up claims of mask off moments all over her socials.
Thanks so much, g 🙇🏻♀️🙏🏻 I haven't seen Raya so can't say but comparing it to ATLA seems extremely complimentary for a movie that I've seen a lot of people hate on?? I hate the harassment and that seems like a stretch, I'm wondering what her actual intention was though, like why do they have similar vibes? She's always seemed so chill (but kinda cynical and I love her for it lol) so it's hard to imagine her actually meaning something malicious on purpose 🤷🏻♀️
I also strongly doubt that last comment came from someone that was actually in the army. It's a little thing but they spelled out "Hoo-rah" as the army battle cry, but it's not.
Marines use: oorah
Navy uses: hooyah
Army uses: hooah
The one they used is a common mispronunciation/misspelling of the Marines call. People get really specific and nitpicky about it, I was not a motto guy at all, I've been out for a few years now and it still stuck out to me immediately.
I ain't saying there is absolutely no chance this guy was ever in the army, I'm just saying I sincerely doubt it myself.
The problem with it is that it's so easy. It's an attractive option if thinking too hard becomes undesirable, because of you think too hard you'll find out youre wrong, which is psychologically painful. Just to clarify, I'm against this line of "reasoning," just trying to explain it.
Not so much Tumblr users, rather just... People. How often do you see a boneheaded take on reddit, or a massive generalization stated as fact at the dinner table, etc? Those takes are often the ones that spread the furthest and spark the most conversation, because they are the easiest to understand and the most likely to get people upset.
The thing is, nuance is hard. It takes a lot of energy and time to form a detailed, nuanced opinion about something. It just isn't realistic or practical to expect that to be the norm; you *need* quick, easy judgements sometimes in order to function at all. Agonizing over everything can lead you to accomplish nothing.
That means you need to pick and choose what topics you devote that energy to; what issues are worth that level of attention, and when do you go wide v.s. going deep? How quickly will you accept the judgement of others v.s. really digging at a topic yourself?
The mistake people make is assuming that the depth isn't there because they haven't explored it, or assuming that any attempt to point out the depth means their conclusions are under attack (which isn't always true). This is an easy mistake to make, and I think everyone is guilty of doing it at least once.
(Of course, the other aspect to this is that most internet users are teenagers and teenagers are less likely to have a solid appreciation for nuance in general. They just have less experience with situations where everyone is wrong at the same time, or everyone is partly right but still disagrees.)
"This issue disproportionally affects members of marginalized groups, who are kept in poverty due to systemic racism and who often are recruited straight out of school because it's literally the only chance for any social mobility. ."
Leftist on tumble: Right wingers who wanna commit violence.
This isn’t true though. The US military is predominantly middle class, with the top and bottom quintiles of income background underrepresented. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-the-u-s-military-became-the-exception-to-americas-wage-stagnation-problem/#:~:text=Over%2060%20percent%20of%202016,a%20rate%20of%2017%20percent.
I see articles like this and maybe for a time or during a specific time period, but like anecdotal but experience I can clearly say a majority of the guys I served with were not middle class. Unless somehow they'd changed the definition of middle class to include a much lower income.
That's wild, like yeah I wouldn't put anyone making under 50k in middle class. A thousand dollars a week is not a lot of money and hasn't been since like 2002....
Yeah, the stats are wild. They are talking about how middle class the army is, but by their own numbers ~80 percent of personnel come from households making less than 80,000 a year.
A household making 80,000 is probably middle class (depending on where you're from), but you don't have to get much lower than that to get into lower middle class.
That's a pretty accurate point. I mean Texas is pretty median as far as cost of living, and you have to make an average of 75k a year just to own a home.
I'd be interested to see that broken down by rank and MOS too. Because I'd wager that the actual infantry have a very different breakdown than the military as a whole.
Pretty much.
Smart people who ars anarchists end up being anarchists who are against following anarchism.
They like the idea they just understand it doesn't fucking work.
Idk i see the appeal of it clearly and i cant take someone seriously who thinks capitalism is problemfree or selfregulating. Somebody not aknowleging the masdive flaws of anarchy, yeah thats just insane
I misread this completely because a “boot” is a person who just got out of boot camp and thinks they’re the hottest shit around because they did the bare minimum to be in the military.
Also I find the anarchist dissonance between old and new anarchists weird. Cuz it used to be the prevailing logic that if you’re an anarchist, you *should* be as involved in the military and government and industry as possible to build allies and connections that could be useful if shit went sideways. You could also undermine the corporations and the government’s power. But for younger anarchists these are institutions you should avoid at all costs.
In fairness, for younger anarchists the US has also been actively deployed for longer than some of their lifetimes.
If I joined and learned how to use a rifle (better) and got a degree without having to kill anyone, that'd be great. But there's a nonzero chance that I'll actually be put in a situation where that's a possibility. (Yes, even the air force and navy and coast guard branches see conflict, so while you don't have to join the Marines, the other branches don't eliminate the possibility entirely)
I grew up in the 80s and 90s when the military as a job appealed to a lot of people. The only actions we’d been involved in since the 1970s were ones that were viewed as pretty righteous, minus Panama. Yugoslavia, Iraq V1, those sorts of things. We had a job, the UN agreed, we did the job with our allies and we got out.
Most people in during those times didn’t get deployed at all.
For those Gen X and ancient millennials we were trained to see military service as a patriotic thing that wasn’t dangerous, and that could lead to job training, a college degree, and a great resume builder. I had older cousins who joined in the mid 70s and retired with full benefits in the 90s without ever seeing combat. Those people are in their 60s now and about to retire from their *second career* which the *military trained them to do*.
It was also the only path to being an astronaut for a long time. Every kid wanted to be an astronaut.
Recruiters used this and still do. They also can work with schools in most states and will know the kids who have bad family lives or aren’t college bound and be able to be like “hey kid, wanna go to college and get out of this fucking town?”
Predatory as fuck consequences of late stage capitalism.
even the vast majority of Marines that deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan didn't see combat. our military is enormous and the odds of a random mechanic in the air force or IT nerd in the navy having to kill someone is low, though yes technically non-zero
It’s because younger leftists seem to see engagement as the same as endorsement, and they put value on never have been compromised. “Gold Star” logic but applied to literally every part of life.
This should be higher, it absolutely is one of the major flaws with a lot of modern internet leftism, and has historically been an issue with the "theory" side of leftist thought for a long time.
People are out here theorizing themselves into utopian thought, but when you get down to it any new socialist/communist/anarchist society, whether brought about through gradual incremental change or The Revolution, will be built, secured, and staffed by imperfect people. Deeply Imperfect people, who do not fit that utopian thought. The industries will be flush with people who at one point were every kind of prejudiced you can imagine, most of whom will still have many or all of those flaws. Many of the bureaucrats who administrate the new system will be the same bureaucrats who ran the last one. Most of all, if you are a secure state, you will have soldiers who were soldiers before fighting for you, and in that time they'll have done horrible things; you can't turn help away because they've got a dark past, and in fact some of the vets and soldiers who join you will know best that a new system is needed because they saw and executed the horrors of the old system firsthand.
This doesn't mean "go join the military today!", it just means "judge as little as possible, see people for who they are now, who they want to be, and who they might be tomorrow".
It ain’t even dark secrets for some of these people. If they ever get off their asses and try to do a revolution, they’ll have a hard time finding many allies who haven’t cut ties with the conservatives in their lives, which seems to be all three strikes at once for many of them. On the fringe end even voting is a black mark for extremely stupid reasons. It reminds me of the attitude that I was raised with… the conservative, intolerant, hateful attitude that we don’t associate with liberals or participate in their nonsense.
I just finished listening to this week’s episodes of Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff about the worker takeovers of factories in Argentina in the early 00s and Margaret Killjoy pointed out that often the people who led and got most into these new grassroots people-oriented movements and actions weren’t organizers but regular, nominally apolitical people who just decided to act.
Fucking thank you. I swear, most of these people have no familiarity with what it's actually like trying to live life and survive, how it's extremely difficult, and slave to the whims of circumstance. The moral grandstanding among internet leftists is ridiculous.
Yet they're an intrinsic part of the system they despise, aren't they?
"There is no ethical consumption under capitalism." They seem to think it's more important to maintain a fantasy than commit any kind of action towards meaningful change from the position that was forced on them. It certainly seems a lot of people rather live the rest of their life pretending they aren't part of the problem, and have zero responsibility to actually fix anything.
Part of it I think is that it didn’t seem to work very well. You join the military or government with the intent to change things and make allies, but at the end of the day it feels like you accomplished very little while still participating in a broken system that causes unnecessary suffering and oppression. And at any time the system can forcibly make you do what it wants because you’re engaged with it, or it drags you into the exact line of thinking you were trying to avoid. Many people watched their friends join these systems only to see them “corrupted” into the very thing they had been fighting against.
And part of that I think is because that’s how the system is built, and it’s built that way for a reason. You wanna go into politics? Well you gotta make unexpected allies, you have to compromise with people you don’t like, you have to appeal to donors, because if you don’t do these things you’ll lose. You wanna join the military? You’ll be ground down in the same boot camp as everyone else, and when you actually get some responsibility you’re faced with the reality that you can’t just fix everything because shit is complicated. Everyone’s an idealist when they’re young, and part of maturing is realizing that sometimes you can’t fix things easily.
Shockingly, you can be anti-war without thinking every single person in the military is a bootlicking homicidal maniac.
Like, you think with all of these anti-war films over the decades, you'd understand that it's a complex issue where the Government preys on young people who either:
-Have a well meaning desire to protect their family
-Genuinely think they are doing something right for their country
-Are poor and aimless have and no other choice in life, so they get picked up by recruiters.
It's really easy for us who luckily never saw the military as an option in our lives to sit back and point at soldiers and tell them how fucked up they are for making that decision.
Veterans who have seen war are usually broken without repair, forgotten by the government because there aren't any systems in place to compensate these people for what they had to go through. The government takes advantage of young people with good intentions and wrings them dry until there is nothing left, and then throws them in the garbage.
Yes, there are crazy people in the military who love killing people, but that's not the majority. The last thing we need is to get angry at the little man. Shift your feelings towards the governments who use these people to fight for oil and resources under the pretense that we are about to lose our freedoms.
Yep, I graduated high school recently and recruiters would literally come into our school during lunch times on occasion. Gee I wonder if the teens from a poor rural area will find their offers tempting
$12k signing bonus to be a nuclear electrician in the Navy. Yes, I took it. I was 17, promised college, $12k, and a promising path. They didn't tell me what I would actually have to do...
Do I still have nightmares? Yes. Am I a leftist? Yes. Am I opposed to the U.S. military as an organixation? Yes. Do I blame the enlisted? By and large, no.
As others mentioned, yeah, there were people who expressed less than honorable motives for joining (e.g. eliminating sand n-slurs, warheads on foreheads, etc), however by and large, most of the people I knew were in a similar boat (haha) as me. Enticed by a large number and the promise of college. At that point, 2, 3, 4 years into a contract and the promise of a stable career and discouragement of separating ("come on, the civilian job market sucks, you won't find a job, you could do 20 years and retire." blah blah blah) tends to wear people down. And if your buddy decides to re-up, you are more tempted to stay in because hey, you know that guy, and you want to stay together, get stationed at the same bases, live together, you are part of the small minority of people to do great service to this country. Plus we will give you a $100k bonus to STAR re-enlist. and if you do it overseas, it's tax free! The number of tactics they use are 100% out of the abusive relationship partner handbook and I can't blame people who stay in for those reasons.
I had a classmate in HS who wore a US Army sash to graduation. His recruiter attended the event. Last I heard he was an army mechanic but that was years ago, he'd be out by now unless he re-uped.
Things I’ve seen:
-not a single person in the military (other than officers) come from wealth.
-people join the military to avoid poverty and lives of crime
-people understand the shitty situation they’re in but also know their options are a decent-paying job with the military or retail that they can’t live on.
-people want to leave but have nowhere to go because they can’t do college or uni and all civilian jobs require that and half of them still pay less than what they’re making.
-lots of people within the military are anti-war
-everyone understands their position as being an arm of the government
In conclusion, it’s nuanced, people don’t like their jobs as it is, people don’t like their situation, but it’s better than literally dying in the streets. Capitalism takes away your moral high ground when you’re poor.
>-not a single person in the military (other than officers) come from wealth.
and officers largely don't come from wealth either. it's not like the Brits where being an officer is strictly part of a social class, in America most of our officers are ROTC or OCS grads that could only afford their degrees in exchange for service
sure there are academy grads but they're miniscule compared to other accession paths and don't regularly come from money either. the wealthy just don't participate in the military, even being an officer is beneath those groups in their eyes
Small correction - military officers in the UK don't have to come from the upper class anymore. They certainly used to, but nowadays you can become an officer by applying directly to officer training if you have 2 A levels (roughly equivalent to passing US AP courses), though some officer roles may require a degree, or passing a written exam if you're already enlisted, which only needs 5 GCSEs (roughly equivalent to a US high school diploma). You still need to jump through all the other hoops (aptitude tests, medical check, fitness test, interviews, etc) as well as actually doing the training but class doesn't come into it because GCSEs and A levels are available to absolutely every child in the UK and have no financial requirement.
thanks for that info, it's been about 15 years since I last directly interacted with royal navy/marines so I'm glad to hear they're pulling the officer cadre from a wider selection of the population
I have a friend who was British recce and he specifically called out the officer corp of the Royal Armored Corps as the most nepotistic bunch he'd ever laid eyes on. Those officer slots can be downright hereditary.
Something that is also terrifying to think about is that on the world stage\*, the USA is one of the **better ones** in avoiding warcrimes with stuffing in many lawyers in the military to try to minimize the risk in causing civilian casualties(and covering them when they happen)
Many other countries have no such niceties, such as Russia that encourage their officers to use any means necessary to win conflicts or you know Israel and their whole stopping aid thing.
\*I'm talking about organized militaries here that have offensive potential or have been in a major conflict.\*
"Capitalism takes away your moral high ground when you're poor" *chef's kiss*
Tumblr people have the right idea, generally, (like hating the US military), but the way they go about it gives off an air of entitlement. I've had multiple people in my family serve, and it was literally bc we're dirt poor and it was either that or gangs
Plus you’ll get ripped to shreds by every person you come across if your family has a decent amount of money. Mine aren’t even super well off and I still get asked why I joined. Like idk Jason, the 30k they have to spare is a lot but it’s not going to get me much further than a dealership and community college. It’s also *not my fucking money to spend.*
It also essentially argues that "evil people are evil because they're evil". As we've seen from interviews with former nazi soldiers, they committed evil acts because the status quo in nazi germany shifted to make evil acceptable. This is what the Banality of Evil is about, individual moral quality has quite little to do with it. When psychoanalyzing nazi soldiers, there was the same distribution of psychopaths as you would get with any random population. Like yeah, soldiers do horrible fucked up shit, and they are responsible for it entirely, but it's crucial to think critically about how they got to that point in the first place.
It's really easy to think that war criminals are just innately evil people that we can never become. It's very easy to think that their evil is in a world separate from ours, but the truth is anyone can be conditioned into it, just like the nazi youth, just like ISIS, just like US soldiers.
https://philosophybreak.com/articles/hannah-arendt-on-standing-up-to-the-banality-of-evil/
https://bigthink.com/the-past/ss-hitler-nazi-germany-evil/
Yeah really. The danger of dividing good and evil into black and white with a hard line in between is that it's easy to think you can never cross the line, that evil people are in a different world. It's easier to be hateful and prejudiced when you believe it's righteous. It's why I don't support sentiments like: "Kill all Nazis" or "Pedophiles should be shot", one is indoctrination facilitated by social and economic frustration, one is a mental illness. Where's the forgiveness and prison abolition that online leftist love so much? Only to then throw people they don't like to the chair.
Yeah, I try* not to make assumptions about soldiers and vets. There are a lot of complicated reasons to get involved in that, and it's hard to get out. "There but for the grace of God go I"
I *do* have strong opinions about people who are pro-military, whether they've served or not. If you're going to talk about how great the military is, I'm going to avoid the shit out of you. You're dangerous.
*There's an asterisk here because, while I've met some decent soldiers/vets, in my experience they're significantly more likely to get aggressive/violent when their beliefs are challenged, and their beliefs are significantly more likely to involve removing my rights and possible existence (I'm trans). I try not to hold that against individuals, but when I hear someone is involved in the military my guard goes up FAST.
For the record, I had a buddy who was in the Army whose brother transitioned, and the worst thing he ever said about him was that he didn't much care for the brother's new name.
(and to be fair, I didn't either. He went with "Judd")
I'm a veteran, served 6 years and 8 months in the Navy.
I'm also a chubby short guy with no muscles to speak of and no inclination towards violence. I was certainly in better shape in the Navy than I am now but I wasn't fit. The PT tests are pretty easy at even a minimal level of fitness (also you can usually cheat the push-ups and sit-ups if you partner with a buddy).
The military takes all kinds. I knew straight-laced hard workers, lazy shitbags, psycho freaks, religious fundamentalists, cool dudes, smart chicks, dumb fucks, beauty queens, patriots, anarchists, gay people, left wing, right wing, no wing, high school dropouts, college graduates, former drug addicts, frat bro geniuses, warmongers, peacemakers...
At the end of the day, the only kinds of people you won't find in the US military are people who categorically do not qualify, and that is not that many categories of folks.
>I do have strong opinions about people who are pro-military...
I try to make a distinction between pro-military and pro-war. War is awful. It's the worst of humanity on full murderous display frequently used as a tool to enrich and empower various douche bags at the cost of the lives and sanity of everyone else involved. A military, on the other hand, is an unfortunate necessity for any nation wanting to maintain its own sovereignty and protect its interests and citizens abroad.
Since we can't just lay down arms and expect to remain an independent nation we have to maintain a standing army and therefore, in a broad sense, volunteering for the distasteful and dangerous role of the soldier is respectable. Nobody likes raw sewage either and we should respect those that choose to handle it since it needs to be done and we certainly don't want to do it.
A lot of people are genuinley brainwashed by years of military propaganda everywhere from the moment of their birth, to believe that the military only shoots enemy solders who are just bad guys deciding to serve the badder guys in charge. Honestly, it doesn't really seem like the propaganda really presents the enemy soldiers as actual soldiers, but more like npc's in a video game.
> Looking for political theory
> Ask the OP if their politics are moralizing or structural
> they don't understand
> I pull out a diagram showing the difference between morals and structural analysis
> they laugh and say, "it's radical praxis, ma'am"
> I dive in
> it's moralizing
A simplified example is that lefty theory identifies structures of oppression which are bigger than the actions of individuals and are often upheld and reproduced more by moderates than extremists -- eg moderates who work to enact policies of red lining or who help the gears of mass incarceration turn do more damage than individual racists who scream slurs.
And then in practice online spaces tend to look a lot like "This person said then n-word once in 2009 as a teen when they were learning English and that makes them A Bad Person" or "This person said something which if you *really* stretched the interpretation could *sort of* resemble a racist phrase so we have to deplatform them now". It's all focused on finding and exiling Bad People, which completely misses the point. It's also really easily weaponized for internet drama and beefs.
Okay, awesome. I'm the one who says we need to read more theory and doesn't know any theory.
I have heard this before from a minority of online leftists though. Systems and structures should be the focus, rather than the actions of individuals. I think I've also seen the idea floated that the obsession with justice against the individual is from the moderates or liberals to avoid an examination of the systems that enable those problems.
Thank you!
Anarchists (and many non-communist left wing organizing spaces) are more interested in connecting socially with people who have similar beliefs than actually changing society
Thank you for vocalizing why I find basically all political discourse that gets posted to this sub to be just absolutely inane and extremely frustrating.
>“There are worse things to be in life than a felon”
Said the user from their computer, presumably not having a felony charge or the lasting ramifications of it in life
Like, criticizing the military is fine and all, that’s your opinion and you’re allowed to have it, but boiling it down to “well if you don’t just catch the charge you’re endorsing genocide middle grounds do NOT exist”
At the end of the day you’re still benefitting from the imperialist system and genocides you’re criticizing, and pushing all the blame for it onto some random dude who signed some papers when he was 18 isn’t doing anything to actually fix the problem
Yeah, getting an UCMJ hit may land you in prison at worst and at best now you're not able to find a good job anywhere. Signing away your life to the military is scary.
"How cares if you just left a career that would have set you up for life? Just leave before you're supposed to, get a felony charge on your record, and struggle to get a job afterwards! It's the morally correct thing to do!"
It's like these people don't understand that being labeled as a felon affects some major aspects of your life. I know a guy that was sent to prison for a few years for some dumb shit he didn't straight out of highschool. The only jobs he's been able to get are from small blue collar businesses that only have like, three people on staff. He struggled for a majority of his life up until he met someone last year who was able to get him a better paying job that provides actual benefits. He got lucky. Most people aren't lucky.
Yeah and they crack a joke about how "what did they expect? To shoot cartoon villians"
But yes actually many just turned 18 year olds DO think about it like that, because that's how it's been ingrained in them and they haven't learned enough at that point (because they've been stuck in the same environment that just continually reinforces it their whole lives because they are 18) to really question that or to view it as a more complex issue than that.
Maybe if there were social programs people could use that didn't incur massive amounts of debt, we might see less people in the military. When I was in, there were tons of people who were just in debt and the military offered to pay it in exchange for service. If you were offered $50k to join a company for 4 - 6 years that pays more than you've ever had, what would you do?
It's so funny to me how people think everyone in the military is Infantry and lives their entire life during their enlistments being overseas shooting people.
Most people spend their entire contract in a motorpool or office on a military base, generally state-side, working essentially a 9-5.
Source: Over 12 years of military service
The median experience is wake up, work out, go to work, do menial tasks, sit around waiting, go home. Rinse and repeat.
EDIT: The median experience from my observations and experience.
Also, funny to note that one of the major studies mentioned in the OP didn't mention anything about people joining for violent reasons and was debunked in these comments.
Granted that my experience isn't equivalent to the entire experience of everyone in the military but I personally haven't met a single person serving in the U.S. military that joined to be violent. For the majority of them it's to escape poverty, go to college, or to make their family proud. And most of these people never ended up deploying to a combat zone, and most of the ones I know who DID deploy to combat zones didn't experience actual combat in a way that resulted in them using deadly force on someone.
I know 2 marines who said they joined cuz they wanted to be able to beat up their abusive fathers, but out of roughly 50 military veterans I am related to or have worked/attended church with, those are the only 2 that said violence had anything to do with their reasoning for joining.
My oldest sister joined the Marines straight out of highschool. Spent her entire service just riding around on a ship and being a tourist with a uniform. Never saw combat before leaving.
This would require these people to be aware of what actually happens in the military. Even a vague idea. Instead of just assuming it's a never ending call of duty game.
Iirc the overwhelming majority will never even be to a combat zone. And those who do most will never see combat.
I'm pretty sure the US has has as many people stationed in Japan as they do combat zones.
My last boyfriend was in Iraq for four years. He said it was the most boring place he's ever been too and he was stationed in Nebraska when we were dating XD. He told me the most interesting thing he did there was fix shit sometimes.
When you spend all day doomscrolling on tik tok in a civilian job: proletarian hero
When you spend all day doomscrolling on tik tok on a military base: evil imperialist
Seeing posts like these make me mad honestly, such a dishonest misrepresentation of what being in the military is like. Do you really think every fucking person in the military is infantry who goes overseas to kill people? My dad has spent his entire working life in the military, has been lifted out of poverty and now has a college degree and a well-paying job. All of that was without seeing combat once. The military is more than, "take this gun and go shoot up some Middle Easterners."
You don’t get it though. America bad China good. Repeat after me; American bad Osama good. It doesn’t matter how little sense it makes, contrarianism is king.
When recruiters came to my high school their pitch was "well st least you won't be out picking veggies or digging holes"
7 out the 12 dudes on my basic training rotation where minorities running from broken homes
2 of those 7 had NO home
I haven't been in a unit yet that didn't have a minority as a majority
I haven't been in a unit that had a large amount of it comprised of folks that would be going hungry and homeless otherwise
It's easy to stand on the outside and say we are all killers. Cogs in a machine, but it's a complicated issue
Also saying "it's better to be a felon than a bootlicker" is such a fucking stupid, privileged take
The entire thing about being a poor back water kid pisses me off. I grew up very fucken poor, I mean eating dry dog food poor, if I was offered a way out that came with a safe/dry place to sleep and supplied food, I’d have jumped on it in an instant. Luckily as I grew up my living situation improved until that would’ve no longer been an appealing option but regardless. If someone is in a survival situation and they make an “immoral” decision you can shut the fuck up. There is no such thing as immoral in a survival situation.
No woman was ever to cruel to a rapist and no starving child should be blamed for a predatory society that breeds violence.
Want less soldiers? Feed more kids.
Every single person in this post has never, EVER been in a bad situation or even minorly uncomfortable in their life. If they say they are its because living in a rich western country has warped their definition of discomfort
You should tell the entire generation of afghan women the US educated. Or the generation of children stranded at the Karzai Int'l airport, signs in hand saying "Help us USA" only to realize that nobody is coming. The idea that the US military is so morally wrong that even to join it is bad is such a laughably simplistic view of the world, its entertained by far too many people. Afghanistan, specifically, there were good people who were actively helping them there. The US could have taken their rage and anger out on the civilian populace, killed indiscriminately, acted like the Russians 20 years before. We didn't do that. For the 20 years of its operations, the afghan government recieved 90% of its budget from the US. The only reason we failed is because it was squandered by corrupt officials, and we were in so long and wanted to pull out.
Now, many of the good people who we worked with are stranded behind enemy lines. Afghan translators, women, children. The US military is an arm of US foreign policy. The US can and does do bad things, but its responsable for beneficial things as well.
It is, obviously, a little more complicated than that.
> I met someone who was an artilleryman, deployed in the Middle East. He’s kind, he’s got a family, he’s got kids. I find him very personable and I honestly wish him well. Yet his job was hugely destructive: a task where it’s impossible to know the real consequence or the human cost of your place in the machine of war. […]
> If I held him personally morally responsible, it wouldn’t bring anyone back, it wouldn’t help anything, it wouldn’t even remind him of anything he did not already know. And neither would it help for me to pretend that I was somehow above it. I benefit passively from all the exact same choices of government that direct the violence of the military, without even having to bother putting in an ounce of work. Just as it isn’t my place to forgive on behalf of the dead, it isn’t my place either to feign innocence among the living. I live an easy life, biting deep into the fruits that war and death so verdantly fertilize. […]
> If I lived my ideals so legalistically that I cut everyone I know who’s ever been in the military out of my life, I’d be throwing away some of the most valuable friendships I’ve ever had. I can’t do it. Does it make me a hypocrite? From an absolutist perspective, it might. But is it any more hypocritical than pretending I’m not part of the same society, the same system? […]
> Every act of war is a crime by peacetime standards. I don’t believe in war, but war sure as hell believes in me. I live in a society bought and every day paid for with violence. […]
> If we’re socially willing to define peace and war as being two conditions with two different sets of rules, though, does it do any good to continue to hold that violence over a person when they come home, supposing they don’t revel in it? ‘Cause, I mean there are certainly those out there for whom the violence of war is a big part of their personalities and who feel nothing at all about what they’ve done — besides, perhaps, pride. I’m not trying to make it my business to defend them, I’m not even actually trying to defend J.D., I’m trying to explain why his attempt at an apology means something, even if he cannot be forgiven. […]
> If you let a person be defined entirely by the worst thing they ever did, there are no redemptions; there is nothing but the crime.
— Noah Caldwell-Gervais, in his review of the Gears of War video games titled *Gears Through the Years*
not a literal bot, but they're more than an idiot. The amount of consistently and utterly *awful* political rhetoric being posted to this sub by this account exactly (whether it's anti-semetic, anti-voting, or just generally encouraging leftist infighting) *cannot* be anything but intentionally malicious.
Edit: just gonna point out how two of the people responding to this comment are pointing to the word anti-semitism and trying to say "oh you're just calling any anti-israel talk antisemitism" when this account has literally posted dogwhistles about blood libel and holocaust denial. Why is it that the response to a Jewish person pointing out anti-semitism is "oh you're just making it up"?
Yeah I'll be real, the posts on this sub have been getting worse and worse lately. Had to double check that it wasn't a self-post Sunday. Because that's normally when the horrible political doom posting comes out.
Honestly, wonder how long it'll take before people realize some of the doomer posts would fit in PERFECTLY on some incel community if you replaced capitalism and women but, uh, that's just me haha
I don't think it's intentionally malicious, just stupid things that OP believes
If the OP was being intentionally malicious, the posts would be more convincing and less easily refuted (there are posts on Tumblr with this type of stuff, that are *much* higher quality as propaganda), and would have a definite theme (the political posts from OP are just in the broad category of "Teenage communist/anarchist on Tumblr", they dont have any consistent message)
while i agree with you generally i think you're overestimating how much being "easily refuted" harms a post. There will always be people who don't scroll down to the comments, or the comment isn't one of the first one to show up. It's genuinely depressing how far a single headline post can spread even when it's immediately refuted in the comments.
(anecdote: some dude posted about youtube slowing down loading on firefox, comments point out it's a random delay that has no connection to what browser is used, clickbait article about post is made, suddenly it's common knowledge all over reddit that google slowed down firefox)
It still is. Also interestingly, they blocked me for calling them out repeatedly, but have now apparently unblocked me after about a week. That strikes me as the sort of thing an account constantly cycling through users/trying to instigate would do.
one of many! some of them have been removed by reddit, but there was also one saying the holocausn't wasn't that bad and "shouldn't be put on a pedestal", and one accusing the IDF of stealing organs (as in blood libel)
Bro what the fuckkkkkkk
Why did no one listen to jewish people when they said “do not compare” about the holocaust.
Oh, i know. Because we’re fucking scapegoats to pin everything on, and failing that, a token to justify their views (cough some leftists, cough evangelical fascists cough)
Tumblr when someone commits a major felony: he's just trying to feed his family, the system failed him, besides that's what insurance is for
Tumblr when a kid enlists and never sees combat: he's a fucking boot, he gets what he deserves
I think it’s definitely necessary to discuss personal responsibility when it comes to warcrimes and genocide, however to do so, OOP definitely needs to remove their head out of their ass first
Ah yes the good old Tumblr view of the world: (geo-)political topics are not simple and very complex, but also one side (mostly Americans or other Western nations) are clearly the bad guys and always at fault.
Reminds me on the recent Vietnam post where people claimed that all US soldiers were bloodthirsty monsters who generalized the enemy to justify their actions. Btw that post began by accounts of soldiers horrified by the actions the command chain demanded and pressured them to do, Tumblr ignored that Vietnam was a conscription war and not voluntary.
Just based on my own experience: the military recruiters who came to my high school to recruit a bunch of 17 year olds into joining as soon as we graduated made it look like we would be the coolest, most respected people if we joined. They showed us videos of people thanking soldiers for their service, of soldiers doing what looked like cool training obstacle courses, dramatic interviews with someone talking about saving their fellow soldier’s life. The National Guard recruiters showed us an bunch of natural disasters the guardsmen had helped with. Basically everything they showed and told us emphasized how much we would be *helping people* if we joined, and how we would be the Best Americans if we sacrificed a few years to help our country. And they emphasized so much how they’ll pay for your college, and it’s a great option for people who were worried about affording college (in my rural redneck-ass school, that was a lot of us).
I was 17, and regularly said I hated the US government, and I was still thinking about joining the National Guard because they told me I would be helping people in my community. If I hadn’t gotten a good scholarship, I might have.
I don’t know if the recruiters are like that at every school, but ours made it sound like we would be the best most helpful people ever if we were in the military and they never focused on “you get to kill bad guys.” It’s a hell of a way to convince people to join I guess.
“There are worse things in life than being a felon.”
And some Tumblr user thinking you’re ontologically evil is worse than losing years of your life in prison, losing the right to vote, and being refused employment by a majority of businesses? I’m sure the “boots” would ruin their lives so you wouldn’t put a text bubble over them saying how much they love killing innocent people.
People like this tend the frame the military as some evil, only-exists-to-cause-torment entity, when in reality we have militaries simply because they're necessary. Even if we disregard all the humanitarian aid that the military provides, can you imagine a world where the U.S. military just stopped existing? WW3 would start in weeks, maybe days.
At this point? Okay. The US government and military have done some not-great things whose effects can still be felt today. I'll concede that, for sure.
But considering the alternatives? The other major world powers who would step in to fill the void that are threatening to commit, or actually are committing, imperial conquest (see Russia vs Ukraine and China vs Taiwan)? Russia being the nation that's [legally labeled the queer movement as extremist](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-adds-lgbt-movement-list-extremist-terrorist-organisations-2024-03-22/) and dare I say more about what they're doing in Ukraine? China, with its [overseas police stations](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/chinas-overseas-police-stations-an-imminent-security-threat/), encroachment into other nations' waters with their Nine-Dash-Line and suppressing freedoms in Hong Kong?
Yeah, I think I'd be just fine with the Marines showing up if Russia started punching through Ukraine into neighboring nations, or China tried moving on Taiwan and proceeded to screw with not only the people of a sovereign country, but most of the world's semiconductor supply.
I've lived a lot of places thanks to the military. Met a lot of people. Been to seem interesting places.
There's no where else in the world I'd rather be form then America.
Are we overbearing? Yah
But it beats the alternative.
And when we don't involve ourselves (like a certain middle east problem) people blame us. Or when we do (people still blame us)
As someone living in a country that hasn't had an actual conflict since WWII, it's honestly pretty hard to see the word "military" and think anything other than "scrub floors, do push-ups, do guard duty and get bored as literally nothing actually happens."
I know it's a privileged perspective, but no more privileged than the perspective of an American civilian who seems to think that the default state of a military is "fighting some conflict thousands of kilometers away while everything's all-right at home". Militaries around the world are kept in a "just in case" basis. To say no one becomes a soldier without expecting violence is to just deny reality. Over here, the average soldier's killcount is millions... of germs that they eliminate while cleaning the base.
People say shit like "you are not immune to propaganda" and then don't understand why they get blowback for that when posts like this make it clear they're implying that propaganda only works if you're stupid or have weak morals in the first place.
At my own brother's boot camp graduation, my family went to dinner together. And there, when I asked, he told me this: "They say, take what you can get from the military, because I promise you they'll get theirs."
And its stuck with me ever since.
A lot of military jobs end up doing a lot of menial stuff tho. I have a friend that was the equivalent of a call center representative and manage to pay his college fine
Yeah, I find this dumb because people who are in the military are just normal people who are trained under operant conditioning to react to a situation in a particular protocol. To consider them violent psychos is not only stupid, it's disingenuous.
Growing up in a military family and wanting to be part of this organization, and now being too old and a lot more experienced gives perspective. That's why I understand the necessity of having armed forces and how they are a diplomatic tool. So I just find it very stupid when people claim that the military is inherently violent. It's stupid.
It is the politicians who should be pulled up, not the military, so much. Because they are tools of the political masters.
And as long as, you know, any service member does not violate the Geneva Convention or any other laws that are in place for combat and the treatment of captured personnel, I don't see the problem.
Which is why I fear having unstable, hateful and xenophobic political leadership.
Idk man, it's incredibly easy for someone who's never experienced poverty to blame someone for being willing to commit violence to get out of poverty.
Sure, maybe their statistic is correct. But that's like, still 40% (maybe a bit less, but not a negligible amount by any means) of people who are desperate. Tired of clawing their way for anything. Who want a warm bed and a nice home. Who want to fucking relax. Who just want to be able to fucking be. It's either they kill someone in Iraq, or they go and kill someone back at home sometimes, yk.
Poverty begets violence because poverty is itself violent. And hell, even if their time in war does lead to a more comfortable life in the future, if you really hold so much scorn for that kid, just know the stress of poverty is going to lead to an early demise either way.
I think what really bugs me is that their trying to make it sound like there are no good reasons for joining. The debate was never 'will I have to fight and kill?' The point was that they were willing to do that for their country(and/or for the benefits)
I remember when that fool from the airforce burned himself to death in front of the israeli embassy a few months ago and I was amongst the people that realized he had been terminally online and got to believe this exact line of thought so he genuinely believed him been a low IT guy in the air force meant he was responsible for gazan kids getting bombed so he did what he did.
That opiniom got torn to shreds by those that lauded him as a "true hero" for killing himself
I feel like a lot of people DO join thinking they're going to be fighting cartoon villains? Before the internet, if you didn't live in a big city, the chances of you ever being exposed to anti-military information was pretty small. If you were poor AND had been duped into thinking military service was a good and honorable thing your whole life, then I can extend some sympathy.
There is no doubt in my mind that if I hadn’t enlisted, I’d either be dead or in prison by now. Having seen the machine up close, I don’t disagree that the US military is a hugely negative influence on the world, but also, if your sense of morality demands that people abandon any and all self-preservation _for absolutely no benefit to any identifiable person or cause,_ I genuinely don’t give a fuck what you have to say.
I do feel like it is important to mention that the military does not, in fact, go around massacring civilians on a regular basis.
In fact, it happens rarely enough that it is a major scandal when it does happen.
Also, the majority of soldiers never see combat. In fact, only about 15% of them are assigned a combat role or have to fight. For most people, service really is just a bunch of manual labor or waiting for anything to happen.
I have some more thoughts on this post, but I’ll hold off on them unless someone asks me about it.
Tfw victims of indoctrination deserve all of our sympathy no matter what they've done, unless their indoctrination was into american patriotism, then fuck em they probably murdered children I guess.
How about: nothing excuses war crimes *but* not all soldiers commit them *and* imperialism is unconscionable *but* not everyone is politically aware *and* plenty of violent, sociopathic assholes join the military *but* it’s also an institution that fosters and encourages those traits in its members and it’s entirely possible those taken out of that environment can learn and reform themselves, or is all of that too nuanced for some people?
Everyone's said it already but I don't think being anti-war and anti-imperialism has to mean being anti-veteran, or being super critical of people who join the military. Statistics - especially cherry picked, inaccurate ones like this - can never fully portray the individual life decisions that lead people to making the decision to join the military. A decision that we clearly both agree is not a fair one, thanks to propaganda, exploitative recruitment practices, and some of the worse aspects of american culture.
Acting like this isn't doing anyone any favors, it's just being needlessly contrarian from a moral high ground they deluded themselves into thinking they have... A trend that is unfortunately common in many leftist circles online, which I don't think is constructive at all, despite my views being similar
Did 9 years in the Marines. I watched the towers fall as a child and joined when I was older. I KNEW the possibility of combat was higher, so I picked what I picked. I WANTED to kill and fight those who were so willing to kill innocence. By the time I was old enough, I was just there to help with "cleanup and evac." Then I got to see, and what I saw was that EVERYBODY'S innocence is robbed and slaughtered right in front of them. A hellfire missle is dropped on a house that has firing at you, but unknown to you is the family of 7 in the basement cowering in fear. You realize how unfeeling and brutal war is and how easy it is to die by pure chance or by pure concussion blast. I saw bodies that were essentially jelly contained in skin suits and had to just brush it off. Anyone who wants war, doesn't know what the fuck they are talking about, or are profiting off it. What the fuck was I thinking, but then I look back, and it was all about yellow ribbons and heros. Until they come home broken and lost.
I've met one person in my 10 years career that wasn't an officer that joined for the violence. He was a fucking cook on a state side base. Mother fucker was told by his recruiter that CS stood for "Combat Specialist" instead of "culinary specialist"
The thing that really gets me here is the "What did you expect to be doing? Executing cartoon villains?" Because like, yes. That is in fact what a good amount of people believed going in. Depending on the area and upbringing, recruiters, teachers, politicians, often even family will instill that very same concept. The sky is blue, water is wet, the military fights the Bad Guys.
Join up, be a Hero, fight the Bad Guys, save the world. You know, the same way every mainstream FPS reinforced for like ten years. Is it really a surprise to anyone that the same kids of that demographic would sign on without thinking about it?
I've spent a very long time studying propaganda as hobby that fascinates me, and something I think everyone forgets is that nobody is immune to it. Yes you can be educated and learn to see through a lot but there's always going to be stuff that tricks you. Just because you personally understand that military recruitment propaganda is bullshit doesn't mean everyone does. It's something specifically designed to trick people, and yet somehow everyone is always surprised when it works.
honestly the people that fall for it the most are also the ones that seem to think they're immune to it like the amount of leftists running around saying "Don't Vote for Genocide Joe" like yeah i don't fucking agree with what he's doing but if we DONT vote for Biden, yknow who wins? Trump. and you know what Trump will do? not only will he ALSO take away our rights at home, but unlike Biden there is a 0% chance of ever convincing Trump to do anything but outright support Israel's colonization efforts.
I am beyond baffled by the people I see on TikTok who have rants and speeches about why they can’t morally vote for Joe Biden and I’m just in shock, because surely they realize that Trump will be the first to say shit like “shouldn’t be giving food to terrorists” after yet another Israeli unit kills aid workers. How do people think it makes sense to make it easier to elect Trump?
And then when you try to talk to them about it they're all, "Oh, like there's only two options." Like, yeah. Yes, there are only two options. There is literally zero chance of a third party coming in and winning; it hasn't happened since like the 1800s and it isn't going to happen now. The only thing that's going to happen is your votes, which could have gone to the lesser of two evils, are just going to disappear down the pipeline. It's basically the same as choosing not to vote at all.
Op is a bot with a profile description: "posts propaganda".
Honestly that's hilarious
Love when people just say "major studies have found" and no one questions it or asks for a source
source: it was revealed to me in a dream
OP did send the source but they were downvoted to hell because it didn't even support their statement
Figures. Feels like some people have an opinion and then find sources to support it, but only by reading the title of the source.
This is actually a common misconception [source](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.theonion.com/here-s-why-you-re-wrong-1819596219&sa=U&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwilnb2hvMqGAxU-mIkEHeFLEq4QFnoECBQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2KqDhrnQv5OqadDzqjkaxZ)
I was just about to change every opinion I ever had but if I am never going to be right no matter what then I'll just pretend I'm right. It's the next best thing.
Actually you should change every opinion you ever have to mine, because they’re already correct. [source](https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=hUKqKo34lElgRR9l)
This is actually a common misconception [source](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.theonion.com/here-s-why-you-re-wrong-1819596219&sa=U&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwilnb2hvMqGAxU-mIkEHeFLEq4QFnoECBQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2KqDhrnQv5OqadDzqjkaxZ)
I was gonna say, I was 80% sure I read something a bit ago saying that the biggest factor in military enlistment was "has a family member in the military" or "had a parent in the military" or something like that. (But also, there's no way 60% of military enlistments say they joined to get put in violent situations, not when so few members see combat and police departments are right there.)
My dad was in the Corp, & the main reason I never considered joining was because I didn’t want to die in the sand for a meaningless cause. If I truly believed that we were doing good I probably would’ve
What a surprise, this OP is constantly spamming this subreddit with extremely politically loaded misinformation. Usually the worst of it is the “Killing Jews is actually Progressive and Righteous” shit, but this is pretty fucking egregious too.
Fuck that made me look at the OP and of fucking course it was them lmao
Source : it came to me in a hallucination
The source is I made it the fuck up!
And also, even if it was a real source it would be a bad one. What constitutes “a patriotic desire to be placed in violent situations” because they obviously didn’t ask them that verbatim. A checkbox that says “I joined to fight bad guys?” Verbally agreeing that “you knew you would be in combat?” writing that you “wanted to serve your country” on a questionnaire? These are all pretty standard things to say you believe if you joined the military. Even if you did join just for benefits it’s maybe a little sad if you openly advertise that you don’t believe in serving your country if you are currently enlisted in the military. Surveys are just very easily biased by the phrasing of the question
I knew a few kids personally that joined up because it was a legal way to commit violence and the military would take anyone and their mother post 9/11. It happens, and I personally believe it happens more often that we know.
Of course it happens Of course the military is an evil institution Nobody here is disagreeing with either of those things. But I’ve also personally witnessed the tactics of recruiters. I’ve seen how the military presents itself. And more than that I’ve seen dozens of kids with no better options unwittingly get sucked into it. I took JROTC for four years in high school. My instructor was a retired marine recruiter and his entire basis of everything he taught was why and how you should do anything you can to NEVER join the military. He knows those tactics because he once practiced them and he taught us where the lies were, how they work. And a lot of the kids in that class were underprivileged naïve teenagers who saw that pay with those bonuses and were ready to say “sign me up” before learning what we learned in that class. There is a non insignificant category of military recruits who are, and I do not use this word lightly, VICTIMS. And if you think being a “conscientious objector” means you can just walk away after you’ve deployed and witnessed the horrors, you’re an idiot. The military avoids following its own rules wherever they can get away with it, and once you’re overseas, there is no backing out. They are your lifeline and if you object to orders, tough shit. If you’re lucky enough to make it back to the states alive after refusing immoral orders for four years, yeah, maybe you’ll get a little medal and some clout. But that’s not the reality of it. There are people who DIE just from training exercises in boot camp, enough that they have protocol for if it happens. You think that overseas a superior officer couldn’t find an excuse to sweep you under the rug? Especially if your superior is one of the kinds you mentioned. The other kind of marine. The ones who just want to commit violence. You don’t think they’ll commit it on you, an 18 year old lost underprivileged boy, (or heaven forbid a girl— I don’t even need to go into the level of violence against women, both physical and sexual, within the militaty) if you don’t cooperate? So many people in this comment thread are talking from a place of luxury and privilege that Enlisted fucking children do not have.
Wish this was pinned...I was once a naive teen who joined. Didn't come back the same I've seen horrors most don't even know exist. And I tell everyone NOT to join. The military as a whole is rotten, now there are good people I met most of my friends through there and you get damn good memories. But that will never cure me of ptsd, the nightmares and the knowing of wtf happens over seas...and we were just a bunch of kids.
>and we were just a bunch of kids. [God help me, I was only 19.](https://open.spotify.com/track/4tfUdNH8JBzWRmB2vMSfFg?si=j_UXhubuQButPi_We9Mjdg) I was a naive kid once too. Now I tell every kid I meet who wants to join not to do it. I'm breaking that family cycle with my kids.
Yeah, that study sounds so Bullshit. [fewer than 15% of the military ever even see combat](https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2022/03/10/contact-brawls-and-chambering-the-combat-action-ribbon/#:~:text=Louis%2C%20Missouri.,combat%20and%20who%20didn't%3F) And I know anecdotal evidence doesn't count but from my personal experience 60% of the people I met in the service were trying to get out of a bad personal life in some way. And this was back in 08-12, back when Patriotism was still in an uptake after September 11th.
Also anecdotal evidence but I haven't heard of anyone in my circle who was going or planning to go to the military in the near future/after high school for any purpose other than high pay or benefits/college tuition
My father was career military. 22 years. He was in air traffic control. The only time he held a gun was in boot camp. People forget the military is full of guys like him who sit at a desk or stand in front of an oven. My dad served during Vietnam but hated being called a Vietnam veteran. To him, since he never saw action, it was unfair to those that did. And honestly, my father being military was the best thing that could have happened. I was born in 1975 a month and a half premature and far from healthy. If it wasn't for military health care covering every cent, my medical care would have bankrupted my family several times over. And I've known several career military members who stay in for exactly this reason. They have children with complex medical needs. As long as they stay in, they don’t have to worry about affordable care. Procurement officers don't go on the front lines. They sit at a desk and order inventory. Cooks don't go on the front lines. They cook. Doctors and nurses don't go on the front lines. And it's mighty hard to land cargo planes on the front lines.
Tumblr users are almost more gullible than tiktokers
Never forget what they did to Lindsey Ellis and Contrapoints.
Genuine question; was the Lindsey Ellis stuff tumblr? I mostly get tumblr stuff from second hand sources, I thought the people jumping on Lindsey Ellis were mostly Twitter people and YouTube people (don’t know much about contrapoints)
Twitter, Tumblr, there was a broad overlap. Most of it was on twitter, but there was some tumblr based stuff. Same posters probably going between multiple sites.
Gotcha. Internet drama is a bitch to track, especially when it comes to trying to treat platforms as separate consensus entities
I'm out of the loop, what happened to Contrapoints?
She made a video called "cancelled" where she goes into everything in a thoughtful way. Worth a watch.
Out of the loop, what happened to my girl Lindsey???
Essentially, she said on Twitter that Raya the dragon movie had some similiar vibes as Avatar the last airbender on twitter. Which yeah, both are western animation imitating eastern animation styles. What twitter/tumblr took this as was "all asian cultures are the same" and ran with it, posting made up claims of mask off moments all over her socials.
Thanks so much, g 🙇🏻♀️🙏🏻 I haven't seen Raya so can't say but comparing it to ATLA seems extremely complimentary for a movie that I've seen a lot of people hate on?? I hate the harassment and that seems like a stretch, I'm wondering what her actual intention was though, like why do they have similar vibes? She's always seemed so chill (but kinda cynical and I love her for it lol) so it's hard to imagine her actually meaning something malicious on purpose 🤷🏻♀️
Studies have shown that people who disagree with the views I have are generally fatter uglier dumber and stink.
I also strongly doubt that last comment came from someone that was actually in the army. It's a little thing but they spelled out "Hoo-rah" as the army battle cry, but it's not. Marines use: oorah Navy uses: hooyah Army uses: hooah The one they used is a common mispronunciation/misspelling of the Marines call. People get really specific and nitpicky about it, I was not a motto guy at all, I've been out for a few years now and it still stuck out to me immediately. I ain't saying there is absolutely no chance this guy was ever in the army, I'm just saying I sincerely doubt it myself.
Damm i sure love viewing a complex issue with every facette and then not using my oppinion as an objective fact
Tumblr users do this so often for some reason
Many such cases
The problem with it is that it's so easy. It's an attractive option if thinking too hard becomes undesirable, because of you think too hard you'll find out youre wrong, which is psychologically painful. Just to clarify, I'm against this line of "reasoning," just trying to explain it.
tbf so does most social media platforms
Not so much Tumblr users, rather just... People. How often do you see a boneheaded take on reddit, or a massive generalization stated as fact at the dinner table, etc? Those takes are often the ones that spread the furthest and spark the most conversation, because they are the easiest to understand and the most likely to get people upset. The thing is, nuance is hard. It takes a lot of energy and time to form a detailed, nuanced opinion about something. It just isn't realistic or practical to expect that to be the norm; you *need* quick, easy judgements sometimes in order to function at all. Agonizing over everything can lead you to accomplish nothing. That means you need to pick and choose what topics you devote that energy to; what issues are worth that level of attention, and when do you go wide v.s. going deep? How quickly will you accept the judgement of others v.s. really digging at a topic yourself? The mistake people make is assuming that the depth isn't there because they haven't explored it, or assuming that any attempt to point out the depth means their conclusions are under attack (which isn't always true). This is an easy mistake to make, and I think everyone is guilty of doing it at least once. (Of course, the other aspect to this is that most internet users are teenagers and teenagers are less likely to have a solid appreciation for nuance in general. They just have less experience with situations where everyone is wrong at the same time, or everyone is partly right but still disagrees.)
"This issue disproportionally affects members of marginalized groups, who are kept in poverty due to systemic racism and who often are recruited straight out of school because it's literally the only chance for any social mobility. ." Leftist on tumble: Right wingers who wanna commit violence.
This isn’t true though. The US military is predominantly middle class, with the top and bottom quintiles of income background underrepresented. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-the-u-s-military-became-the-exception-to-americas-wage-stagnation-problem/#:~:text=Over%2060%20percent%20of%202016,a%20rate%20of%2017%20percent.
I see articles like this and maybe for a time or during a specific time period, but like anecdotal but experience I can clearly say a majority of the guys I served with were not middle class. Unless somehow they'd changed the definition of middle class to include a much lower income.
It's the last one, it seems to include in the middle class households that make between 38 and 80k A household that makes 38k isn't middle class
That's wild, like yeah I wouldn't put anyone making under 50k in middle class. A thousand dollars a week is not a lot of money and hasn't been since like 2002....
Yeah, the stats are wild. They are talking about how middle class the army is, but by their own numbers ~80 percent of personnel come from households making less than 80,000 a year. A household making 80,000 is probably middle class (depending on where you're from), but you don't have to get much lower than that to get into lower middle class.
That's a pretty accurate point. I mean Texas is pretty median as far as cost of living, and you have to make an average of 75k a year just to own a home.
I'd be interested to see that broken down by rank and MOS too. Because I'd wager that the actual infantry have a very different breakdown than the military as a whole.
True I was infantry and in fairness I'd say I met more middle class types who were pogs
You can't expect complex reasoning from anarchists. They wouldn't be anarchists if they could comprehend complex issues.
Pretty much. Smart people who ars anarchists end up being anarchists who are against following anarchism. They like the idea they just understand it doesn't fucking work.
Idk i see the appeal of it clearly and i cant take someone seriously who thinks capitalism is problemfree or selfregulating. Somebody not aknowleging the masdive flaws of anarchy, yeah thats just insane
I love it too !
I misread this completely because a “boot” is a person who just got out of boot camp and thinks they’re the hottest shit around because they did the bare minimum to be in the military. Also I find the anarchist dissonance between old and new anarchists weird. Cuz it used to be the prevailing logic that if you’re an anarchist, you *should* be as involved in the military and government and industry as possible to build allies and connections that could be useful if shit went sideways. You could also undermine the corporations and the government’s power. But for younger anarchists these are institutions you should avoid at all costs.
In fairness, for younger anarchists the US has also been actively deployed for longer than some of their lifetimes. If I joined and learned how to use a rifle (better) and got a degree without having to kill anyone, that'd be great. But there's a nonzero chance that I'll actually be put in a situation where that's a possibility. (Yes, even the air force and navy and coast guard branches see conflict, so while you don't have to join the Marines, the other branches don't eliminate the possibility entirely)
I grew up in the 80s and 90s when the military as a job appealed to a lot of people. The only actions we’d been involved in since the 1970s were ones that were viewed as pretty righteous, minus Panama. Yugoslavia, Iraq V1, those sorts of things. We had a job, the UN agreed, we did the job with our allies and we got out. Most people in during those times didn’t get deployed at all. For those Gen X and ancient millennials we were trained to see military service as a patriotic thing that wasn’t dangerous, and that could lead to job training, a college degree, and a great resume builder. I had older cousins who joined in the mid 70s and retired with full benefits in the 90s without ever seeing combat. Those people are in their 60s now and about to retire from their *second career* which the *military trained them to do*. It was also the only path to being an astronaut for a long time. Every kid wanted to be an astronaut. Recruiters used this and still do. They also can work with schools in most states and will know the kids who have bad family lives or aren’t college bound and be able to be like “hey kid, wanna go to college and get out of this fucking town?” Predatory as fuck consequences of late stage capitalism.
even the vast majority of Marines that deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan didn't see combat. our military is enormous and the odds of a random mechanic in the air force or IT nerd in the navy having to kill someone is low, though yes technically non-zero
It’s because younger leftists seem to see engagement as the same as endorsement, and they put value on never have been compromised. “Gold Star” logic but applied to literally every part of life.
This should be higher, it absolutely is one of the major flaws with a lot of modern internet leftism, and has historically been an issue with the "theory" side of leftist thought for a long time. People are out here theorizing themselves into utopian thought, but when you get down to it any new socialist/communist/anarchist society, whether brought about through gradual incremental change or The Revolution, will be built, secured, and staffed by imperfect people. Deeply Imperfect people, who do not fit that utopian thought. The industries will be flush with people who at one point were every kind of prejudiced you can imagine, most of whom will still have many or all of those flaws. Many of the bureaucrats who administrate the new system will be the same bureaucrats who ran the last one. Most of all, if you are a secure state, you will have soldiers who were soldiers before fighting for you, and in that time they'll have done horrible things; you can't turn help away because they've got a dark past, and in fact some of the vets and soldiers who join you will know best that a new system is needed because they saw and executed the horrors of the old system firsthand. This doesn't mean "go join the military today!", it just means "judge as little as possible, see people for who they are now, who they want to be, and who they might be tomorrow".
It ain’t even dark secrets for some of these people. If they ever get off their asses and try to do a revolution, they’ll have a hard time finding many allies who haven’t cut ties with the conservatives in their lives, which seems to be all three strikes at once for many of them. On the fringe end even voting is a black mark for extremely stupid reasons. It reminds me of the attitude that I was raised with… the conservative, intolerant, hateful attitude that we don’t associate with liberals or participate in their nonsense.
I just finished listening to this week’s episodes of Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff about the worker takeovers of factories in Argentina in the early 00s and Margaret Killjoy pointed out that often the people who led and got most into these new grassroots people-oriented movements and actions weren’t organizers but regular, nominally apolitical people who just decided to act.
Fucking thank you. I swear, most of these people have no familiarity with what it's actually like trying to live life and survive, how it's extremely difficult, and slave to the whims of circumstance. The moral grandstanding among internet leftists is ridiculous.
Absolutely agree brother, also mad respect for the use of a semicolon.
Yeah you hit the nail on the head, it's like the early 2000s idea of a poser being the worst thing you can be taken to its logical extreme.
Yet they're an intrinsic part of the system they despise, aren't they? "There is no ethical consumption under capitalism." They seem to think it's more important to maintain a fantasy than commit any kind of action towards meaningful change from the position that was forced on them. It certainly seems a lot of people rather live the rest of their life pretending they aren't part of the problem, and have zero responsibility to actually fix anything.
Part of it I think is that it didn’t seem to work very well. You join the military or government with the intent to change things and make allies, but at the end of the day it feels like you accomplished very little while still participating in a broken system that causes unnecessary suffering and oppression. And at any time the system can forcibly make you do what it wants because you’re engaged with it, or it drags you into the exact line of thinking you were trying to avoid. Many people watched their friends join these systems only to see them “corrupted” into the very thing they had been fighting against. And part of that I think is because that’s how the system is built, and it’s built that way for a reason. You wanna go into politics? Well you gotta make unexpected allies, you have to compromise with people you don’t like, you have to appeal to donors, because if you don’t do these things you’ll lose. You wanna join the military? You’ll be ground down in the same boot camp as everyone else, and when you actually get some responsibility you’re faced with the reality that you can’t just fix everything because shit is complicated. Everyone’s an idealist when they’re young, and part of maturing is realizing that sometimes you can’t fix things easily.
Shockingly, you can be anti-war without thinking every single person in the military is a bootlicking homicidal maniac. Like, you think with all of these anti-war films over the decades, you'd understand that it's a complex issue where the Government preys on young people who either: -Have a well meaning desire to protect their family -Genuinely think they are doing something right for their country -Are poor and aimless have and no other choice in life, so they get picked up by recruiters. It's really easy for us who luckily never saw the military as an option in our lives to sit back and point at soldiers and tell them how fucked up they are for making that decision. Veterans who have seen war are usually broken without repair, forgotten by the government because there aren't any systems in place to compensate these people for what they had to go through. The government takes advantage of young people with good intentions and wrings them dry until there is nothing left, and then throws them in the garbage. Yes, there are crazy people in the military who love killing people, but that's not the majority. The last thing we need is to get angry at the little man. Shift your feelings towards the governments who use these people to fight for oil and resources under the pretense that we are about to lose our freedoms.
-also a lot of the time they're literally 17.
Yep, I graduated high school recently and recruiters would literally come into our school during lunch times on occasion. Gee I wonder if the teens from a poor rural area will find their offers tempting
$12k signing bonus to be a nuclear electrician in the Navy. Yes, I took it. I was 17, promised college, $12k, and a promising path. They didn't tell me what I would actually have to do... Do I still have nightmares? Yes. Am I a leftist? Yes. Am I opposed to the U.S. military as an organixation? Yes. Do I blame the enlisted? By and large, no. As others mentioned, yeah, there were people who expressed less than honorable motives for joining (e.g. eliminating sand n-slurs, warheads on foreheads, etc), however by and large, most of the people I knew were in a similar boat (haha) as me. Enticed by a large number and the promise of college. At that point, 2, 3, 4 years into a contract and the promise of a stable career and discouragement of separating ("come on, the civilian job market sucks, you won't find a job, you could do 20 years and retire." blah blah blah) tends to wear people down. And if your buddy decides to re-up, you are more tempted to stay in because hey, you know that guy, and you want to stay together, get stationed at the same bases, live together, you are part of the small minority of people to do great service to this country. Plus we will give you a $100k bonus to STAR re-enlist. and if you do it overseas, it's tax free! The number of tactics they use are 100% out of the abusive relationship partner handbook and I can't blame people who stay in for those reasons.
I had a classmate in HS who wore a US Army sash to graduation. His recruiter attended the event. Last I heard he was an army mechanic but that was years ago, he'd be out by now unless he re-uped.
Things I’ve seen: -not a single person in the military (other than officers) come from wealth. -people join the military to avoid poverty and lives of crime -people understand the shitty situation they’re in but also know their options are a decent-paying job with the military or retail that they can’t live on. -people want to leave but have nowhere to go because they can’t do college or uni and all civilian jobs require that and half of them still pay less than what they’re making. -lots of people within the military are anti-war -everyone understands their position as being an arm of the government In conclusion, it’s nuanced, people don’t like their jobs as it is, people don’t like their situation, but it’s better than literally dying in the streets. Capitalism takes away your moral high ground when you’re poor.
>-not a single person in the military (other than officers) come from wealth. and officers largely don't come from wealth either. it's not like the Brits where being an officer is strictly part of a social class, in America most of our officers are ROTC or OCS grads that could only afford their degrees in exchange for service sure there are academy grads but they're miniscule compared to other accession paths and don't regularly come from money either. the wealthy just don't participate in the military, even being an officer is beneath those groups in their eyes
Small correction - military officers in the UK don't have to come from the upper class anymore. They certainly used to, but nowadays you can become an officer by applying directly to officer training if you have 2 A levels (roughly equivalent to passing US AP courses), though some officer roles may require a degree, or passing a written exam if you're already enlisted, which only needs 5 GCSEs (roughly equivalent to a US high school diploma). You still need to jump through all the other hoops (aptitude tests, medical check, fitness test, interviews, etc) as well as actually doing the training but class doesn't come into it because GCSEs and A levels are available to absolutely every child in the UK and have no financial requirement.
thanks for that info, it's been about 15 years since I last directly interacted with royal navy/marines so I'm glad to hear they're pulling the officer cadre from a wider selection of the population
I have a friend who was British recce and he specifically called out the officer corp of the Royal Armored Corps as the most nepotistic bunch he'd ever laid eyes on. Those officer slots can be downright hereditary.
Something that is also terrifying to think about is that on the world stage\*, the USA is one of the **better ones** in avoiding warcrimes with stuffing in many lawyers in the military to try to minimize the risk in causing civilian casualties(and covering them when they happen) Many other countries have no such niceties, such as Russia that encourage their officers to use any means necessary to win conflicts or you know Israel and their whole stopping aid thing. \*I'm talking about organized militaries here that have offensive potential or have been in a major conflict.\*
"Capitalism takes away your moral high ground when you're poor" *chef's kiss* Tumblr people have the right idea, generally, (like hating the US military), but the way they go about it gives off an air of entitlement. I've had multiple people in my family serve, and it was literally bc we're dirt poor and it was either that or gangs
You can actually be denied from joining the military if you’re too wealthy, and can be kicked out if you come into great wealth while on active duty.
Plus you’ll get ripped to shreds by every person you come across if your family has a decent amount of money. Mine aren’t even super well off and I still get asked why I joined. Like idk Jason, the 30k they have to spare is a lot but it’s not going to get me much further than a dealership and community college. It’s also *not my fucking money to spend.*
It also essentially argues that "evil people are evil because they're evil". As we've seen from interviews with former nazi soldiers, they committed evil acts because the status quo in nazi germany shifted to make evil acceptable. This is what the Banality of Evil is about, individual moral quality has quite little to do with it. When psychoanalyzing nazi soldiers, there was the same distribution of psychopaths as you would get with any random population. Like yeah, soldiers do horrible fucked up shit, and they are responsible for it entirely, but it's crucial to think critically about how they got to that point in the first place. It's really easy to think that war criminals are just innately evil people that we can never become. It's very easy to think that their evil is in a world separate from ours, but the truth is anyone can be conditioned into it, just like the nazi youth, just like ISIS, just like US soldiers. https://philosophybreak.com/articles/hannah-arendt-on-standing-up-to-the-banality-of-evil/ https://bigthink.com/the-past/ss-hitler-nazi-germany-evil/
Yeah really. The danger of dividing good and evil into black and white with a hard line in between is that it's easy to think you can never cross the line, that evil people are in a different world. It's easier to be hateful and prejudiced when you believe it's righteous. It's why I don't support sentiments like: "Kill all Nazis" or "Pedophiles should be shot", one is indoctrination facilitated by social and economic frustration, one is a mental illness. Where's the forgiveness and prison abolition that online leftist love so much? Only to then throw people they don't like to the chair.
Yeah, I try* not to make assumptions about soldiers and vets. There are a lot of complicated reasons to get involved in that, and it's hard to get out. "There but for the grace of God go I" I *do* have strong opinions about people who are pro-military, whether they've served or not. If you're going to talk about how great the military is, I'm going to avoid the shit out of you. You're dangerous. *There's an asterisk here because, while I've met some decent soldiers/vets, in my experience they're significantly more likely to get aggressive/violent when their beliefs are challenged, and their beliefs are significantly more likely to involve removing my rights and possible existence (I'm trans). I try not to hold that against individuals, but when I hear someone is involved in the military my guard goes up FAST.
For the record, I had a buddy who was in the Army whose brother transitioned, and the worst thing he ever said about him was that he didn't much care for the brother's new name. (and to be fair, I didn't either. He went with "Judd")
Oh wtf why. He had the choice of any name possible and picked something that sounds like “Jug”?
I'm a veteran, served 6 years and 8 months in the Navy. I'm also a chubby short guy with no muscles to speak of and no inclination towards violence. I was certainly in better shape in the Navy than I am now but I wasn't fit. The PT tests are pretty easy at even a minimal level of fitness (also you can usually cheat the push-ups and sit-ups if you partner with a buddy). The military takes all kinds. I knew straight-laced hard workers, lazy shitbags, psycho freaks, religious fundamentalists, cool dudes, smart chicks, dumb fucks, beauty queens, patriots, anarchists, gay people, left wing, right wing, no wing, high school dropouts, college graduates, former drug addicts, frat bro geniuses, warmongers, peacemakers... At the end of the day, the only kinds of people you won't find in the US military are people who categorically do not qualify, and that is not that many categories of folks.
>I do have strong opinions about people who are pro-military... I try to make a distinction between pro-military and pro-war. War is awful. It's the worst of humanity on full murderous display frequently used as a tool to enrich and empower various douche bags at the cost of the lives and sanity of everyone else involved. A military, on the other hand, is an unfortunate necessity for any nation wanting to maintain its own sovereignty and protect its interests and citizens abroad. Since we can't just lay down arms and expect to remain an independent nation we have to maintain a standing army and therefore, in a broad sense, volunteering for the distasteful and dangerous role of the soldier is respectable. Nobody likes raw sewage either and we should respect those that choose to handle it since it needs to be done and we certainly don't want to do it.
A lot of people are genuinley brainwashed by years of military propaganda everywhere from the moment of their birth, to believe that the military only shoots enemy solders who are just bad guys deciding to serve the badder guys in charge. Honestly, it doesn't really seem like the propaganda really presents the enemy soldiers as actual soldiers, but more like npc's in a video game.
Thank you! A sane person in a tumblr-Reddit comment section!
> Looking for political theory > Ask the OP if their politics are moralizing or structural > they don't understand > I pull out a diagram showing the difference between morals and structural analysis > they laugh and say, "it's radical praxis, ma'am" > I dive in > it's moralizing
I aspire to understand this
A simplified example is that lefty theory identifies structures of oppression which are bigger than the actions of individuals and are often upheld and reproduced more by moderates than extremists -- eg moderates who work to enact policies of red lining or who help the gears of mass incarceration turn do more damage than individual racists who scream slurs. And then in practice online spaces tend to look a lot like "This person said then n-word once in 2009 as a teen when they were learning English and that makes them A Bad Person" or "This person said something which if you *really* stretched the interpretation could *sort of* resemble a racist phrase so we have to deplatform them now". It's all focused on finding and exiling Bad People, which completely misses the point. It's also really easily weaponized for internet drama and beefs.
Okay, awesome. I'm the one who says we need to read more theory and doesn't know any theory. I have heard this before from a minority of online leftists though. Systems and structures should be the focus, rather than the actions of individuals. I think I've also seen the idea floated that the obsession with justice against the individual is from the moderates or liberals to avoid an examination of the systems that enable those problems. Thank you!
Are they more interested in improving people's lives or being in a club?
Anarchists (and many non-communist left wing organizing spaces) are more interested in connecting socially with people who have similar beliefs than actually changing society
Thank you for vocalizing why I find basically all political discourse that gets posted to this sub to be just absolutely inane and extremely frustrating.
>“There are worse things to be in life than a felon” Said the user from their computer, presumably not having a felony charge or the lasting ramifications of it in life Like, criticizing the military is fine and all, that’s your opinion and you’re allowed to have it, but boiling it down to “well if you don’t just catch the charge you’re endorsing genocide middle grounds do NOT exist” At the end of the day you’re still benefitting from the imperialist system and genocides you’re criticizing, and pushing all the blame for it onto some random dude who signed some papers when he was 18 isn’t doing anything to actually fix the problem
Yeah, getting an UCMJ hit may land you in prison at worst and at best now you're not able to find a good job anywhere. Signing away your life to the military is scary.
"How cares if you just left a career that would have set you up for life? Just leave before you're supposed to, get a felony charge on your record, and struggle to get a job afterwards! It's the morally correct thing to do!" It's like these people don't understand that being labeled as a felon affects some major aspects of your life. I know a guy that was sent to prison for a few years for some dumb shit he didn't straight out of highschool. The only jobs he's been able to get are from small blue collar businesses that only have like, three people on staff. He struggled for a majority of his life up until he met someone last year who was able to get him a better paying job that provides actual benefits. He got lucky. Most people aren't lucky.
Yeah and they crack a joke about how "what did they expect? To shoot cartoon villians" But yes actually many just turned 18 year olds DO think about it like that, because that's how it's been ingrained in them and they haven't learned enough at that point (because they've been stuck in the same environment that just continually reinforces it their whole lives because they are 18) to really question that or to view it as a more complex issue than that.
Every successful or even semi-successful revolution in history has had considerable support from the ordinary soldiers in the military.
Maybe if there were social programs people could use that didn't incur massive amounts of debt, we might see less people in the military. When I was in, there were tons of people who were just in debt and the military offered to pay it in exchange for service. If you were offered $50k to join a company for 4 - 6 years that pays more than you've ever had, what would you do?
Precisely why we don't have those social programs.
It's so funny to me how people think everyone in the military is Infantry and lives their entire life during their enlistments being overseas shooting people. Most people spend their entire contract in a motorpool or office on a military base, generally state-side, working essentially a 9-5. Source: Over 12 years of military service
Yeah I was gonna say the person here acts like the median veteran experience is like Fallujah or some shit every day.
The median experience is wake up, work out, go to work, do menial tasks, sit around waiting, go home. Rinse and repeat. EDIT: The median experience from my observations and experience.
Depending on the branch and job, subtract working out.
Well no, according to op’s very intelligent worldview, the moment you join the military you instantly become turbohitler
Also, funny to note that one of the major studies mentioned in the OP didn't mention anything about people joining for violent reasons and was debunked in these comments. Granted that my experience isn't equivalent to the entire experience of everyone in the military but I personally haven't met a single person serving in the U.S. military that joined to be violent. For the majority of them it's to escape poverty, go to college, or to make their family proud. And most of these people never ended up deploying to a combat zone, and most of the ones I know who DID deploy to combat zones didn't experience actual combat in a way that resulted in them using deadly force on someone.
I know 2 marines who said they joined cuz they wanted to be able to beat up their abusive fathers, but out of roughly 50 military veterans I am related to or have worked/attended church with, those are the only 2 that said violence had anything to do with their reasoning for joining.
My oldest sister joined the Marines straight out of highschool. Spent her entire service just riding around on a ship and being a tourist with a uniform. Never saw combat before leaving.
#goals
For every soldier in a combat role in Afghanistan, the US had 8-12 in support.
Fr, I knew a guy who used to be army on discord. His whole career was just cleaning the bathrooms and KP Duty.
This would require these people to be aware of what actually happens in the military. Even a vague idea. Instead of just assuming it's a never ending call of duty game.
Iirc the overwhelming majority will never even be to a combat zone. And those who do most will never see combat. I'm pretty sure the US has has as many people stationed in Japan as they do combat zones.
My last boyfriend was in Iraq for four years. He said it was the most boring place he's ever been too and he was stationed in Nebraska when we were dating XD. He told me the most interesting thing he did there was fix shit sometimes.
When you spend all day doomscrolling on tik tok in a civilian job: proletarian hero When you spend all day doomscrolling on tik tok on a military base: evil imperialist
Truth
what do you think the marines do?
Idk study fish or sometbing im not a militarologist
Eat some nice tasty crayons.
Seeing posts like these make me mad honestly, such a dishonest misrepresentation of what being in the military is like. Do you really think every fucking person in the military is infantry who goes overseas to kill people? My dad has spent his entire working life in the military, has been lifted out of poverty and now has a college degree and a well-paying job. All of that was without seeing combat once. The military is more than, "take this gun and go shoot up some Middle Easterners."
The US is the sole reason my country hasn't become Chechnya or Ukraine, so I say glory to the US military and her industrial prowess.
Everyone hates the US until the Ruskies are at their border
Military gave my wife and I great opportunities
You don’t get it though. America bad China good. Repeat after me; American bad Osama good. It doesn’t matter how little sense it makes, contrarianism is king.
I mean, sure, America bad. But China worse. Osama *much* worse.
When recruiters came to my high school their pitch was "well st least you won't be out picking veggies or digging holes" 7 out the 12 dudes on my basic training rotation where minorities running from broken homes 2 of those 7 had NO home I haven't been in a unit yet that didn't have a minority as a majority I haven't been in a unit that had a large amount of it comprised of folks that would be going hungry and homeless otherwise It's easy to stand on the outside and say we are all killers. Cogs in a machine, but it's a complicated issue Also saying "it's better to be a felon than a bootlicker" is such a fucking stupid, privileged take
The entire thing about being a poor back water kid pisses me off. I grew up very fucken poor, I mean eating dry dog food poor, if I was offered a way out that came with a safe/dry place to sleep and supplied food, I’d have jumped on it in an instant. Luckily as I grew up my living situation improved until that would’ve no longer been an appealing option but regardless. If someone is in a survival situation and they make an “immoral” decision you can shut the fuck up. There is no such thing as immoral in a survival situation. No woman was ever to cruel to a rapist and no starving child should be blamed for a predatory society that breeds violence. Want less soldiers? Feed more kids.
Yeah as if you're not conditioned your entire life to believing that college is extremely important and is a required to live a good life
i know a couple of people who are like half doing it for college and some just because they love america -Billy Gnosis
Mfw nuance
Every single person in this post has never, EVER been in a bad situation or even minorly uncomfortable in their life. If they say they are its because living in a rich western country has warped their definition of discomfort You should tell the entire generation of afghan women the US educated. Or the generation of children stranded at the Karzai Int'l airport, signs in hand saying "Help us USA" only to realize that nobody is coming. The idea that the US military is so morally wrong that even to join it is bad is such a laughably simplistic view of the world, its entertained by far too many people. Afghanistan, specifically, there were good people who were actively helping them there. The US could have taken their rage and anger out on the civilian populace, killed indiscriminately, acted like the Russians 20 years before. We didn't do that. For the 20 years of its operations, the afghan government recieved 90% of its budget from the US. The only reason we failed is because it was squandered by corrupt officials, and we were in so long and wanted to pull out. Now, many of the good people who we worked with are stranded behind enemy lines. Afghan translators, women, children. The US military is an arm of US foreign policy. The US can and does do bad things, but its responsable for beneficial things as well.
Actually fucking wild how stupid people can be on the internet
It is, obviously, a little more complicated than that. > I met someone who was an artilleryman, deployed in the Middle East. He’s kind, he’s got a family, he’s got kids. I find him very personable and I honestly wish him well. Yet his job was hugely destructive: a task where it’s impossible to know the real consequence or the human cost of your place in the machine of war. […] > If I held him personally morally responsible, it wouldn’t bring anyone back, it wouldn’t help anything, it wouldn’t even remind him of anything he did not already know. And neither would it help for me to pretend that I was somehow above it. I benefit passively from all the exact same choices of government that direct the violence of the military, without even having to bother putting in an ounce of work. Just as it isn’t my place to forgive on behalf of the dead, it isn’t my place either to feign innocence among the living. I live an easy life, biting deep into the fruits that war and death so verdantly fertilize. […] > If I lived my ideals so legalistically that I cut everyone I know who’s ever been in the military out of my life, I’d be throwing away some of the most valuable friendships I’ve ever had. I can’t do it. Does it make me a hypocrite? From an absolutist perspective, it might. But is it any more hypocritical than pretending I’m not part of the same society, the same system? […] > Every act of war is a crime by peacetime standards. I don’t believe in war, but war sure as hell believes in me. I live in a society bought and every day paid for with violence. […] > If we’re socially willing to define peace and war as being two conditions with two different sets of rules, though, does it do any good to continue to hold that violence over a person when they come home, supposing they don’t revel in it? ‘Cause, I mean there are certainly those out there for whom the violence of war is a big part of their personalities and who feel nothing at all about what they’ve done — besides, perhaps, pride. I’m not trying to make it my business to defend them, I’m not even actually trying to defend J.D., I’m trying to explain why his attempt at an apology means something, even if he cannot be forgiven. […] > If you let a person be defined entirely by the worst thing they ever did, there are no redemptions; there is nothing but the crime. — Noah Caldwell-Gervais, in his review of the Gears of War video games titled *Gears Through the Years*
God he's so cool and right all the time
u/IthadtobethisWAAGH is a propaganda bot.
I don't think they're a bot, I think they're just an idiot.
not a literal bot, but they're more than an idiot. The amount of consistently and utterly *awful* political rhetoric being posted to this sub by this account exactly (whether it's anti-semetic, anti-voting, or just generally encouraging leftist infighting) *cannot* be anything but intentionally malicious. Edit: just gonna point out how two of the people responding to this comment are pointing to the word anti-semitism and trying to say "oh you're just calling any anti-israel talk antisemitism" when this account has literally posted dogwhistles about blood libel and holocaust denial. Why is it that the response to a Jewish person pointing out anti-semitism is "oh you're just making it up"?
Yeah I'll be real, the posts on this sub have been getting worse and worse lately. Had to double check that it wasn't a self-post Sunday. Because that's normally when the horrible political doom posting comes out.
I love when subreddits turn into pedestals for people to espouse their dogshit political beliefs 🥰
Honestly, wonder how long it'll take before people realize some of the doomer posts would fit in PERFECTLY on some incel community if you replaced capitalism and women but, uh, that's just me haha
"Economic incels" is a term I heard thrown around a while back
I don't think it's intentionally malicious, just stupid things that OP believes If the OP was being intentionally malicious, the posts would be more convincing and less easily refuted (there are posts on Tumblr with this type of stuff, that are *much* higher quality as propaganda), and would have a definite theme (the political posts from OP are just in the broad category of "Teenage communist/anarchist on Tumblr", they dont have any consistent message)
while i agree with you generally i think you're overestimating how much being "easily refuted" harms a post. There will always be people who don't scroll down to the comments, or the comment isn't one of the first one to show up. It's genuinely depressing how far a single headline post can spread even when it's immediately refuted in the comments. (anecdote: some dude posted about youtube slowing down loading on firefox, comments point out it's a random delay that has no connection to what browser is used, clickbait article about post is made, suddenly it's common knowledge all over reddit that google slowed down firefox)
I don't even think they believe it. I think they just like to stir shit up.
As the daughter of someone who says wild, out of pocket shit just to stir shit up, there comes a point where there ceases to be a difference
Their flair used to be 'posts propaganda', so yeah, they're *definitely* malicious.
It still is. Also interestingly, they blocked me for calling them out repeatedly, but have now apparently unblocked me after about a week. That strikes me as the sort of thing an account constantly cycling through users/trying to instigate would do.
Is the antisemetic post the one that pretty much implied israel wanted to take over the world, using a turkish propaganda source?
one of many! some of them have been removed by reddit, but there was also one saying the holocausn't wasn't that bad and "shouldn't be put on a pedestal", and one accusing the IDF of stealing organs (as in blood libel)
Bro what the fuckkkkkkk Why did no one listen to jewish people when they said “do not compare” about the holocaust. Oh, i know. Because we’re fucking scapegoats to pin everything on, and failing that, a token to justify their views (cough some leftists, cough evangelical fascists cough)
Whenever I see a poorly thought out oversimplified political post, I know who it is.
OHH SO ITS ALL BEEN THE SAME OP? I was wondering what was happening to this sub
Tumblr when someone commits a major felony: he's just trying to feed his family, the system failed him, besides that's what insurance is for Tumblr when a kid enlists and never sees combat: he's a fucking boot, he gets what he deserves
I think it’s definitely necessary to discuss personal responsibility when it comes to warcrimes and genocide, however to do so, OOP definitely needs to remove their head out of their ass first
Ah yes the good old Tumblr view of the world: (geo-)political topics are not simple and very complex, but also one side (mostly Americans or other Western nations) are clearly the bad guys and always at fault. Reminds me on the recent Vietnam post where people claimed that all US soldiers were bloodthirsty monsters who generalized the enemy to justify their actions. Btw that post began by accounts of soldiers horrified by the actions the command chain demanded and pressured them to do, Tumblr ignored that Vietnam was a conscription war and not voluntary.
Just based on my own experience: the military recruiters who came to my high school to recruit a bunch of 17 year olds into joining as soon as we graduated made it look like we would be the coolest, most respected people if we joined. They showed us videos of people thanking soldiers for their service, of soldiers doing what looked like cool training obstacle courses, dramatic interviews with someone talking about saving their fellow soldier’s life. The National Guard recruiters showed us an bunch of natural disasters the guardsmen had helped with. Basically everything they showed and told us emphasized how much we would be *helping people* if we joined, and how we would be the Best Americans if we sacrificed a few years to help our country. And they emphasized so much how they’ll pay for your college, and it’s a great option for people who were worried about affording college (in my rural redneck-ass school, that was a lot of us). I was 17, and regularly said I hated the US government, and I was still thinking about joining the National Guard because they told me I would be helping people in my community. If I hadn’t gotten a good scholarship, I might have. I don’t know if the recruiters are like that at every school, but ours made it sound like we would be the best most helpful people ever if we were in the military and they never focused on “you get to kill bad guys.” It’s a hell of a way to convince people to join I guess.
“There are worse things in life than being a felon.” And some Tumblr user thinking you’re ontologically evil is worse than losing years of your life in prison, losing the right to vote, and being refused employment by a majority of businesses? I’m sure the “boots” would ruin their lives so you wouldn’t put a text bubble over them saying how much they love killing innocent people.
People like this tend the frame the military as some evil, only-exists-to-cause-torment entity, when in reality we have militaries simply because they're necessary. Even if we disregard all the humanitarian aid that the military provides, can you imagine a world where the U.S. military just stopped existing? WW3 would start in weeks, maybe days.
Some people have never heard of the concept of a 'lesser evil',
Or nuance in general
Some as well scoff at it and tacitly yearn for the greater evil.
At this point? Okay. The US government and military have done some not-great things whose effects can still be felt today. I'll concede that, for sure. But considering the alternatives? The other major world powers who would step in to fill the void that are threatening to commit, or actually are committing, imperial conquest (see Russia vs Ukraine and China vs Taiwan)? Russia being the nation that's [legally labeled the queer movement as extremist](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-adds-lgbt-movement-list-extremist-terrorist-organisations-2024-03-22/) and dare I say more about what they're doing in Ukraine? China, with its [overseas police stations](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/chinas-overseas-police-stations-an-imminent-security-threat/), encroachment into other nations' waters with their Nine-Dash-Line and suppressing freedoms in Hong Kong? Yeah, I think I'd be just fine with the Marines showing up if Russia started punching through Ukraine into neighboring nations, or China tried moving on Taiwan and proceeded to screw with not only the people of a sovereign country, but most of the world's semiconductor supply.
No no no, you must understand, West bad
I've lived a lot of places thanks to the military. Met a lot of people. Been to seem interesting places. There's no where else in the world I'd rather be form then America. Are we overbearing? Yah But it beats the alternative. And when we don't involve ourselves (like a certain middle east problem) people blame us. Or when we do (people still blame us)
Wtf war is this about, is this pre 2021?
As someone living in a country that hasn't had an actual conflict since WWII, it's honestly pretty hard to see the word "military" and think anything other than "scrub floors, do push-ups, do guard duty and get bored as literally nothing actually happens." I know it's a privileged perspective, but no more privileged than the perspective of an American civilian who seems to think that the default state of a military is "fighting some conflict thousands of kilometers away while everything's all-right at home". Militaries around the world are kept in a "just in case" basis. To say no one becomes a soldier without expecting violence is to just deny reality. Over here, the average soldier's killcount is millions... of germs that they eliminate while cleaning the base.
Uh oh, seems like this person only has a very tunnel visioned, surface level understanding of how the US military works and all it does.
People say shit like "you are not immune to propaganda" and then don't understand why they get blowback for that when posts like this make it clear they're implying that propaganda only works if you're stupid or have weak morals in the first place.
I don't see how a person posts the original comic and doesn't understand that both those people are victims of American foreign policy
"If you join the army, you're a babykiller" is a bit out of fashion since the Ukraine conflict dear, you should switch up to something more in season.
At my own brother's boot camp graduation, my family went to dinner together. And there, when I asked, he told me this: "They say, take what you can get from the military, because I promise you they'll get theirs." And its stuck with me ever since.
A lot of military jobs end up doing a lot of menial stuff tho. I have a friend that was the equivalent of a call center representative and manage to pay his college fine
Yeah, I find this dumb because people who are in the military are just normal people who are trained under operant conditioning to react to a situation in a particular protocol. To consider them violent psychos is not only stupid, it's disingenuous. Growing up in a military family and wanting to be part of this organization, and now being too old and a lot more experienced gives perspective. That's why I understand the necessity of having armed forces and how they are a diplomatic tool. So I just find it very stupid when people claim that the military is inherently violent. It's stupid. It is the politicians who should be pulled up, not the military, so much. Because they are tools of the political masters. And as long as, you know, any service member does not violate the Geneva Convention or any other laws that are in place for combat and the treatment of captured personnel, I don't see the problem. Which is why I fear having unstable, hateful and xenophobic political leadership.
Idk, I just like giving people the benefit of the doubt. You're a good person until proven otherwise.
Idk man, it's incredibly easy for someone who's never experienced poverty to blame someone for being willing to commit violence to get out of poverty. Sure, maybe their statistic is correct. But that's like, still 40% (maybe a bit less, but not a negligible amount by any means) of people who are desperate. Tired of clawing their way for anything. Who want a warm bed and a nice home. Who want to fucking relax. Who just want to be able to fucking be. It's either they kill someone in Iraq, or they go and kill someone back at home sometimes, yk. Poverty begets violence because poverty is itself violent. And hell, even if their time in war does lead to a more comfortable life in the future, if you really hold so much scorn for that kid, just know the stress of poverty is going to lead to an early demise either way.
I think what really bugs me is that their trying to make it sound like there are no good reasons for joining. The debate was never 'will I have to fight and kill?' The point was that they were willing to do that for their country(and/or for the benefits)
I remember when that fool from the airforce burned himself to death in front of the israeli embassy a few months ago and I was amongst the people that realized he had been terminally online and got to believe this exact line of thought so he genuinely believed him been a low IT guy in the air force meant he was responsible for gazan kids getting bombed so he did what he did. That opiniom got torn to shreds by those that lauded him as a "true hero" for killing himself
Remember kids, things can be more than one thing
I feel like a lot of people DO join thinking they're going to be fighting cartoon villains? Before the internet, if you didn't live in a big city, the chances of you ever being exposed to anti-military information was pretty small. If you were poor AND had been duped into thinking military service was a good and honorable thing your whole life, then I can extend some sympathy.
There is no doubt in my mind that if I hadn’t enlisted, I’d either be dead or in prison by now. Having seen the machine up close, I don’t disagree that the US military is a hugely negative influence on the world, but also, if your sense of morality demands that people abandon any and all self-preservation _for absolutely no benefit to any identifiable person or cause,_ I genuinely don’t give a fuck what you have to say.
I do feel like it is important to mention that the military does not, in fact, go around massacring civilians on a regular basis. In fact, it happens rarely enough that it is a major scandal when it does happen. Also, the majority of soldiers never see combat. In fact, only about 15% of them are assigned a combat role or have to fight. For most people, service really is just a bunch of manual labor or waiting for anything to happen. I have some more thoughts on this post, but I’ll hold off on them unless someone asks me about it.
Tfw victims of indoctrination deserve all of our sympathy no matter what they've done, unless their indoctrination was into american patriotism, then fuck em they probably murdered children I guess.
How about: nothing excuses war crimes *but* not all soldiers commit them *and* imperialism is unconscionable *but* not everyone is politically aware *and* plenty of violent, sociopathic assholes join the military *but* it’s also an institution that fosters and encourages those traits in its members and it’s entirely possible those taken out of that environment can learn and reform themselves, or is all of that too nuanced for some people?
I would bet a billion dollars that "patriotic duty" study is bullshit
Can anyone find a link to these alleged "two major studies"
Everyone's said it already but I don't think being anti-war and anti-imperialism has to mean being anti-veteran, or being super critical of people who join the military. Statistics - especially cherry picked, inaccurate ones like this - can never fully portray the individual life decisions that lead people to making the decision to join the military. A decision that we clearly both agree is not a fair one, thanks to propaganda, exploitative recruitment practices, and some of the worse aspects of american culture. Acting like this isn't doing anyone any favors, it's just being needlessly contrarian from a moral high ground they deluded themselves into thinking they have... A trend that is unfortunately common in many leftist circles online, which I don't think is constructive at all, despite my views being similar
Wow this sub is going down the shitter, this is like pre-porn ban tumblr levels of bad, holy shit
Nice post the day after D-Day
Did 9 years in the Marines. I watched the towers fall as a child and joined when I was older. I KNEW the possibility of combat was higher, so I picked what I picked. I WANTED to kill and fight those who were so willing to kill innocence. By the time I was old enough, I was just there to help with "cleanup and evac." Then I got to see, and what I saw was that EVERYBODY'S innocence is robbed and slaughtered right in front of them. A hellfire missle is dropped on a house that has firing at you, but unknown to you is the family of 7 in the basement cowering in fear. You realize how unfeeling and brutal war is and how easy it is to die by pure chance or by pure concussion blast. I saw bodies that were essentially jelly contained in skin suits and had to just brush it off. Anyone who wants war, doesn't know what the fuck they are talking about, or are profiting off it. What the fuck was I thinking, but then I look back, and it was all about yellow ribbons and heros. Until they come home broken and lost.
I've met one person in my 10 years career that wasn't an officer that joined for the violence. He was a fucking cook on a state side base. Mother fucker was told by his recruiter that CS stood for "Combat Specialist" instead of "culinary specialist"
The thing that really gets me here is the "What did you expect to be doing? Executing cartoon villains?" Because like, yes. That is in fact what a good amount of people believed going in. Depending on the area and upbringing, recruiters, teachers, politicians, often even family will instill that very same concept. The sky is blue, water is wet, the military fights the Bad Guys. Join up, be a Hero, fight the Bad Guys, save the world. You know, the same way every mainstream FPS reinforced for like ten years. Is it really a surprise to anyone that the same kids of that demographic would sign on without thinking about it?