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I find it utterly deplorable when I see army recruiters at cons. They're always talking to teenagers who are impressionable and feel bullied. I always walk by and tell the teens to not die for someone else's stock portfolios
It's not like the army forces you to the job that they want you to do. No one finds themselves in a combat role by surprise. Besides, most military jobs are support based, like logistics or IT. I'd maybe recommend it to someone who doesn't have money for college but has an interest in something like computer science. But even then, the GI isn't as big of an incentive as it used to be since a college education doesn't really guarantee you a comfortable living anymore. I'd probably recommend most people don't join the military but it can be a good life decision as long as you know what you're getting yourself into
No one finds themselves in a combat role by surprise.
This is false. Many people found themselves in combat roles by surprise in Iraq and I would assume other conflicts are the same because war never changes. My unit was an artillery unit that ended up kicking in doors like infantry. I knew supply clerks and admin assistants who ended up assigned to QRF. All soldiers and marines are combat personnel first and foremost. It's the whole reason every soldier and marine has to pass a rifle qualification in basic training/boot camp.
I would recommend the Coast Guard for anyone who wants to not be involved with the killings of many people and mostly doing good. Sure, there are a handful of roles that do kill, but the vast majority are involved with things like search and rescue or ensuring shipping is done safely, and things like that. They also deal with drug smuggling, which has some ethics issues as well, but as far as military service goes (and getting the benefits from it) it's easily the best choice.
Okay, most people don't find themselves in combat roles by surprise? Point is the military doesn't force you to do an MOS. If you work supply or artillery I'd say that's not unreasonable considering you know you're going to be on or near front lines to perform that job. Anyways, I don't mean to sound unsympathetic but the military is a good option for a lot of people who don't have many options
No, it just preys on vulnerable people who are easy to coerce into something they wouldn't necessarily have chosen for themselves independently. Sound voluntary to you? Or does it sound like cult programming?
No one finds themselves in a combat role by surprise
Maybe not, but you're aware that "do whatever your superiors want you to do up to and including killing people" is kinda the main thing in military culture. And religious cults.
Besides, most military jobs are support based, like logistics or IT.
So you're only coerced into HELPING people kill people? That's alright then!
I'd maybe recommend it to someone who doesn't have money for college
Yeah, economic coercion is a thing too. If everyone's telling you that you need college to make a good life for yourself and you can't afford it, you're much more likely to be coerced with promises of free college to do something you'd otherwise never do.
the GI isn't as big of an incentive as it used to be since a college education doesn't really guarantee you a comfortable living anymore
Yeah, it's a stick instead of a carrot now: used to be that a college education all but guaranteed you a high paying job. Now that you can't get any except the lowest paying jobs without a degree most places, free college is even MORE of an incentive than back when you could get a middle of the road salary regardless of college.
I'd probably recommend most people don't join the military
I'd recommend no people join. At the very least, their recruiters preying on the vulnerable like they are needs to be illegal.
as long as you know what you're getting yourself into
Which is far from always the case and even when you know, you can still be coerced into it against your will.
Military recruiting has to come to you because you can't just stroll onto a base and check out the place. Just like how you can't go into an airport so they do airshows to give you a glimpse of what goes on inside the fence. There are scummy recruiters but also those that are very honest about what it can/can't provide. Many use it to get travel, training and experience the private sector would never pay an unproven rookie to get. Then in a few years they leave and move on to better things on just like any other job.
And honesty is the best policy. The US military does good and bad, but they sure as hell aren't the Russians forcing unequipped, untrained kids out to die over a trench.
If you're about it be about it, just know what you will be signing up for. Don't let them choose a career for you.
Military recruiting has to come to you because you can't just stroll onto a base and check out the place
Nope, that's not it at all. They have actual recruitment offices. They go out to advertise and coerce, not because it's the only way people can join.
Just like how you can't go into an airport so they do airshows to give you a glimpse of what goes on inside the fence
You most definitely CAN go into an airport. I've done it many times myself. I found that it's usually a requisite for transatlantic travel.
Kidding aside, airshows are the Top Gun movies in person: it's all about promotion to make it easier to coerce people into joining and also PR so people will focus less on the killing because they focus on the entertainment.
You can't be this gullible, Shirley.
There are scummy recruiters
Yeah, that comes with the territory of convincing people to kill people.
but also those that are very honest about what it can/can't provide
Also about the cost? The killing? The high risk of crippling lifelong mental and/or physical harm?
I bet no recruiters talk about that part.
Many use it to get travel, training and experience the private sector would never pay an unproven rookie to get
True, in a way. For all its profiteering, the private sector usually don't hire people to kill and be killed in faraway countries for no good reason.
Unless it's one of the mercenary companies euphemistically referred to as "military contractors" like for example Blackwater/Xe Services/Academi/Constellis Holdings. That's one company changing their name twice to run from their well-earned reputation as torturers and mass murderers for hire and then merging with another mercenary company.
Then in a few years they leave and move on to better things
Unless of course their time in the military have left them permanently physically and/or mentally disabled. Kinda hard to get a good job when you have severe PTSD to the point where it affects your cognitive function and are missing limbs.
Even MORE difficult if you're dead.
And honesty is the best policy
Not one the military favors, though.
The US military does good and bad
With the bad outweighing the good thousandfold. Apart from all the harm to US soldiers, it kills a shitload of innocent people every year, tortures people, enforces US imperialist hegemony and otherwise is used to directly and politically harm other countries across the world and is the worst emitter of CO2 of all organizations in the world.
The world, including the US, would be MUCH better off if the US had only domestic forces that never leave the country.
but they sure as hell aren't the Russians forcing unequipped, untrained kids out to die over a trench.
Sure, but still atrocious. Just because worse exists doesn't make an awful thing good, no matter how much the DNC leadership tries to convince the world that it does.
If you're about it be about it, just know what you will be signing up for. Don't let them choose a career for you
Easier said than done. As I said before, they're coercing and tricking people into significant choices that they wouldn't have made voluntarily without being influenced.
Sounds like you expect other people to live by standards you yourself don't live. Unless you're somehow a full-time soup kitchen worker you still contribute to the machine just by living in this country and paying taxes. The military can be a good option for a lot of people. But not a great option for most people.
Sounds like you've had the privilege in life to where something like military service is something you'd never consider. Be thankful you have that privilege.
Not preying on the vulnerable to coerce them into killing and getting killed ≠ being a full-time charity volunteer.
you still contribute to the machine just by living in this country and paying taxes
That's partly true, though I live in another country that sometimes does bad things, which I subsidize with my taxes. It's not like I have a choice, though, unlike military recruiters and the politicians that send mostly innocent people to kill and be killed. Nobody's going to jail them for not doing those things.
Sounds like you've had the privilege in life to where something like military service is something you'd never consider. Be thankful you have that privilege.
I have and I am. Having privilege that I'm aware of does not mean not having knowledge about and empathy towards those who don't, though.
It also doesn't mean that I don't want things to be better than they are (for everyone, but especially the most vulnerable in society) and scummy predatory behavior to stop.
You don't find yourself in the Infantry by surprise, but just about every time I've found myself in a combat role it was by surprise. And the other side doesn't care what your paperwork says.
Yup, I've had the experience. I also think a lot of people don't know the lack of options you gotta have to consider the military a good option. Call it privilege. I'd never consider it for my kids, their education is already provided for. But I didn't have the same options.
I'm from the UK and when I was at school, we went out on a day trip to an army base. It was cool to see all the vehicles and weapons but I remember some British army guys trying to get us to join up by letting us play call of duty in a tent and telling us that we'd get paid for sitting around all day doing nothing.
I didn't realise it at the time but now I know they were just plain lying to try and sell army life to a bunch of teenage boys.
I remember something very similar. If they did that to my kid now I will be very angry about it because it's ridiculous. At least back in the 90s when this happened to me there wasn't really any ongoing conflicts, not like now where you're basically guaranteed to have to go fight somewhere.
okay but when I was a young innocent healthy teenager, I did join the army of my own volition and now they are taking care of me for the rest of my life. Some people want to join the Army. Let people do whatever they want.
All right, you hold onto those rare scenarios and keep assuming that everyone in the military ends up like that. You enjoy working every day for the rest of your life while we get to retire at age 40 or younger.
LOL if I was dead, how do you think I would be talking to you right now?
All you know about the military is what you've heard from the media. If you've experienced it you'll know how boring and uneventful it is and hardly anybody ever gets injured. They pay you money for the rest of your life and you are set.
Oh and if you like cemeteries so much, military veterans get free burial too. Do you have any idea how much a funeral and a burial costs for civilians? $$$$$$
Ha! Trying to talk me out of joining the military now that you given away the secret to easy street. Nice try. Bet they hire me as an officer after they see how big my dick is.
That's part of it right? They look at your dick; just to check. Right?
Like my 89-year-old grandfather who was a World war II veteran, the military paid for his funeral. His death had absolutely nothing to do with military service. He died of old age, decades after World war II.
my grandfather was a wwii veteran, and they took pretty good care of him.
his brother was also a wwii veteran and spent the rest of his life drinking away the horrors he'd seen and scream-sobbing any time there was a thunderstorm.
Or you could move to a country where signing away your soul and conciousness in order to murder people your governement deems "dangerous" just isn't a thing.
I got all of your benefits, yet didn't have to join a murder brigade for it.
We can't control what country we are born into. I joined the Army at age 18 because I felt like it. Knowing what I know now, of course I would not have done that. But I did and that's how my life was and everything is fine now for me. If I hadn't joined the military, I would have had no support or safety net whatsoever.
We can't all live in Iceland. Somebody has to choose violence, because others will choose violence for you. You can't simply reason with Russia who invaded their neighbors every eight years. The world is messier than it appears and chances are, you are benefiting from someone else's sacrifice to keep your country secure.
Isn't one of the common complaints about US military healthcare is that it is notoriously terrible? You'd come in with your torso, three arms, and a leg blown off, and you'd be given a panadol for your trouble, whilst getting it put on your record, where it might impair future promotions?
Even for post-military, it's still not great. There are countless anecdotes about people having to wrangle with the Veteran's Association trying to get military acquired injuries classified as such, or simply not getting apporpriate care at all. Particularly when it comes to psychological injury as a result of military service.
Are you just repeating things you've heard from the Vietnam era? I have been fully in the military health care system in Washington DC, Portland Oregon, Reno Nevada, Los Angeles California, and it has all been excellent state-of-the-art care.
Not at all. I've talked with a few friends and acquaintences in Virginia and Florida who very much complain about the woeful state of military healthcare, in addition to seeing the complaints show up here and there on military reddits.
I don't know anybody I served with in the military who experienced any of those things. We all came out completely alive & whole & thriving, The only person I knew in the military who died, he got in a car accident and died while he was on leave.
I'm guessing after 2006, with little to no deployment time then?
My unit still has suicides 20 years later. We had people go home without limbs, with major brain damage, and in body bags.
And no it wasn't just us infantry guys. The mechanics had to go out and recover vehicles knowing they've been abandoned in the city for hours. That's probably the only time we weren't surprised. The logistics guys were driving every day, no matter what the IED report said. And the mortars landing on base didn't stop to ask what your job was.
I'm glad you got the other side of the dice. But don't pretend the shit stick doesn't exist.
🙄 I served for 4 years, two of those years I was in school. And none of those years I was in combat, I was in military intelligence, we worked in a bunker, pretty isolated job. Nobody I know died, except for that car accident guy.
Having schools forward the contact info of low-income, low-performing students to recruiters at the age of 14 so those recruiters can start talking to kids without anyone else's knowledge and having kindergartners do worksheets with recruiters where they talk about what branch of the service they would join if they could isn't letting people do whatever they want, it's grooming children to die for the aristocrats.
So what you're saying is the country has no vested interest in supporting its citizens unless they are willing to die for it in which case the scraps thrown to you were sufficient enough to keep you out of abject poverty.
Sorry you didn't take advantage of the GI bill or any TA or any of the certificates you got or the work experience or potentially security clearance or college credit
Just to clarify, Evangelion is basically saying 'don't guilt-trip teens into being soldiers, don't put them under the power of horny adults (however well-meaning), don't bully them or treat them like lab mice, and definitely don't cut them off from civilian society and the chance to form normal human friendships'. Seems some people saw all of that and only remembered the cool mechas.
Seems some people saw all of that and only remembered the cool mechas.
I mean, I kind of get it. That whole genre is/was wall-to-wall spectacle. I suppose it's possible to dazzle your audience a little too much and lose the plot in all the mayhem.
But it's not limited to Mecha Anime. Take The Expanse, for instance. The plight and rebellion of The Belters is pretty much a pastiche a marginalized and developing societies that slave away for the benefit of other wealthy nations, today. And that arc is central to the plot of every season of the show, complete with a bloody rebellion and grave ramifications for those on top. But if you ask, I bet folks mostly recall a show about "protomolecule stuff" and "really cool space battles."
The original show is a deconstruction of giant-robot anime, basically examining how every single trope would be horrible in real life. But it's so goddamn stylish and well-done that a lot of people missed that it's also an escapist fantasy that says 'escapist fantasy is bad, actually.' The ending is infamously abrupt. It's like if The Two Towers ended in a lecture and there was no third book. It makes thematic sense, but the message is severely undercut by being a story people are invested in, for its own qualities.
The movies for that show are a long-form middle finger to the audience. It's honestly impressive.
The reboot show is all of that in like four feature-length episodes, also incorporating decades of fan culture super not getting the point. The plot textually says, you are an asshole for wanting this remake.
