this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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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
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.
Bruh I took the asvab after getting picked up off the street and being bought tacos.
I mean tacos is tacos.
The only military recruitment I've interacted with is ads and I'm already weirded out by those. The US really is on a different level.
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.
Good thing we fund the military instead of public healthcare that would take care of everyone.
Well if you join the military then you can have free health care too.
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.
You can certainly control the propaganda that you're typing with remarkable efficiency -- shut the fuck up, bootlicker.
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.
It's not entirely anecdotal, though. There are known staff shortages at the moment, although it seems to have been going for a while.
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? $$$$$$
Please be satire.
"Join the military, we will pay to bury you in the ground."
Oh my gosh you would make an excellent journalist.
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.
I wonder if I could talk them into giving me the funeral money and just throwing me in a ditch instead.
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.
They fuck up your society so they can entice you into joining in order to get benefits other societies get for free.
Glad it worked out for you. Let's not force people to risk death, dismemberment, and permanent brain damage just to live an okay life.
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.
Thank you for speaking truth to bullshit.
funny I know 3 people who served and are dead, and one who has just disappeared and I didn't even serve.
Then you're a fucking liar
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.
What a system.
I'm also a vet and I didn't get shit.
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.
Semper Fi, mother fucker!! Hoo ah!
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, 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?
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.
So you're only coerced into HELPING people kill people? That's alright then!
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.
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 recommend no people join. At the very least, their recruiters preying on the vulnerable like they are needs to be illegal.
Which is far from always the case and even when you know, you can still be coerced into it against your will.
/thread
I genuinely think that loan forgiveness would have been pushed through long ago if it wouldn't ruin recruiting incentives
That and the fact that the people and companies profiting from student loans are legally bribing the politicians of both parties, yeah.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, that comes with the territory of convincing people to kill people.
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.
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.
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.
Not one the military favors, though.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My father in law once mentioned that as the reason he went Navy instead. (Sailers are apparently all firefighters first and foremost.)
I suppose it's also maybe a good argument for picking the [ch]Air Force.
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.
We had some volunteers roll out with us when we had guys on leave but admin guys on QRF is just peak Army.
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.