Greni said:
This pretty much, if I may say so without being instantly hammerbanned for breaking whatever ridiculous rules our internet overlords have suddenly decided upon.
It sure seems like a fine deal to travel the world, wear a cool uniform and kill and maim foreigners on demand, but surely there are other ways to spend your time and gaining the respect of your fellow man, like say, not killing other people?
The military, in my mind at least, is a governing tool to use. In the right hands it may very well serve the good of the people, but as we are reminded time and again, the government, of any country, does not give a rats arse about the "good of the people". They care about their fat rear ends and those around them. Which in this case would be equally fat businessmen with their own agendas. They send their puppets to war for personal gain and the puppets, if alive, get out of parking tickets, as mentioned above.
I speak as someone who's from a country that has no army, so it's merely an observational point.
Edit: OT: A profession as a whole that I have a tremendous respect for are teachers. It's biased as I know a fair amount of them, but that way I know that their job can be hell at times, the pay (here at least) is laughable and the general view of their contribution is disgraceful. But they soldier on (pun intended), do their job and are basically preparing the next generation to inherit, and take care of, our mess. The educational system on the other hand is a whole other story.
I know a lot of folks who have gone into the military, even. People will sometimes see my stance and act like I don't care.
No, I just think it's stupid to assume these guys do it for me, you, or apple pie.
I think it's even worse to assume they're actually prepared to die for any of the above.
Of my friends and family, I can tell you the THOUGHT they could die occurred to maybe one of them. Now, I know personal anecdotes are not typical, but it does eliminate the "they're willing to die for my country" line, because clearly, not all are. And I am surrounded by military folks. My small-ass state, Vermont, is proportionately number one both in terms of National Guard members sent overseas and in casualties of the same. That's just the Guard. My friends are mostly Army or Marines. So far, nobody I know has died, and if they're lucky, they won't.
And I want them to come home safe, in part because they're my friends and in part because I don't want people dying. Period.
After 9-11, some new recruits were talking in Wal-Mart about how they had signed up to kill "ragheads." Again, not noble. Using the military as an excuse to murder people is sociopathic.
And some do sign up to travel the world, because that's what the brochures used to say. Don't know about now, they finally gave up trying to recruit my crippled, hippie ass.
My cousin signed up because it's the only way he'll see college. Let me tell you he has NO intent on killing or dying for anyone.
But still, we wipe it clean with the "serve our country" and "die for us" memes. There are severely higher instances of rape in active service, but we wipe it clean because they're willing to "die for our country." Drug use? Meh, they're serving our country. We should be proud to have violent drugged out rapists representing us to the world!
Teachers do deserve a lot more blanket respect, because with no tools and no money they are expected to churn out positive results. There are still bad teachers (which baffles me; why take shit pay for a job you hate?), but they really do get crapped on. Especially in AMURRRRRRICA where education is bad and you're bad for being educated. Though I wonder who's gonna make all those cool toys to kill people with without education.
God bless any luddite movement that involves still being heavily reliant on technology. It's so adorable.