Why do people hate the army?

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Soldiers are trained murderers and the military is a war mongering hate machine that swallows lives and shits out money and lies for its people to swallow, so they can better sleep at night while the government sends their children to foreign lands they have no right to be in, to slaughter its inhabitants and/or be slaughtered themselves.

That's pretty much why.

Wow. Someone's jimmies have been rustled.

Your username makes that comment pretty funny, lol.

 

[A Raging Emo]

Soldiers are trained murderers and the military is a war mongering hate machine that swallows lives and shits out money and lies for its people to swallow, so they can better sleep at night while the government sends their children to foreign lands they have no right to be in, to slaughter its inhabitants and/or be slaughtered themselves.

That's pretty much why.

Wow. Someone's jimmies have been rustled.

Your username makes that comment pretty funny, lol.

I'm glad you think so.

I hope you were being sarcastic in your initial post.

Capctha: Al Capone

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Soldiers are trained murderers and the military is a war mongering hate machine that swallows lives and shits out money and lies for its people to swallow, so they can better sleep at night while the government sends their children to foreign lands they have no right to be in, to slaughter its inhabitants and/or be slaughtered themselves.

That's pretty much why.

Wow. Someone's jimmies have been rustled.

Your username makes that comment pretty funny, lol.

I'm glad you think so.

I hope you were being sarcastic in your initial post.

Capctha: Al Capone

Not even a little sarcastic, lol.

 

[Stilkon]

The issue is not with the soldiers, it's with the leadership. The marketing, too, is something that irks me. The ads on TV seem to be catering towards the "naive FPS-player" market, telling kids that being in the military is exactly like video games. I have no interest in joining the military whatsoever, but I definitely understand that joining is a serious commitment and a major life choice. The fact that someone would want to trivialize its gravity in order to make it look "cool" is quite perturbing.

 

[Necron_warrior]

As long as something is gained, anything the military does is fine by me.

 

[A Raging Emo]

Soldiers are trained murderers and the military is a war mongering hate machine that swallows lives and shits out money and lies for its people to swallow, so they can better sleep at night while the government sends their children to foreign lands they have no right to be in, to slaughter its inhabitants and/or be slaughtered themselves.

That's pretty much why.

Wow. Someone's jimmies have been rustled.

Your username makes that comment pretty funny, lol.

I'm glad you think so.

I hope you were being sarcastic in your initial post.

Capctha: Al Capone

Not even a little sarcastic, lol.

Wow. Just... wow.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah. Good point. I think, this was mostly achieved by the Germans being tired of the Nazis and war itself. Also it was not a very different culture.

But when you look into Afghanistan, it's a completely different situation.
The Taliban are still up an bombing. The government is corrupt as shit.

The government is corrupt, yes, but the Taliban isn't much of a force nowdays. You have any number of petty warlords, tribal factions and criminal groups with lots of weapons fighting each other and ISAF troops (you could argue that the government is just one more of them), but they aren't the Taliban as existed before the war.

Oh, and they didn't purge Germany of Nazis that thoroughly. Very few of them were prosecuted for war crimes, a number of them ended up overseas, and there were issues with the history of the people involved in the 1972 games.

Another aspect: Now they try to avoid having civilian casualties.
In WW2 they bombed the shit out of everything. People were actually scared of the occupying soldiers. Imagine a civilian attacking a GI in Germany. They would have killed him in splitsecodns.
Look at a civialian attacking a GI in Afghanistan. "You want tea or coffee in prison before you are released in 20 minutes?"

Bullshit. A civilian attacking a soldier isn't treated as a civilian. ISAF troops aren't supposed to kill civilians for the hell of it, but they are allowed to kill civilians as an unfortunate side effect of their mission, to say nothing of killing people attacking them.

 

[Rawne1980]

As a guy who spent 12 years in the British Army my personal opinion on people who hate the military is thus....

I couldn't give a fuck.

I did a job I enjoyed and had a great life, made great friends and it helped me meet my wife. I got to travel the world and got paid for it.

I didn't join up out of patriotic ideals. I joined up because I did shit at school (I was hanging with the wrong crowd, drinking and fighting) and would have either ended up in jail or dead if I carried on down the road I was walking. There was zero career prospects in the cesspit town I was living in and the Army was a way out.

I did some physical education courses in the last couple of years of my service and now i'm a personal trainer who works for himself and earns quite a good chunk of money out of it.

I'm 32, I own my house and 2 cars. We have 3 holidays a year and have enough savings to retire in a few more years when our kids fly the coup.

The chances of me giving a ferrets testicle about random forum dwellers opinions on my time as a soldier are slim to fucking none.

 

[Dr. Mongo]

I know you're probably just referring to the removal of Hitler and that regime, so I apologise in advance but...

Just for my own peace of mind, you're not implying that the allies introduced democracy to Germany? As in, for the first time?

No need for apology. And I am aware of the Weimarian Republic. I was referring to the removal of the Nazis, sorry for not making that clear.

 

[doomspore98]

I would like to say that I don't agree with the US's current military actions. I believe that the current war in iraq could be avoided and that the less recent Vietnam was one of the worst decisions in US history. However, I do respect the soldiers that are fighting. I come from a family of pacifists but I believe that in some cases, war is unavoidable (WW1 and WW2).

 

[doomspore98]

As a guy who spent 12 years in the British Army my personal opinion on people who hate the military is thus....

I couldn't give a fuck.

I did a job I enjoyed and had a great life, made great friends and it helped me meet my wife. I got to travel the world and got paid for it.

I didn't join up out of patriotic ideals. I joined up because I did shit at school (I was hanging with the wrong crowd, drinking and fighting) and would have either ended up in jail or dead if I carried on down the road I was walking. There was zero career prospects in the cesspit town I was living in and the Army was a way out.

I did some physical education courses in the last couple of years of my service and now i'm a personal trainer who works for himself and earns quite a good chunk of money out of it.

I'm 32, I own my house and 2 cars. We have 3 holidays a year and have enough savings to retire in a few more years when our kids fly the coup.

The chances of me giving a ferrets testicle about random forum dwellers opinions on my time as a soldier are slim to fucking none.

What section of the military were you serving in?

 

[loc978]

To be fair, a soldier is technically a mercenary, it's just more organised, you get paid to shoot people, if you join the army in a time of peace, and then a week afterwards Britain declares war on Sweden because why the hell not, you're not killing swedish soldiers because you hate them, or even because you believe they are a evil that must be stopped, it's because a man is paying you to shoot Swedish soldiers, sure, you can say it's because your a patriot, but then you're a mercenary who doesn't feel bad about it because it's for "insert home country here".

...the biggest difference is that mercs get paid more, have better equipment and there's a larger barrier to entry. Being a soldier carries a certain amount of job security.

There's also the patriotism bullshit, but it never holds up under scrutiny. Captain America doesn't exist.

 

[loc978]

Not being disrespectful, but the Irish defence forces has very few instances of things like this. Not because we are better but because our guys don't get put under the same pressure and demands that the US military does.

That's not going to be the most of it. Most soldiers get lessons on dealing with stress, recognizing symptoms of psychological problems.

US soldier training is soldier 'this is rifle. bullets come out on that end. done.' They're only trained for combat and not much more.

For instance learning about how Afghan allegiances work? No way. With as a result that if you drop them in Afghanistan, they can't comprehend the people, everything is the great evil unknown and they stress a lot more as a result. If I'm in a village where the elder pledged his support and the majority tribe is loyal too, while there's no hostile warlords or something, I don't feel at risk at all. Why? Nobody who means anything is going to attack you, and if foreign fighters came, you'd notice by the village militia gathering or warnings sent to you asking that you take them on.

That makes it a lot more comfortable to be in any type of hostile place or warzone.


Still I think the being American in itself helps too. US culture is very uniform and conformistic. That leaves people less open to other systems of society and possibilities. The way religion is regarded in Afghanistan is just about the mortal enemy of everything I stand for.
Yet, if someone tells me searching houses can be a grave offense if you intrude into the woman's part of the house, or even worse, charge in so fast you see them without a veil, that's a possibility that exists. For people raised with the idea that there's only one culture, the own culture... Not so much.

That's... not strictly true. Basic training is just that- basic. I had a lot of training as to the conflicts within Iraqi culture, a crash course in language and quite a bit of etiquette before I landed in Iraq... and I was just a helicopter tech.

For civilians, it's more true than not, but that's kind of a cultural isolation thing.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Im only a reservist, so i can't speak for frontline soldiers.

I nearly got in a fistfight tonight with someone who cheapened what the Irish army does, and belittled their contribution to UN peace keeping mission by labeling them mercenaries.

They broadened their vague assertions to all western armies and then had the gall to lecture me on patriotism, whilst at the same time belittling what little bit i have contributed when they have done nothing. This wasn't someone trolling me for fun, but a genuine arsehole who hates the army but is more manly than them..... how is christ's name do you deal/educate a person like that and not willingly murder them?

He called me a cheerleader, and you know what... fine.... I'll happily laud to everyone the contributions the defence forces make, ill readily admit im only a reservist sandbag scumbag.... A civilian can only contribute so much, but what i can do, i bloody well do. Why should i be ashamed of that, and why should i be ashamed of the Irish army? Why should anyone be ashamed of their army?

Me, I don't hate the army and I'm not ashamed of it, but to me they're just people doing their jobs, nothing more, nothing less, and certainly not heroes or inherently more valuable to the nation. When was the last time soldiers from your country (or mine for that matter) actually died in defense of their country? Probably WWII. It can be a very dangerous job, sure, and maybe underpaid (though I highly doubt it, as I've seen what benefits soldiers in many countries get beside their pay), but just a respectable job. I really doubt more than a few truly choose the job just because of patriotism (see how patriotic they are if you lower their pay), but more because of lack of money or lack of other education/qualifications (in my country anyway). Nothing wrong with that, and I have respect for people who choose that career, but I know jobs that are even less rewarding and less rewarded than being in the army.

Politics don't play a big role in my judgment of soldiers. I'm sure there are more than a few with very misguided views about the government and the job they're doing (bringing democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan? Are there still people who believe that?). But that doesn't make me judge soldiers, because there are stupid people everywhere. Patriotism has very little real value in this day and age, as the army has become a political and economic force, not one of protection for the nation. Whichever way you turn it, you're not protecting your country, you're protecting its interests.

 

[supermariner]

I don't think people hate the army. I think they hate what they do
Personally i respect each and every member of the British armed forces for the tough job they do
But i hate everything about their profession. If the army was used for defence then sure, i'd be grand with it
But at the minute we seem to be obsessed with forcing our personal moral standards and democracy on countries that are none of our fucking business. It's the interference, like we somehow know better than them and so need to help them change, that i hate. The army itself i have no problem with. It's how governments use them i object to

 

[Rawne1980]

What section of the military were you serving in?

2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment.

We were so intelligent we jumped out of perfectly good planes for a living. Why wait for them to land to get off...

 

[flamingjimmy]

Being a soldier is only admirable if you are in a just conflict.

People talk about 'serving their country' but in actuality in most cases today they are only serving the elite few at the top.

 

[katsumoto03]

I'm certainly not against the army. I am, however, against the attitude that many people have about it. I hate how people treat it like it's some sort of holy work.

Overall, I'm against war and against the support of war, even as far as to support the army. An army is a tool that should only be used to defend your nation. And I don't see a whole lot of actual defense anymore.

 

[DJjaffacake]

Handing them weapons and telling them it's fine to kill people if they feel threatened?

I don't know about the US Army, but the rules of engagement in Afghanistan are incredibly strict for British troops, they definitely can't just shoot people who they think are threatening.

When was the last time soldiers actually died in defense of their country?

Well the South Ossetia War for one, in 2008.

 

[Poster1234]

My feeling is, I know that soldiers usually mean well, but I really feel like they are simply being used by big corporations which are getting insanely rich through wars, especially in the Middle-East.

Yes, I know most soldiers hope to befriend the civilians and to bring them democracy and education, but the fact is you simply can't force someone into democracy and free speech. It took the western world hundreds of years, lives and tears. You simply can't expect them to think like you just because "it's better for them", even if it really is. Many people in this region are still being ruled by KINGS, and have no idea how an election would even work.

Moreover, I'd like to say I'm not talking about conspiracy theories when I'm talking about the coprorations : the fact is, the contracts for reconstructing Irak were signed before the bombs began to fall. They had already planned to rebuild civilian structures as well, which means the US had to bomb known civilian targets.

Finally, about soldiers at home, I have nothing agains them, when they aren't waving their guns into my face. What I mean is, I live in France, I have been going through the same subway station every day for years, and recently they have started putting military patrols in that station. I'm sorry, I know it's "for my own protection and all", but I simply don't feel safe when twenty dudes in military gear surround me without a word, push me against a wall and then proceed to simply ask me for my ID card. Sue me. This happened.

The thing is, soldiers are also simple human beings. Only with guns, which are known to make people do stupid things. During my identity check, this one guy, who was barely older than me (I wasn't even 18 at the time), aimed at me when I reached inside my bag to get my ID. WHAT ? What I mean is I was threatened to be SHOT by some guy for simply going through a place I go through every day of my life, in my own country.

My final point is, I this only happened once to me, for one reason : I'm white. I have seen countless persons being checked again and again, just because, of course, arab or black = terrorist.
Now, how the hell do you think, say, a moderate muslim, who thinks all this "being opressed" thing terrorists flaunt about is exagerated, reacts when he is treated like a terrorist every fucking day ?
You know about people who pirate games to fight agains draconian DRM ? Same thing here.

I know soldiers are trying to do good, but they simply shouldn't be used as a police force. Anywhere.