Do You Think People In The Military Are Heroes? Are Brave?

people are always asking the wrong questions.
by that i don't mean there's anything wrong with the questions they do.
rather that there are more serious ones they fail to.

people who want to tell other people what to think and believe
need people they can convince to be willing to kill each other.

at ground level, the king's shilling may be the only shilling many people can find.

 

i feel like they've basically been conned, and i feel sorry for them for that. any nation's military. not just one or another.

and for what its worth, i AM a veteran.

 

do you have a free bus pass..

 

i have a senior discounted one. that costs me a hell of lot less then it would to own a car. there's a hardware store that gives me another ten percent discount when they see my v.a. card.

i'm not saying they're not paying me back, but money, to compensate you for people telling you to kill and die for their greed, that's still being conned.

 

There are brave people in the military, but wars are just about powerful people trying to get more power and money. I also think it's brave to refuse to fight, because there's definitely a social stigma against it.

 

I'm a veteran, from a long line of them dating back to the American Revolution. I do not think that people in the military, as a class, are heroes, nor are they brave. There are individual exceptions, of course.

In my own experience, the three things most commonly lacking in those with whom I served were maturity, courage, and integrity. The most highly valued traits in a military member are, in order, unquestioning submission to authority and acquiesence to peer pressure -- both require a certain amount of immaturity, cowardess, and weakness of character. You can bet that most of those who've committed atrocious human rights violations against prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and countless other military prisons and "black sites" around the globe were not vicious and callous to the suffering of others before joining the military and, barring psychological damage from those experiences, are not/will not be after leaving those positions in which they did so. You can also bet that most currently on active duty see nothing wrong with the torture being committed by their fellows.

A short story: In the wee hours of a midnight shift, my crew chief reminded me (as I was assistant crew chief) that a housekeeping preventive maintenance task was due that morning. I asked him to give me the keys to the HAZMAT locker so I could retrieve respirators for my crew, as part of the task involved blowing the dust from one end of the building to the other before sweeping it up and I knew there to be exposed asbestos where we would be working. My crew chief explained that the keys hadn't been left for him, to which my response was that we should ask for those keys to be left so we could do the job safely the next morning. We then discussed whether or not I would be required to comply were he to order me to perform the task despite the hazard -- his position was that I would, and my position was "fuck that, I'm not going to give these guys lung cancer in the name of housekeeping". My crew appreciated that I'd stood up for them, and some apparently spoke of it elsewhere in the building. The next thing I know, senior enlisted people who'd heard the story from others who were not present were gunning for my ass. They wanted me at least given Article 15 (Commanding Officer's Non-Judicial Punishment) punishment, but were aiming for Court Martial. Apparently their only concern was that I'd refused an order, and to hell with the guys who might die years later had I followed it. When my crew chief explained that no order had ever been issued, he came under great pressure to change his story to support their aims. To his credit, he refused to change his story... but some others, under the same pressure, did.

In the end, it wasn't the rightness or wrongness of my actions that saved my ass. A sample of the material in question, whose composition was officially unknown, was sent to a bioenvironmental lab for analysis and the report came back stating that the stuff was in fact mostly asbestos and recommending that all applicable safety precautions be employed when disturbing it. Unfortunately, by then that preventive maintenance had been done four times a year for nearly 20 years so many had already been needlessly exposed to the mesothelioma risk and have no recourse should they be stricken by the disease. Ain't nuthin' heroic or brave about ignoring the problem for nearly two decades or trying to silence the one who finally, albeit unwittingly, brought it to light.

I've several other such stories, but that's the one I can tell in short form. The others are longer and quite possibly still classified.

You want to find heroes? Look for people who commit acts of civil disobedience knowing they're going to end up jailed for it.

 

[SIZE=medium]I served 6 years in the Air Force, 4 years full-time active, and 2 years in the reserves. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]I’m no hero it was just another job, nor did I serve in a combat zone. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]But it does look good on my resume. [/SIZE]


[SIZE=medium]Hotwater[/SIZE]

 

Excellent commentary! I am a 21-year veteran that have served in the Army and like you I make no apologies for the best decision that I have ever made in my life.

 

i don't think its about the weapons. its about risking their own lives to kill each other.

how romantic.
until you realize all the ideologies and nationalism and even the beliefs that con them into doing so, are all just that.
that people are conned into killing each other to perpetuate the fiate accompli of hierarchies, and even those, more then anything else, to advance other people's greed, from which they seldom see benefit, and far more often harm.

still it isn't the poor deluded bastards themselves who are to blame for this.
it takes massive popular support for such cultures to exist.

so again i do respect and cut a lot of slack for, that they do take and face this risk.
but again its simpathy rather then admiration.

even if a military is "all volunteer", there's a serious question of just how "volunteer" it is, for the majority the universal soldiers in it, when too often, "the king's shilling" is the only "shilling" available in their lives that there is.

the problem with that "greater good" business, is that it really isn't. it is by far the greater, and often completely needless, harm.

but people, some people do honestly believe that, and i do feel sorry for them for being conned into doing so.

i salute and honor and respect and appreciate what nievely idealistic people have been conned into believing they are doing in joining a military.

sacraficing themselves for the good of others. that's all fine and wonderful.

the only problem, the reality, is that it is, in fact, all bullshit.

every ideology, nationalism, and belief there in, with no exception, is an excuse, to not base policies, on the conditions people actually experience, as a result of them.

i believe that THEY believe, most of them, that they are actually doing a brave, honorable and bennificial thing.

i just happen to have every reason to also believe, that they have been conned, and are entirely mistaken.

 

That "sneak attack" was provoked. Japan was at war against China, and the US imposed an embargo against Japan to deny them access to aircraft parts, ore, scrap metal, and aviation fuel. The embargo painted Japan into a corner because the Chinese warlords had finally got around to uniting against their common enemy, and had things gone differently quite likely would have invaded and taken Japan. The US embargo was not a humanitarian action -- we were defending the private, commercial interests of US corporations who coveted and controlled the very same natural resources that Japan was after.

FDR had been warned that if he implemented the embargo Japan would have no choice but to attack the US because to do otherwise would certainly mean being taken by China. The location and timing of the attack may or may not have been a surprise, but the inevitability of it was not.

 

people in the military, are, people. a cross section of society. each their for their own reasons. a disproportionate number of them from disadvantaged backgrounds however, and there because they are.

some are motivated by personality disorders of course, but far more by having few if any better opportunities.

and of course, in addition to those cases, by popular ideological and other delusions as well.

though not all are unaware of this. senior ranks generally know its all bullshit. but by then, its their job, and often the best job they know.

not just senior ranks of course. some people going into it realize this form jump.

again everyone has their own motivations. sometimes even a mystery to themselves.