The Military..what do you think?

No problem, and I didn't lose my family I have a great sister, a great uncle, aunt, and cousin.

Just not close at all to my parents.

 

my whole family, aside from myself, is military. they're all of them good, generous and gentle, free-spirited people. though they're very patriotic. i do have one cousin who's the crazy marine jarhead guy. he's a little scary. but in my family, it's just something you do. i'm still sort of on the outs with my dad because he got me a nomination to west point. i'm not military, simply because i think it would send me over the edge into pure meanness. i'm the least forgiving or understanding member of my family. i'm a personality sponge. i think it takes very good people to serve in the military well. not all do it for the education. aside from my baby sis, no one got anything out of it. just the sort of people who serve because they feel they should. they don't give jack shit about the government, they're those sentimental types.

 

i dont like war, im anit-war and anti fighting. i think that you're completely right about the money thing. just because someone doesnt have money, they shouldnt have to go into the army to make money that way. honestly, how long did anyone in the government fight for themselves? would they even ever have to? No. and that is the most ridiculous thing i have ever heard. why are people who are never going to fight (government people) be allowed to force people (by the draft) to fight f they dont know what its like? i have never foguht and dont know what its like either, but i could never force anyone to give up there family, friends and life to help people kill each other just to get whatever. whats the problem with sitting some officals down and making a deal or talking about it.

its only my opinon and im sorry if you dont feel the same. i styll love yall

 

To actually give a serious response to this discussion...

I am not a radical on most things in life, if not all. I'm not even much of a left-winger by today's terms, but the military is something that strikes both my personal life and my world views. All of my family has been in the military in one way or the other. It did not do them anything other than negativity... but, beyond that... I have never seen a positive militaristic stance in my life, I have also never seen any excuse or reason for war in my lifetime. The military actions of today do not only discourage my spirit, they also disgust it. I have no kind feelings, nor respect for anyone who has willingly chosen to be the instrument of a governments intuitions. I know that there are many people for whom the military seems like one of the only possible choices... but there are always other choices. No one is forcing people into the military in the U.S. It is just terrible that the army lures young people, who cannot decide a thing or who are hopelessly distressed by this silly thing called life, into its fangs. I do not blame people for joining it out of confusion, but I do blame people for staying in it when they know what their nation is doing overseas, or even worse... when they are overseas themselves.

I love people and I have met some kind-hearted soldiers... but as far as I'm concerned, the second the go overseas to a land which does not welcome them they become oppressors, and the second the shed another human's life they become murderers.

I dodged the mandatory military service in Israel. I cannot go back there for another 7 years, unless I want to be put in military prison (that is if they detect my entry, which is very likely). My life will not be the tool of any country's violence, no matter how benevolent it is.

 

Shame on anyone who assits the US government with its oppression and slaughter of other cultures who pose no threat.

 

Oh for fucks sake give it a rest.

 

Well i'm not sure if you answered my question. I thank you for your time anyway.

 

when i was thinking of enlisting, the money and enlistment bonuses and college tuition was brought up...but those weren't the selling points the recruiter used. one of the bigger points was how cool the Marine Corps digis looked - this was back when they were first introducing them 5-6 years ago. i wonder how many people enlisted just for that? but i didn't buy it.

however, as many on the forums know...i go to a Military College, the first private military college in the nation. so i'm around military people all the time. when i first got here, i was all into becoming an Officer in the Army or Marine Corps, hadn't really decided which branch i wanted. but i was in Army ROTC. well, i go through freshman year in the Corps and near the end have a knee injury and it required surgery.

so this knee injury allowed me to sit back and watch how things were done in the background. this is where i changed my mind on being in the military. the ignorance i've seen and been taught is over the top. the amount of dehuminization of the iraqi's and middle easterners is astounding...not everyone here is like that, but its to the point where you see it everyday, and it sickens me. my close friends aren't like that, which is why i just stick to them. one of the Master Sergeants called the Iraqis "booger butts" - thats what we were taught in class. and with my knee injury i was treated like shit - "you need to suck it", "no pain, no gain", "pain is weakness leaving the body", etc...

so yea, a lot of just plain ignorance

*note* this is from MY experience at this school and the recruiters i have seen and talked to

 

No doubt. They've admitted that their new recruitment technique is to target teen minorities by fortifying their outposts in lower class urban areas. It's gotten so bad they are even requiring poorly funded high schools to give juniors a military apptitude test. They hound poor districts, families and kids, because they know they don't have the voice or clout to stick up for themselves...or if they do who's going to listen? The use tactics asking high school boys if they are scared to join the military and make fun of them if they reply yes. They are using brain washing techniques to those who aren't even enlisted.
Is a 17 year-old foster child who's told that he doesn't have the money or ability to go to college really capable of making a balanced decision about whether or not he wants to go to war?
We're sending the very people who this country disservices to fight a war for the wealthy, for the people who are against affirmative action, against low-intrest student loans. The country doesn't give a fuck about these poor, young minorities...that's why they ascribe them all to infantry, send them in the dessert in an unarmored vechicle and send them home dead with peoples suitcases in the bottom of a jet liner.-Is this really any better than Saddam gassing the Kurds? If the republican party had it's way it would commit complete genocide by sending every non-white poor american to war to fight for oil and mask it by continuously using the word freedom. Freedom from what? We need freedom from our own goverment before we go on to liberate other countries.

 

i totally agree with you, and im so glad youre here instead of there.

i hate the way war is so glorified. its sick. its like they found a gimmick that sells. regardless of how they die, if theyre 'heros' or died in honor or whatever it wont make their families miss them any less. and i agree about them becoming murderers. so many people come back from war so fucked up because they cant handle the shit that they had to do.

 

I have learned to keep my opinions about the military to myself and to the people I know agree with me.

 

I got myself in loads of trouble for not being able to keep my big mouth shut in Arkansas. They love the military there... damn death threats and stuff...

All I did was walk around campus with a loudspeaker while shouting out facts about war, and then brought a bunch of friends out to dance and laugh and play guitars around in the ROTC recruitment day.

Haha, so am I, pretty lady, so am I

 

People say war is the reason we have freedom. Well europeans have their freedom. You don't see them at war. Can someone explain that?

 

They've already done all of their war-waging for centuries... that gained them their capital and land.

 

Serriously up to WW2 Europe basically was gigantic war, and techniaclly one could argue the Balkan wars in the early 90's gave freedom to countries such as Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia.

 

The entire system is corrupt. As a matter of fact, this is not your system -- it's theirs. Whether your work, pay taxes, or join the military, you are serving THEIR system. Being a part of this system, you are working so that the few at the top, who own virtually everything, can continue to live in luxury.

 

Europe enslaved the *almost* the entire world, they've robed Africa of what was formerly the continent which produced over 90% of the worlds gold.

They divided Africa and Asia into artificial divisions which have led to centuries of warfare, including the Congolese Civil war started in the 1990's, and has been the most deadly war since WW2.

Nearly 3 million civilian causalties.

France was the largest arms supplier to this war, and provided troops and logistics for economic gain.

The Swiss, Germans, and most of middle Europe had deals with diamond and mineral companies to continue these conflicts. Others had deals to smuggle and launder this blood money.

So that's the explanation. Europes peaceful because they've developed a community of close intercoperation on trade treaties which in many cases are deadly exploitave. They don't use large militaries anymore.

 

military means you fallow orders and fallowing orders means whoever's at the top can more or less get away with whatever they get a wild hair up their assess to do, like we've with what we've got in the u.s. today.

arguments can be made for occasions when something like a military is needed, even useful, but what is the so called nation that a nation's military is defending?

i think mb and rat are closer to truith then fiction. a LOT closer.

if patriotism is a good thing because it makes nations possible, sedition is an even better thing, because that's what it seems to take to keep them honest.

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