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
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
You have any fucking clue how much lying goes on at MEPs when you pick your MOS?
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.
No, it just prey 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're 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.
Sounds like you expect other people to live by standards you yourself don't live. Unless you're somehow a full-time soup kitchen worker you still contribute to the machine just by living in this country and paying taxes. The military can be a good option for a lot of people. But not a great option for most people.
Sounds like you've had the privilege in life to where something like military service is something you'd never consider. Be thankful you have that privilege.
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.
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.
/thread
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.
We had some volunteers roll out with us when we had guys on leave but admin guys on QRF is just peak Army.
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.