FA+
Shop
The Saddest Lie Of Them All
16 years ago
Who are the worst people in the world?
I don't mean individuals, and I don't mean criminals. I mean people whose work is considered respectable by society, yet is unimaginably harmful, heartless and sick when one really stops to examine it. There are plenty of examples. Who do you think I mean? Politicians? Cops? Priests!?
No.
Military recruiters.
I think it takes a unique kind of evil to lure your fellow human beings into a trap, knowing that lives will undoubtedly be destroyed because of what you've done, and then collect your paycheck at the end of the week and go home to your nice, warm bed. Because it's not just that recruiters do everything in their power to sign you up, knowing full well you could be sent overseas to die, to kill, to lose limbs or to lose your sanity. It's not just that these people LIE, shamelessly and endlessly, to get you to sign that paper. It's that these people have Been There Themselves. They've been through Basic, they know what a monstrously bloated, unevolved blob of bureaucratic incompetence and rank-fetishizing favoritism our military really is. And still they sucker people into it. I guess these people are completely hollow inside. If you cut them open, all you'd find is an empty rubber suit. Because I can't believe that a man with any kind of honor could actually sit and think about the fact that spouses and children will never see their loved ones again, Because Of His Actions, without getting up and sticking a gun barrel in his mouth.
I write all this because a friend of mine, who is in the military right now, is being tortured. I use words all the time, but there simply aren't any strong enough to describe the depression and frustration he is going through right now. Simply put, my friend is a thinker. He asks 'Why?' and 'Can this be done better?', and that is the exact opposite attitude of what the military wants. They are trying to break his spirit, he is fighting back with every ounce of strength he has, and I am doing everything I can to help. You ever see those commercials for the Marines where they have 'em all standing shoulder to shoulder, looking absolutely indistinguishable from each other in their perfect little uniforms? They want you to look like that on the INSIDE, too. Whatever was inside your heart, mind and soul, they strip it down and put up red, white and blue wallpaper instead. Hoo-ah.
What follows is my friend's account of what his life in the military has been like for him so far. He asked me to do this for him with all the desperation of a guy trying to get onto the last helicopter out of Saigon. Not for selfish reasons, but because this stuff needs to be heard. If even one of you reads this and realizes, "There's no way in hell I'm signing up now!!" we will be endlessly happy.
I have had to edit this heavily. I have had to remove every last bit of personal information from his story. His name, his FA username, the other people's names, his location. Why? (Are you ready to take a trip into Crazy-land, kiddies?) Because if the military finds out that he did this, THEY WILL PUT HIM IN PRISON. Do you get that? Do you fucking get that!? If they found out he did this, he could "be reduced in rank to E-1, stripped of all awards, and would find myself in Ft. Leavenworth Military Penitentiary for the next five years." FIVE FUCKING YEARS. Why? Because they call this 'subversion', and it basically means 'covering our asses by taking a shit on the right to freedom of speech'. I can understand how they'd take a dim view of a soldier during wartime talking about how the enemy's so much better. But this is different. This is describing behavior that's incompetent to the point of criminality. This is whistle-blowing. This is telling the TRUTH and trying to SAVE LIVES from MENTAL AND PHYSICAL TORTURE. And for doing that, they would put him in jail.
If that isn't the most outrageously un-American thing I have ever heard of, it definitely comes close.
So, no speculating on who this mystery soldier is. Any comments doing so will be deleted immediately. And by immediately, I mean immediately
The rest of this is my friend's words, with occasional comments and clarification from me.
* * * * *
I write this because of several reasons. One being that I have meant to for quite a long time now. Two, because a dear friend is willing to take what I write, condense it, and post it for the world to see. And Three...because it needs to be said. On paper, not just in my mind.
My name is SPC _______ ________. I go by the online fursona of ____________. I am [age], a [species of his fursona], and bisexual. And I am tired of the lies. I am tired of the mistruths. I am tired, tired, TIRED of the bullshit. What do I speak of?
The military.
Oh sure, I can already see some of your reactions to this. "Grow up", "Oh, too bad your career was a bad one... guess you made it that way yourself?", "Hahahaha, u suxxors go bak n cri u fukkin pussi Lolololllol!!!1!".
Bite me.
None of you know. Only those who are in the military now know. Or have been in the past. And very few have stepped up to say what I am going to. Why? Because they are vilified just like I will be. They are told they are traitors, or weak, or that theirs was a fluke in an otherwise flawless system of military politics and supremacy. They are cast out and the machine goes on, assimilating new meat every day, telling them the same lies I was told.
I should start at the beginning, three and a half years ago. I was desperate to find some meaning in my life. Anything, really, that would establish me as more than just another college dropout who lived with his parents. So I looked into the military. Made both my parents proud. They both served and now their darling boy would too. I chose to go into the bandfield.
I was rather...perplexed by the seemingly one-track-mindedness of the recruiters to get me in. They made concessions, swept things under the table, pulled strings to get my audition set up. Got me to a processing station. Told me even more lies. I took an ASVAP Test and scored in the 99th percentile, the highest score. Was told I could write my own check! Was told basic would be a breeze for me, even! Just tell 'em yer a bandsman, son, and they'll go easy on you!
Now, if you would, just sign this piece of legally binding paper that says that we never once lied to you and that if you try to say we did, we'll drop your sorry ass faster than J Lo dumped Affleck.
[That fact's simply too disgustingly evil not to drive home a little further. They actually lied like fucking crazy to get him to sign, then forced him to sign a waiver saying that if he found out and told anyone, *he* could be punished for it. Only a system _built_ upon lying to new recruits would require such a policy. Because they know that if the general populace ever found out about this, they wouldn't meet their precious fucking quotas anymore.]
Yeah, that's right. They covered their own asses. I wondered, but didn't say anything. Thought basic would be a breeze.
Wrong.
It was hell on earth. The kind where you wake up every morning cursing the fact that you didn't die in your sleep to end the suffering. I made it through... was destroyed by drill sergeants who loved the fact I was the only bandsman in the company. Took great pride in mocking my "bandfagginess". Was told I'd be a pisspoor soldier. I passed their stupid tests. Did what they told me. Didn't care anymore. I realized some years later that part of the core of who I am died in basic. It would be two years before I could find it again.
AIT was next...the School of Music! Now here was where things would be better, right?...Right? Nope. Still bad. In fact, this was somehow worse, because now it was mental instead of physical. The teachers viewed us as fodder to boost their own reviews. How we did wasn't to our merit, but a merit to THEIR teaching skills. They were routinely awarded, we weren't. I graduated top of my class, full honors. What did I get? A pat on the back and a "Good job, son." No award. Thus, the idea of "Rewards are plentiful...but only if you have the rank, silly," came about. It's everywhere. People like me, good soldiers are routinely passed up for promotion or awards. We work our asses off while the senior NCOs sit in their comfy chairs, make decisions, get coffee, shoot the shit while having 9 billion cigarettes outside...and they get the ArComs. [Army Commendations] They get the awards, the commendations, the bullets to add to their evaluation reports. What do we, the grunts who actually DO THE SHIT THEY ASK GET???
Nothing. A pat on the back and a "Good job, son." At this point, you're thinking I'm overreacting. Fine. Let's see how you would deal with the idea of someone taking all of the credit for your hard work and you get bupkus. Not very much fun, is it? IS IT!?
No... it isn't.
After the school came Fort [Location]. I stayed there for two years... and found it to be a new hell, one that was longer lasting... one that was sheer torture. See, here, while the physical punishment continued through extra PT regimens (since I wasn't *quite* up to the Army's snuff of weight and PT scores), the mental and emotional stress skyrocketed.
Here, the next lie happened. I got demoted. Some might say I deserved it. I didn't. In fact, the whole thing was a farce. See, the new First Sergeant (1SG) came in like a dervish in the Sahara and wiped our semi-orderly lifestyle all to fuck and back. I didn't cotton to some fuckstick thinking that just because he had rank over me, he could dictate my HOME life as well as my work life. So what happened? I vented! I vented to a friend and to my squad leader, like I was always told to. 'Let it out before it explodes and something bad happens.' I told them that I'd rather go AWOL than feel so angry that I might hurt someone accidentally.
They told their superiors. What happened? It got back to the 1SG. And he took my exact statement, flipped it around, and said that "________ threatened specifically to kill me." I was sent to a mental institution for ten days... it was like being in prison, but without the assrapings and more smiles. The food sucked too. Upon getting back into the unit, genuinely ready to try and be better, my rank of Specialist was stripped from my chest and replaced with a bright-n-shiny Private First Class rank. Oh, and 14 days extra duty. That was hell, too. Now everyone in the unit was forced to babysit me as I scrubbed urinals, waxed floors, and did the menial shit that no one else wanted to.
I gritted my teeth and pushed through anyhow. I knew the military's rulebook on this one. When a soldier is demoted, three months must pass before they are eligible to get back to their previous rank (provided they aren't trying to get back to sergeant or above). I waited. Three months. THREE. MONTHS. Three long months of being the new kicking-bitch in the unit. Anything bad happens, blame ________. Mad at your work? Take it out on the PFC; he won't mind, after all, he's just a stupid PFC. Want to yell at someone? 'HEY, ________!!! GET OVER HERE!!!'
Three. Long. Months.
I waited, did what I was told. Was a good little private, minded my P's and Q's. My squad leader, a horrible monster by the name of SSG [Stupid] and my platoon sergeant, an even worse individual named SFC [Worse], both promised me I would get rank back.
I didn't. I asked and they started dangling it over my head. I lost rank in May of 2007. August came and because of the stress, I started failing my PT tests (a severely stupid measure of your overall physical fitness...one that most commanders will put over your actual job performance as a judgment on your career skills), again. And so they dangled it even more. "Just pass your test and weigh-in, ______, and we'll give it back to you!"
Seven months later, in March of 2008, I did. That's right. It took seven months of sheer mindnumbing training to push my body back to where the Army said it needed to be. And I did it! I passed! Was sick as a dog because of it, but I passed both my weigh-ins and my PT tests. I rushed to the office, asking if April would be my promotion, just like they promised.
"Sorry, ________, but we're going on TDY next month and we just won't be able to promote you on the road. It'll have to wait till May". I found out that was bullshit. There is no rule that says that a unit that is on TDY as a whole cannot promote or award while on said TDY. I gritted my teeth and continued on.
May happened. I rushed to the office again. Asked for my rank.
"Sorry, ________, but the admin office over at the Headquarters battalion lost yer paperwork. We'll just have to wait till June. <smartass grin>." Also a lie. Turns out that [Worse] hadn't even submitted it. Just put it to the side. Pissed off the Admin NCOIC (a good friend of mine) something fierce, but he got away with it. I hurt terribly at this. Combined with some earthshattering news from my then girlfriend (Long story short: She was gonna have our kid, never told me, had a miscarriage and decided to tell me five months after I broke up with her) pushed me to make a few mistakes at work. Missing formations by matters of mere seconds. I got counseled a few times and tried my best to make up for it.
June. No more excuses. In front of the whole unit, I was rewarded my SPC rank after 13 months of being a PFC. I cried a bit... and the unit, aside from those who I trusted and was friends with, largely yawned and rolled their eyes.
Two weeks later, another Article 15 is leveled at me. That's right. Two weeks after I got promoted, my squad leader and platoon sergeant wanted to level three counts of AWOL against me. AWOL!!! For missing formations? That I had been counseled on and done remedial training for already!? Isn't that double jeopardy?
Not in the military, it's not.
I snapped. Flew off the handle at them both. Was raging, crying hard through hateful tears. Couldn't believe that the people who were supposed to look out for my well being could possibly do this to me. And through it all, they smiled at me. Feral, tiger sharkish grins. Waiting for me to finish so they could destroy me once and for all.
It was then my commander, who I later found out was bisexual himself (and who would prove to be one of the greatest leaders I have ever known), came back to the back room, took one look at me on my last legs, and let me go home for the day.
I was so hurt by all of this... tired of it... ready to end everything. Yeah...that's right. I was considering suicide. I knew of a few overpasses that had shoddy guardrails and a long drop. It'd be quick and painless or long and painful. I didn't care. It'd be over.
[I want you all to just pause a second and realize how close the military came to murdering one of my dearest friends. He only revealed this bit of info to me after a long, long time when we were first discussing making this journal, and I asked him if he was comfortable revealing it here. He said he was, and I agreed: people had to know that, yes, it really can get this bad.]
I called up my greatest friend, on the off chance that I could at least hear his voice one last time before I left. He was there for me... heard and listened to me sob my heart out at this unbelievable betrayal of trust. At this monstrous abuse of power and rank, an unwarranted, unneeded assault on someone who was only trying to make it out with his sanity intact. My friend listened, comforted, helped me regain my composure...and helped me to realize that I had indeed stood up for myself... for the first time, I had said "NO". I had shown inner strength, real heart and courage through all of this... and that their petty attacks against me could do nothing to diminish me in his or any of my other family members' eyes. He told me I was damn near heroic in my holding to personal honor, to not stoop to their level.
He told me he loved me as his brother, his friend.
I didn't commit suicide. I ate a pop-tart and fell asleep.
[Again, I gotta break in. For starters, to me, "I ate a pop-tart and fell asleep" is just an incredibly poignant phrase. Haven't we all had days where something terrible happened and the world crashed in on us and hope died inside us and tomorrow seemed impossible? Yet somehow, in a daze, we stagger through them, go to sleep, and wake up the next day realizing we at least made it through that far.
Also, as you may have guessed, I was that friend he called. It honors me to know that I essentially saved his life, without even realizing I was doing it. I do remember that night though, and I wish it was possible to convey to you what his voice was like on the phone. The sheer difference in it, the knowledge from the first syllable he spoke that something was WRONG. I think we've all gotten phone calls like that, where you just _know_, almost as soon as you pick up, and your blood goes cold, and you brace yourself...]
The next week, I faced my Article 15 hearing. [Stupid] and [Worse] were there, as was the devil 1SG. All looked smug. Here would be the chance to crush this little turd under their heels for good. My chief listened to my argument. Listened as I said that I felt like I had no chance to defend myself, that I was alone against unbeatable odds, that anyone would make mistakes like this and that a missed formation was not ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE. Asked for forgiveness, promised to be better, to work harder, get stronger.
I came back and he ripped my rank off me.
"How hard was that for me, ________?"
"Not very sir...<holds back more tears>..." *here we go again...another year of pain*
He looked at me and said, "No. That was the toughest thing I've ever done. You don't deserve this. A commander does not enjoy stripping rank from his soldiers... I know I don't. I've seen you try. I've seen you bash your head against a wall, repeatedly hang that head in defeat..."
"...but I've seen you lift your head back up and find your way around it. The next wall came and you got around it, too. You're a hell of a good soldier, _______, but more importantly, you're a damn good soul. You try. You give. You hurt for others. You make mistakes and you try to correct them. You have pushed harder than ANYONE I have ever seen in my military career for something that meant more than just an extra $185 a month."
"That's why I will not reduce you in rank. You're something special... and you don't deserve this." With that, he drove pointed looks at all three of the other occupants of the room and replaced my rank of SPC on my chest, telling me I would lose a fourth of my monthly paycheck as penance for my tardiness.
I later found out that the 1SG, after I left, was removed from command for disobeying direct orders and lying about it.
I sneer at that. I take sweet petty vengeance in it. It feels good.
[FUCK YEAH!]
I came here, to [foreign country], to escape Fort [Location]. Aside from the hell of my superiors, [Location] was a musical poisonous bog of dank repetition. Stale, redundant ceremonies. Boring lectures. I came here because it was the only opening in the field at that time that would not deploy to Iraq; a fucked up war made by an even more fucked up individual.
I got here, praying for salvation.
I found more lies.
Here, they cared more about me. My squad leader actively fought for me, as did the other sergeants in my squad. They stood behind me, have stood with me, run with me, bled with me as I strive to make myself better.
They are ridiculed. Told to give up on me. I'm just a failure. I was a PFC once, remember? Failures like me need to be cast off. But still, it continues.
Even worse, the lies stack and compound themselves. Now, I deal with the agony of knowing that I will never be Sergeant before my time in the military is up. It's too late. [Worse] and [Stupid] fucked me over good on that one and got the last laugh, so to speak. So I take it up the ass and keep going. Keep moving forward.
And yet...it drives me nuts, knowing that because of my rank, because of the fact that I've been reduced in rank, yet earned it back...despite the fact I play my ass off and give, give, give to this band, I am not heard. I am not listened to. My ideas, while sometimes good and sometimes not, are rarely heard. I see things that can be improved and upon giving my case to the proper channels, get told, effectively, to "Sit and Spin On It!"
[I remember once, my friend called me up and I could hear loud carousing going on in the background. Despite the fact that the band had a gig the next day, they were all staying up late getting shitfaced drunk the night before. My friend was going around trying to get anyone to listen to him that maybe this was a bad idea. I think he cared more about the music; that it would suffer if they were all hungover the next day. No one listened. He went back to his room, still frustrated that no one had listened. He told me he wanted to go back and try again one last time. I told him, "Let it go. They won't listen, and all that will happen is you will frustrate yourself worse. Go to sleep, get rested up, and play great tomorrow. Let them suffer the consequences of their decision." He did listen and go to bed, but I thought the whole thing was a good example of how he works. He is often the only one thinking responsibly and caring about doing a good job, and they ignore him, and it eats him inside.]
Case in point: A military Tattoo Marching Festival was in the works. The person leading it, doing the training for the actual marching show would, in his tactics of direction and leadership, make most collegiate drum majors laugh their collective asses off at him. Stale, repetitious to a point of lethargic practices, a voice that seemed to have never left puberty quite all the way, and incessant adherance to practice methods that made little to no sense, he effectively drove us all batshit bonkers.
But we got it done. We left for the [foreign place] Tattoo. Performed four different shows. As well as that, I and SGT [Bob] (one of three people in the entire military that knows I am bi and accepts me for it completely) came to the realization that he and I were the only two bandmembers would would be doing EVERY single job that week. All of the tattoo shows, the opening and closing ceremonies, the parade, the jazz band, and the Dixieband shows. We counted. NINE JOBS in Seven Days. We did it with smiles on our faces, tried our best. Pushed hard...
...and yet...
I know, deep down, that it won't matter. See, I've seen them give awards to people for the last Tattoo we did. I saw who got what. And I know... I won't get anything. Not even a pat on the back and a "Good Job, son." But the fucking BUSDRIVERS WILL. That's right! Those lazy bastards (who abused the idea of being a bus driver as an excuse to not perform any more than they had to) will get ArComs. The little annoying shit who had VERY little to do with the actual planning of the show will get an ArCom. Hell, anyone who they feel like it will get one.
Everyone except me and Sgt [Bob].
Why?
Because we aren't high enough in rank to push for anything otherwise. Never mind that we did our actual military job more than anyone else (including those who sat around all day in their rooms playing Warcraft and picking their asses). Never mind that we didn't sleep as much as everyone else. Never mind that we went out and actually did PT at 6 a.m. while everyone else lazed about.
We won't get anything... not even recognition by the commander. My squad leader (a closet homosexual who loves to wear more trendy clothing than the Olsen twins, but denies his sexuality with a vigor that could rival that of Mr. Garrison from South Park) tells me to look at it as a vote of unconscious confidence in my abilities. After all, if they didn't trust my playing and technical abilities, they wouldn't have given me all those jobs, right? Hmm? >:3
FUCK. RIGHT. OFF.
No. No and NO. There was no unconscious anything about it. My section leader simply put me on everything because that meant that HE didn't have to. That the bus drivers (who, since they were driving the buses, were still arriving at all of our gigs with everyone else, thereby proving that they were NOT working any harder than the rest of us) could get some rest. And since I'm lowest on the totem pole, being a SPC, I would have to bear that responsibility. I even asked, begged for the parade off. Said that the bus driver could do it. I was so tired and worn.
"Oh suck it up, ________."
And herein lies the biggest lie of them all...the saddest one...the one that strikes me as most hurtful and that I hope that anyone reading this understands.
"Wanna join the military? Great! Simply sign away your rights and freedoms as an American citizen... nay, a human being! Give your body and sanity to us for the next 3 27 years! We'll pay you benefits that you could find elsewhere! We'll give you housing that is constantly falling apart at the seams and do nothing to improve it! We'll take your advice and opinions, wipe our asses with them, light them on fire and laugh! We'll push you to give your all for your superiors, who could honestly give two shits about you! They'll take the credit and you'll just have to suck on the big fat FailStick!
Even better, wanna be heard? GREAT! Simply rip everything you are to shreds and become one of us! Become a sergeant who doesn't care about his subordinates! Fuck those little turds! You'll have the power then! Who needs them? No, you can order them around to your every whim and there's nothing they can do about it! You'll be one of us, one of the Good Ole Boys then! And your life will be great...yeah, you had to give up family, friends, love, everything that freedom essentially stands for, but HEY, WHO GIVES A SHIT?
...You'll make $200 more a month than you did!"
That's the lie. That the military is this great and powerful force. That we're unstoppable, united, one Team, HOOAH. You'll join and be a sergeant, get good skills for civilian life.
Reality, on the other paw, is that we are nothing more than two different parts of a workforce: The Haves and the Have-nots. You will be a have-not. To become a Have, all you need do is turn your back on everyone you love. Become selfish and self-caring. Once you are a Have, you will have everything. More money, more power, more control and you needn't worry about anyone who gets in your way.
I have been a Have-Not my entire career...and it hurts. Knowing that there is nothing I can do to change that now. Oh, you may say there is, but until you've been here, in my dust covered boots, you don't know anything. You don't know. Those that are in... there are some who are good. Some who haven't forgotten... and they are repeatedly held back by those who have forgotten. Paperwork goes missing. Loved ones can't join them in deployments overseas. They find inconsistencies in their paycheck and leave statements.
The good ole boys will win. Everytime.
The only thing...the ONE thing that the military has done for me is make me stronger. Not physically. But inside my heart. Oh sure, I got big muscles, yeah... but without my will... my knowledge that those I love wait for me on the other side... wait for me to come home and live with them and love them and cherish them always...
Those muscles mean precisely dick.
I stand firm. I have [number] days left as of writing this. [Date] is my last day. I will wake up that day in the arms of my male mate. Kiss him gently and know that my hell is over.
But I won't rest until you know. You think that cake is a lie? The military is worse. They lie all the time. Will cheat you, steal from you, make you suffer in ways even worse than a homophobic high-school shower beating ever could. Make you hurt, make you bleed, inside and out...
...and they'll do it with smiles on their faces, born of the knowledge that they can, will, and have already gotten away with it. And when they see you realize that... they'll smile even bigger, stroke their massive ego-erections, and laugh. Laugh... laugh...
Please. Anyone who reads this. I have less than [number] months to go. But I would never repeat this. Never re-enlist. The Ads, the recruiters... they lie. My dearest friends have seen the shambles that this job, this VOLUNTEER job has reduced me to. They have hurt for me... they know I speak truth.
[He does. Trust me folks; he is actually _holding back_ here.]
If you still want to join... that's your choice. I can't stop you. But I warned you. I tried to make you see. I tried to let you know that the only way to succeed is to kill yourself inside.
Please... stop the cycle. Our military needs to know it cannot do this anymore. If only one person reads this and decides to keep on with their normal life, knowing that it can be worse even when it gets "better" with a military job... I will weep tears of joy.
My Name is Specialist ______ ________. I am an American Soldier. What I have said here is the truth. Nothing more, nothing less. I am a soldier and I hate the military. I am a Specialist and have been abused by those of rank for their own petty and criminal devices. I have been pushed, pulled, kicked, yelled, and sworn at, all in the name of training me to be "a better person". I have hurt... I have cried... I have contemplated suicide.
I have been saved by my friends and family who all live OUTSIDE the military. I have regained my inner strength. I have fought back. I have lost... but I WILL win. In the end, I will leave this accursed corporation and will have won. Because they tried and failed to take my heart from me.
They will have failed.
...and there will be no more lies...ever again.
* * * * *
EDIT: Over the course of people commenting on this journal, I realized that some of the things I'd written turned out not to be true. My friend wasn't actually at risk of going to prison for doing this (thank goodness; we were both worried like crazy). Also, many recruiters are forced into the job and kept under horrible pressure to bring in more people. I do feel sympathy for them, but at the same time I cannot ignore the harm their job causes others. So, my view is still that military recruiting is evil work, but not everyone doing it is evil themselves, geddit? (Of course, any recruiter who absolutely looooves doing their job should be run over by a cement truck or something.)
I'm leaving the journal itself up mostly because it wouldn't be fair to everyone who commented if I took it down. A lot of people said some really passionate, brilliant things here. There are some links to articles that really shook me. And there's also a few meatheads here and there that provide good examples of how NOT to argue a point.
Someone who got offended by this journal thought that I was using my friend's story as a way to get attention for myself. That is as far from the truth as possible. I have sat and listened to my friend on the phone as he described things that have happened to him in the military. I've heard him cry and suffer and feel worthless, and I have wanted to _hurt_ the people responsible for making him feel like that. With this journal, my intention was to give him a place to speak from, and I wanted people to see my fury towards the people who have treated him like shit. The factual errors I made here were made because I had reason to believe them at the time, and very likely because my anger at the injustice I saw being done to my friend made me exaggerate more than I should. I just wanted you to feel the anger that I felt. That's really what it comes down to: When someone hurts someone I care about, I want to hurt them worse. It's not a very civilized feeling, I know, but if I'm going to make an ass of myself, doing it out of loyalty to a friend is a reason I can live with.
---
It's brutal to read, but if this journal affected you, you should also definitely read this one:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/704827/
I don't mean individuals, and I don't mean criminals. I mean people whose work is considered respectable by society, yet is unimaginably harmful, heartless and sick when one really stops to examine it. There are plenty of examples. Who do you think I mean? Politicians? Cops? Priests!?
No.
Military recruiters.
I think it takes a unique kind of evil to lure your fellow human beings into a trap, knowing that lives will undoubtedly be destroyed because of what you've done, and then collect your paycheck at the end of the week and go home to your nice, warm bed. Because it's not just that recruiters do everything in their power to sign you up, knowing full well you could be sent overseas to die, to kill, to lose limbs or to lose your sanity. It's not just that these people LIE, shamelessly and endlessly, to get you to sign that paper. It's that these people have Been There Themselves. They've been through Basic, they know what a monstrously bloated, unevolved blob of bureaucratic incompetence and rank-fetishizing favoritism our military really is. And still they sucker people into it. I guess these people are completely hollow inside. If you cut them open, all you'd find is an empty rubber suit. Because I can't believe that a man with any kind of honor could actually sit and think about the fact that spouses and children will never see their loved ones again, Because Of His Actions, without getting up and sticking a gun barrel in his mouth.
I write all this because a friend of mine, who is in the military right now, is being tortured. I use words all the time, but there simply aren't any strong enough to describe the depression and frustration he is going through right now. Simply put, my friend is a thinker. He asks 'Why?' and 'Can this be done better?', and that is the exact opposite attitude of what the military wants. They are trying to break his spirit, he is fighting back with every ounce of strength he has, and I am doing everything I can to help. You ever see those commercials for the Marines where they have 'em all standing shoulder to shoulder, looking absolutely indistinguishable from each other in their perfect little uniforms? They want you to look like that on the INSIDE, too. Whatever was inside your heart, mind and soul, they strip it down and put up red, white and blue wallpaper instead. Hoo-ah.
What follows is my friend's account of what his life in the military has been like for him so far. He asked me to do this for him with all the desperation of a guy trying to get onto the last helicopter out of Saigon. Not for selfish reasons, but because this stuff needs to be heard. If even one of you reads this and realizes, "There's no way in hell I'm signing up now!!" we will be endlessly happy.
I have had to edit this heavily. I have had to remove every last bit of personal information from his story. His name, his FA username, the other people's names, his location. Why? (Are you ready to take a trip into Crazy-land, kiddies?) Because if the military finds out that he did this, THEY WILL PUT HIM IN PRISON. Do you get that? Do you fucking get that!? If they found out he did this, he could "be reduced in rank to E-1, stripped of all awards, and would find myself in Ft. Leavenworth Military Penitentiary for the next five years." FIVE FUCKING YEARS. Why? Because they call this 'subversion', and it basically means 'covering our asses by taking a shit on the right to freedom of speech'. I can understand how they'd take a dim view of a soldier during wartime talking about how the enemy's so much better. But this is different. This is describing behavior that's incompetent to the point of criminality. This is whistle-blowing. This is telling the TRUTH and trying to SAVE LIVES from MENTAL AND PHYSICAL TORTURE. And for doing that, they would put him in jail.
If that isn't the most outrageously un-American thing I have ever heard of, it definitely comes close.
So, no speculating on who this mystery soldier is. Any comments doing so will be deleted immediately. And by immediately, I mean immediately
The rest of this is my friend's words, with occasional comments and clarification from me.
* * * * *
I write this because of several reasons. One being that I have meant to for quite a long time now. Two, because a dear friend is willing to take what I write, condense it, and post it for the world to see. And Three...because it needs to be said. On paper, not just in my mind.
My name is SPC _______ ________. I go by the online fursona of ____________. I am [age], a [species of his fursona], and bisexual. And I am tired of the lies. I am tired of the mistruths. I am tired, tired, TIRED of the bullshit. What do I speak of?
The military.
Oh sure, I can already see some of your reactions to this. "Grow up", "Oh, too bad your career was a bad one... guess you made it that way yourself?", "Hahahaha, u suxxors go bak n cri u fukkin pussi Lolololllol!!!1!".
Bite me.
None of you know. Only those who are in the military now know. Or have been in the past. And very few have stepped up to say what I am going to. Why? Because they are vilified just like I will be. They are told they are traitors, or weak, or that theirs was a fluke in an otherwise flawless system of military politics and supremacy. They are cast out and the machine goes on, assimilating new meat every day, telling them the same lies I was told.
I should start at the beginning, three and a half years ago. I was desperate to find some meaning in my life. Anything, really, that would establish me as more than just another college dropout who lived with his parents. So I looked into the military. Made both my parents proud. They both served and now their darling boy would too. I chose to go into the bandfield.
I was rather...perplexed by the seemingly one-track-mindedness of the recruiters to get me in. They made concessions, swept things under the table, pulled strings to get my audition set up. Got me to a processing station. Told me even more lies. I took an ASVAP Test and scored in the 99th percentile, the highest score. Was told I could write my own check! Was told basic would be a breeze for me, even! Just tell 'em yer a bandsman, son, and they'll go easy on you!
Now, if you would, just sign this piece of legally binding paper that says that we never once lied to you and that if you try to say we did, we'll drop your sorry ass faster than J Lo dumped Affleck.
[That fact's simply too disgustingly evil not to drive home a little further. They actually lied like fucking crazy to get him to sign, then forced him to sign a waiver saying that if he found out and told anyone, *he* could be punished for it. Only a system _built_ upon lying to new recruits would require such a policy. Because they know that if the general populace ever found out about this, they wouldn't meet their precious fucking quotas anymore.]
Yeah, that's right. They covered their own asses. I wondered, but didn't say anything. Thought basic would be a breeze.
Wrong.
It was hell on earth. The kind where you wake up every morning cursing the fact that you didn't die in your sleep to end the suffering. I made it through... was destroyed by drill sergeants who loved the fact I was the only bandsman in the company. Took great pride in mocking my "bandfagginess". Was told I'd be a pisspoor soldier. I passed their stupid tests. Did what they told me. Didn't care anymore. I realized some years later that part of the core of who I am died in basic. It would be two years before I could find it again.
AIT was next...the School of Music! Now here was where things would be better, right?...Right? Nope. Still bad. In fact, this was somehow worse, because now it was mental instead of physical. The teachers viewed us as fodder to boost their own reviews. How we did wasn't to our merit, but a merit to THEIR teaching skills. They were routinely awarded, we weren't. I graduated top of my class, full honors. What did I get? A pat on the back and a "Good job, son." No award. Thus, the idea of "Rewards are plentiful...but only if you have the rank, silly," came about. It's everywhere. People like me, good soldiers are routinely passed up for promotion or awards. We work our asses off while the senior NCOs sit in their comfy chairs, make decisions, get coffee, shoot the shit while having 9 billion cigarettes outside...and they get the ArComs. [Army Commendations] They get the awards, the commendations, the bullets to add to their evaluation reports. What do we, the grunts who actually DO THE SHIT THEY ASK GET???
Nothing. A pat on the back and a "Good job, son." At this point, you're thinking I'm overreacting. Fine. Let's see how you would deal with the idea of someone taking all of the credit for your hard work and you get bupkus. Not very much fun, is it? IS IT!?
No... it isn't.
After the school came Fort [Location]. I stayed there for two years... and found it to be a new hell, one that was longer lasting... one that was sheer torture. See, here, while the physical punishment continued through extra PT regimens (since I wasn't *quite* up to the Army's snuff of weight and PT scores), the mental and emotional stress skyrocketed.
Here, the next lie happened. I got demoted. Some might say I deserved it. I didn't. In fact, the whole thing was a farce. See, the new First Sergeant (1SG) came in like a dervish in the Sahara and wiped our semi-orderly lifestyle all to fuck and back. I didn't cotton to some fuckstick thinking that just because he had rank over me, he could dictate my HOME life as well as my work life. So what happened? I vented! I vented to a friend and to my squad leader, like I was always told to. 'Let it out before it explodes and something bad happens.' I told them that I'd rather go AWOL than feel so angry that I might hurt someone accidentally.
They told their superiors. What happened? It got back to the 1SG. And he took my exact statement, flipped it around, and said that "________ threatened specifically to kill me." I was sent to a mental institution for ten days... it was like being in prison, but without the assrapings and more smiles. The food sucked too. Upon getting back into the unit, genuinely ready to try and be better, my rank of Specialist was stripped from my chest and replaced with a bright-n-shiny Private First Class rank. Oh, and 14 days extra duty. That was hell, too. Now everyone in the unit was forced to babysit me as I scrubbed urinals, waxed floors, and did the menial shit that no one else wanted to.
I gritted my teeth and pushed through anyhow. I knew the military's rulebook on this one. When a soldier is demoted, three months must pass before they are eligible to get back to their previous rank (provided they aren't trying to get back to sergeant or above). I waited. Three months. THREE. MONTHS. Three long months of being the new kicking-bitch in the unit. Anything bad happens, blame ________. Mad at your work? Take it out on the PFC; he won't mind, after all, he's just a stupid PFC. Want to yell at someone? 'HEY, ________!!! GET OVER HERE!!!'
Three. Long. Months.
I waited, did what I was told. Was a good little private, minded my P's and Q's. My squad leader, a horrible monster by the name of SSG [Stupid] and my platoon sergeant, an even worse individual named SFC [Worse], both promised me I would get rank back.
I didn't. I asked and they started dangling it over my head. I lost rank in May of 2007. August came and because of the stress, I started failing my PT tests (a severely stupid measure of your overall physical fitness...one that most commanders will put over your actual job performance as a judgment on your career skills), again. And so they dangled it even more. "Just pass your test and weigh-in, ______, and we'll give it back to you!"
Seven months later, in March of 2008, I did. That's right. It took seven months of sheer mindnumbing training to push my body back to where the Army said it needed to be. And I did it! I passed! Was sick as a dog because of it, but I passed both my weigh-ins and my PT tests. I rushed to the office, asking if April would be my promotion, just like they promised.
"Sorry, ________, but we're going on TDY next month and we just won't be able to promote you on the road. It'll have to wait till May". I found out that was bullshit. There is no rule that says that a unit that is on TDY as a whole cannot promote or award while on said TDY. I gritted my teeth and continued on.
May happened. I rushed to the office again. Asked for my rank.
"Sorry, ________, but the admin office over at the Headquarters battalion lost yer paperwork. We'll just have to wait till June. <smartass grin>." Also a lie. Turns out that [Worse] hadn't even submitted it. Just put it to the side. Pissed off the Admin NCOIC (a good friend of mine) something fierce, but he got away with it. I hurt terribly at this. Combined with some earthshattering news from my then girlfriend (Long story short: She was gonna have our kid, never told me, had a miscarriage and decided to tell me five months after I broke up with her) pushed me to make a few mistakes at work. Missing formations by matters of mere seconds. I got counseled a few times and tried my best to make up for it.
June. No more excuses. In front of the whole unit, I was rewarded my SPC rank after 13 months of being a PFC. I cried a bit... and the unit, aside from those who I trusted and was friends with, largely yawned and rolled their eyes.
Two weeks later, another Article 15 is leveled at me. That's right. Two weeks after I got promoted, my squad leader and platoon sergeant wanted to level three counts of AWOL against me. AWOL!!! For missing formations? That I had been counseled on and done remedial training for already!? Isn't that double jeopardy?
Not in the military, it's not.
I snapped. Flew off the handle at them both. Was raging, crying hard through hateful tears. Couldn't believe that the people who were supposed to look out for my well being could possibly do this to me. And through it all, they smiled at me. Feral, tiger sharkish grins. Waiting for me to finish so they could destroy me once and for all.
It was then my commander, who I later found out was bisexual himself (and who would prove to be one of the greatest leaders I have ever known), came back to the back room, took one look at me on my last legs, and let me go home for the day.
I was so hurt by all of this... tired of it... ready to end everything. Yeah...that's right. I was considering suicide. I knew of a few overpasses that had shoddy guardrails and a long drop. It'd be quick and painless or long and painful. I didn't care. It'd be over.
[I want you all to just pause a second and realize how close the military came to murdering one of my dearest friends. He only revealed this bit of info to me after a long, long time when we were first discussing making this journal, and I asked him if he was comfortable revealing it here. He said he was, and I agreed: people had to know that, yes, it really can get this bad.]
I called up my greatest friend, on the off chance that I could at least hear his voice one last time before I left. He was there for me... heard and listened to me sob my heart out at this unbelievable betrayal of trust. At this monstrous abuse of power and rank, an unwarranted, unneeded assault on someone who was only trying to make it out with his sanity intact. My friend listened, comforted, helped me regain my composure...and helped me to realize that I had indeed stood up for myself... for the first time, I had said "NO". I had shown inner strength, real heart and courage through all of this... and that their petty attacks against me could do nothing to diminish me in his or any of my other family members' eyes. He told me I was damn near heroic in my holding to personal honor, to not stoop to their level.
He told me he loved me as his brother, his friend.
I didn't commit suicide. I ate a pop-tart and fell asleep.
[Again, I gotta break in. For starters, to me, "I ate a pop-tart and fell asleep" is just an incredibly poignant phrase. Haven't we all had days where something terrible happened and the world crashed in on us and hope died inside us and tomorrow seemed impossible? Yet somehow, in a daze, we stagger through them, go to sleep, and wake up the next day realizing we at least made it through that far.
Also, as you may have guessed, I was that friend he called. It honors me to know that I essentially saved his life, without even realizing I was doing it. I do remember that night though, and I wish it was possible to convey to you what his voice was like on the phone. The sheer difference in it, the knowledge from the first syllable he spoke that something was WRONG. I think we've all gotten phone calls like that, where you just _know_, almost as soon as you pick up, and your blood goes cold, and you brace yourself...]
The next week, I faced my Article 15 hearing. [Stupid] and [Worse] were there, as was the devil 1SG. All looked smug. Here would be the chance to crush this little turd under their heels for good. My chief listened to my argument. Listened as I said that I felt like I had no chance to defend myself, that I was alone against unbeatable odds, that anyone would make mistakes like this and that a missed formation was not ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE. Asked for forgiveness, promised to be better, to work harder, get stronger.
I came back and he ripped my rank off me.
"How hard was that for me, ________?"
"Not very sir...<holds back more tears>..." *here we go again...another year of pain*
He looked at me and said, "No. That was the toughest thing I've ever done. You don't deserve this. A commander does not enjoy stripping rank from his soldiers... I know I don't. I've seen you try. I've seen you bash your head against a wall, repeatedly hang that head in defeat..."
"...but I've seen you lift your head back up and find your way around it. The next wall came and you got around it, too. You're a hell of a good soldier, _______, but more importantly, you're a damn good soul. You try. You give. You hurt for others. You make mistakes and you try to correct them. You have pushed harder than ANYONE I have ever seen in my military career for something that meant more than just an extra $185 a month."
"That's why I will not reduce you in rank. You're something special... and you don't deserve this." With that, he drove pointed looks at all three of the other occupants of the room and replaced my rank of SPC on my chest, telling me I would lose a fourth of my monthly paycheck as penance for my tardiness.
I later found out that the 1SG, after I left, was removed from command for disobeying direct orders and lying about it.
I sneer at that. I take sweet petty vengeance in it. It feels good.
[FUCK YEAH!]
I came here, to [foreign country], to escape Fort [Location]. Aside from the hell of my superiors, [Location] was a musical poisonous bog of dank repetition. Stale, redundant ceremonies. Boring lectures. I came here because it was the only opening in the field at that time that would not deploy to Iraq; a fucked up war made by an even more fucked up individual.
I got here, praying for salvation.
I found more lies.
Here, they cared more about me. My squad leader actively fought for me, as did the other sergeants in my squad. They stood behind me, have stood with me, run with me, bled with me as I strive to make myself better.
They are ridiculed. Told to give up on me. I'm just a failure. I was a PFC once, remember? Failures like me need to be cast off. But still, it continues.
Even worse, the lies stack and compound themselves. Now, I deal with the agony of knowing that I will never be Sergeant before my time in the military is up. It's too late. [Worse] and [Stupid] fucked me over good on that one and got the last laugh, so to speak. So I take it up the ass and keep going. Keep moving forward.
And yet...it drives me nuts, knowing that because of my rank, because of the fact that I've been reduced in rank, yet earned it back...despite the fact I play my ass off and give, give, give to this band, I am not heard. I am not listened to. My ideas, while sometimes good and sometimes not, are rarely heard. I see things that can be improved and upon giving my case to the proper channels, get told, effectively, to "Sit and Spin On It!"
[I remember once, my friend called me up and I could hear loud carousing going on in the background. Despite the fact that the band had a gig the next day, they were all staying up late getting shitfaced drunk the night before. My friend was going around trying to get anyone to listen to him that maybe this was a bad idea. I think he cared more about the music; that it would suffer if they were all hungover the next day. No one listened. He went back to his room, still frustrated that no one had listened. He told me he wanted to go back and try again one last time. I told him, "Let it go. They won't listen, and all that will happen is you will frustrate yourself worse. Go to sleep, get rested up, and play great tomorrow. Let them suffer the consequences of their decision." He did listen and go to bed, but I thought the whole thing was a good example of how he works. He is often the only one thinking responsibly and caring about doing a good job, and they ignore him, and it eats him inside.]
Case in point: A military Tattoo Marching Festival was in the works. The person leading it, doing the training for the actual marching show would, in his tactics of direction and leadership, make most collegiate drum majors laugh their collective asses off at him. Stale, repetitious to a point of lethargic practices, a voice that seemed to have never left puberty quite all the way, and incessant adherance to practice methods that made little to no sense, he effectively drove us all batshit bonkers.
But we got it done. We left for the [foreign place] Tattoo. Performed four different shows. As well as that, I and SGT [Bob] (one of three people in the entire military that knows I am bi and accepts me for it completely) came to the realization that he and I were the only two bandmembers would would be doing EVERY single job that week. All of the tattoo shows, the opening and closing ceremonies, the parade, the jazz band, and the Dixieband shows. We counted. NINE JOBS in Seven Days. We did it with smiles on our faces, tried our best. Pushed hard...
...and yet...
I know, deep down, that it won't matter. See, I've seen them give awards to people for the last Tattoo we did. I saw who got what. And I know... I won't get anything. Not even a pat on the back and a "Good Job, son." But the fucking BUSDRIVERS WILL. That's right! Those lazy bastards (who abused the idea of being a bus driver as an excuse to not perform any more than they had to) will get ArComs. The little annoying shit who had VERY little to do with the actual planning of the show will get an ArCom. Hell, anyone who they feel like it will get one.
Everyone except me and Sgt [Bob].
Why?
Because we aren't high enough in rank to push for anything otherwise. Never mind that we did our actual military job more than anyone else (including those who sat around all day in their rooms playing Warcraft and picking their asses). Never mind that we didn't sleep as much as everyone else. Never mind that we went out and actually did PT at 6 a.m. while everyone else lazed about.
We won't get anything... not even recognition by the commander. My squad leader (a closet homosexual who loves to wear more trendy clothing than the Olsen twins, but denies his sexuality with a vigor that could rival that of Mr. Garrison from South Park) tells me to look at it as a vote of unconscious confidence in my abilities. After all, if they didn't trust my playing and technical abilities, they wouldn't have given me all those jobs, right? Hmm? >:3
FUCK. RIGHT. OFF.
No. No and NO. There was no unconscious anything about it. My section leader simply put me on everything because that meant that HE didn't have to. That the bus drivers (who, since they were driving the buses, were still arriving at all of our gigs with everyone else, thereby proving that they were NOT working any harder than the rest of us) could get some rest. And since I'm lowest on the totem pole, being a SPC, I would have to bear that responsibility. I even asked, begged for the parade off. Said that the bus driver could do it. I was so tired and worn.
"Oh suck it up, ________."
And herein lies the biggest lie of them all...the saddest one...the one that strikes me as most hurtful and that I hope that anyone reading this understands.
"Wanna join the military? Great! Simply sign away your rights and freedoms as an American citizen... nay, a human being! Give your body and sanity to us for the next 3 27 years! We'll pay you benefits that you could find elsewhere! We'll give you housing that is constantly falling apart at the seams and do nothing to improve it! We'll take your advice and opinions, wipe our asses with them, light them on fire and laugh! We'll push you to give your all for your superiors, who could honestly give two shits about you! They'll take the credit and you'll just have to suck on the big fat FailStick!
Even better, wanna be heard? GREAT! Simply rip everything you are to shreds and become one of us! Become a sergeant who doesn't care about his subordinates! Fuck those little turds! You'll have the power then! Who needs them? No, you can order them around to your every whim and there's nothing they can do about it! You'll be one of us, one of the Good Ole Boys then! And your life will be great...yeah, you had to give up family, friends, love, everything that freedom essentially stands for, but HEY, WHO GIVES A SHIT?
...You'll make $200 more a month than you did!"
That's the lie. That the military is this great and powerful force. That we're unstoppable, united, one Team, HOOAH. You'll join and be a sergeant, get good skills for civilian life.
Reality, on the other paw, is that we are nothing more than two different parts of a workforce: The Haves and the Have-nots. You will be a have-not. To become a Have, all you need do is turn your back on everyone you love. Become selfish and self-caring. Once you are a Have, you will have everything. More money, more power, more control and you needn't worry about anyone who gets in your way.
I have been a Have-Not my entire career...and it hurts. Knowing that there is nothing I can do to change that now. Oh, you may say there is, but until you've been here, in my dust covered boots, you don't know anything. You don't know. Those that are in... there are some who are good. Some who haven't forgotten... and they are repeatedly held back by those who have forgotten. Paperwork goes missing. Loved ones can't join them in deployments overseas. They find inconsistencies in their paycheck and leave statements.
The good ole boys will win. Everytime.
The only thing...the ONE thing that the military has done for me is make me stronger. Not physically. But inside my heart. Oh sure, I got big muscles, yeah... but without my will... my knowledge that those I love wait for me on the other side... wait for me to come home and live with them and love them and cherish them always...
Those muscles mean precisely dick.
I stand firm. I have [number] days left as of writing this. [Date] is my last day. I will wake up that day in the arms of my male mate. Kiss him gently and know that my hell is over.
But I won't rest until you know. You think that cake is a lie? The military is worse. They lie all the time. Will cheat you, steal from you, make you suffer in ways even worse than a homophobic high-school shower beating ever could. Make you hurt, make you bleed, inside and out...
...and they'll do it with smiles on their faces, born of the knowledge that they can, will, and have already gotten away with it. And when they see you realize that... they'll smile even bigger, stroke their massive ego-erections, and laugh. Laugh... laugh...
Please. Anyone who reads this. I have less than [number] months to go. But I would never repeat this. Never re-enlist. The Ads, the recruiters... they lie. My dearest friends have seen the shambles that this job, this VOLUNTEER job has reduced me to. They have hurt for me... they know I speak truth.
[He does. Trust me folks; he is actually _holding back_ here.]
If you still want to join... that's your choice. I can't stop you. But I warned you. I tried to make you see. I tried to let you know that the only way to succeed is to kill yourself inside.
Please... stop the cycle. Our military needs to know it cannot do this anymore. If only one person reads this and decides to keep on with their normal life, knowing that it can be worse even when it gets "better" with a military job... I will weep tears of joy.
My Name is Specialist ______ ________. I am an American Soldier. What I have said here is the truth. Nothing more, nothing less. I am a soldier and I hate the military. I am a Specialist and have been abused by those of rank for their own petty and criminal devices. I have been pushed, pulled, kicked, yelled, and sworn at, all in the name of training me to be "a better person". I have hurt... I have cried... I have contemplated suicide.
I have been saved by my friends and family who all live OUTSIDE the military. I have regained my inner strength. I have fought back. I have lost... but I WILL win. In the end, I will leave this accursed corporation and will have won. Because they tried and failed to take my heart from me.
They will have failed.
...and there will be no more lies...ever again.
* * * * *
EDIT: Over the course of people commenting on this journal, I realized that some of the things I'd written turned out not to be true. My friend wasn't actually at risk of going to prison for doing this (thank goodness; we were both worried like crazy). Also, many recruiters are forced into the job and kept under horrible pressure to bring in more people. I do feel sympathy for them, but at the same time I cannot ignore the harm their job causes others. So, my view is still that military recruiting is evil work, but not everyone doing it is evil themselves, geddit? (Of course, any recruiter who absolutely looooves doing their job should be run over by a cement truck or something.)
I'm leaving the journal itself up mostly because it wouldn't be fair to everyone who commented if I took it down. A lot of people said some really passionate, brilliant things here. There are some links to articles that really shook me. And there's also a few meatheads here and there that provide good examples of how NOT to argue a point.
Someone who got offended by this journal thought that I was using my friend's story as a way to get attention for myself. That is as far from the truth as possible. I have sat and listened to my friend on the phone as he described things that have happened to him in the military. I've heard him cry and suffer and feel worthless, and I have wanted to _hurt_ the people responsible for making him feel like that. With this journal, my intention was to give him a place to speak from, and I wanted people to see my fury towards the people who have treated him like shit. The factual errors I made here were made because I had reason to believe them at the time, and very likely because my anger at the injustice I saw being done to my friend made me exaggerate more than I should. I just wanted you to feel the anger that I felt. That's really what it comes down to: When someone hurts someone I care about, I want to hurt them worse. It's not a very civilized feeling, I know, but if I'm going to make an ass of myself, doing it out of loyalty to a friend is a reason I can live with.
---
It's brutal to read, but if this journal affected you, you should also definitely read this one:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/704827/
I told my stepdad all this - Lt. Colonel in the Air Force - and he just looked at me and said, "sounds like she got seriously recruited." I wasn't sure why he had a look of pity on his face until now. I'm still holding out hope that she'll have an ok time of it but... This isn't making it look promising.
Please, thank your friend for sharing.
Do you think she'd be receptive to reading this? It could at least brace her for what's ahead.
My friend's the one who wants to thank *you*, and all the other commenters, for helping him feel like he's finally being heard. :)
<sigh> Look, it's a long story and I've already had several people here insult him viciously and ignorantly. At this point we both just kind of want it to stop.
Long story short, he's definitely not the military type and he's been consistently hammered about that ever since he signed up. He was told a multitude of blatant lies by his recruiter (who them made him sign a waiver saying that if he found out he'd been lied to, and he told anyone, HE would be the one punished). At the first place he was stationed at, he was continuously bullied by two sergeants who fucked around with him so much that he came very close to suicide. If I hadn't been there to listen, he would be dead right now. At his second base, he was diagnosed with PTSD for what had happened to him. Since then, he's found himself in a culture where rank dictates one's worth as a human being and even the smallest problems can't be fixed because of incompetence and stubborn insistence on tradition over common sense. Frankly, my friend has a justice complex. When he sees unfairness, whether it's happening to him or anyone else (especially other people, actually), he cannot stand it. And it's driving him up the wall that he can't DO anything about the BS he sees around him.
Imagine that you are a genius at repairing things. You live for it. Then one day you volunteer for a job and find yourself in prison instead. You are kept in a jail cell 24 hours a day with 1,000 broken clocks, appliances, toys, etc. You have no tools, your mouth is gagged, and your hands have been encased in concrete. That is what my friend is going through. He _cannot_ make himself stop caring about the deception, sadism and inefficiency he sees around him. Either he stays true to himself, and pushes through their ostracism for months and months until he's finally free to come home, or he can give in to them and kill off his individuality. As his friend, I'm doing everything I can to listen to what he has to say and help him ignore the insults and just endure till he's free.
And also that sometimes he turns into a bunch of naked girls. ;)
He also uses it in order to coerce the Ero Senin, aka the Pervy Sage, into training him. The Pervy Sage writes erotic novels, and at one point Naruto decides to finish his latest novel so he'll have more time to train Naruto. There's a side-story where they have to chase down a ninja mailman in order to stop him from delivering Naruto's erotic novel to the publisher, but they fail and the novel is a huge success. Hilarious show, sometimes.
Please tell him I said that.
A close friend of mine has been considering the military... I'm going to show this to him in hopes that it convinces him otherwise.
I've always hated out government and military... I knew it was BAD... but... I never knew it was nearly this extreme... the shit they show in movies is child's play compared to the truth.
What's worse, war is spreading like the plague all around. The military will need TONS more people.. and that.. well, more lies... more subtle lies and the like... its horrid.
And they say being gay was bad *tsk*
*shrugs* IMO? Its greed, fame and power XD
I seem to recall a song called "Onward Christian Soldiers"... ;)
But seriously, thank you for your comments. My friend thanks you heartily. :)
Onward Buddhist Priests!
Onward Child of Islam,
Fight 'til you're deceased!
Fight the biggest battles,
Join the thickest fray!
All for the greater glory of
DISCORDIA!
(( I have the dead tree version! WOO! ))
>Please tell him I said that.
He's seent he journal and wanted me to specifically thank you for that. :)
>A close friend of mine has been considering the military... I'm going to show this to him in hopes that it convinces him otherwise.
YES! Please, let me know how it goes!
You are a hero for helping them make that decision. You realize that, don't you? :)
WAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAHAHAAA!!! :D
*Licks you clean* :3
Ideas + Enlistedman.
Enlistedmen /do not exist to think./
They are not paid to think, they do not live to think.
There's is to do and die.
If you are an even remotely intelligent person, there is ONE way into the military. And it's an ROTC program with a commission at the end.
Also, never expect anything worthwhile out of the military aside from killing. Only silly people think it's for anything else.
No, I wouldn't call them silly. I'd call them suckers. You don't get mad at someone for believing a lie they've been told their whole life. Sadly, I imagine most of the people who support the military have simply never been told what it's actually like; they get all their info from war-glorifying movies 'n TV news 'n shit.
And no, before you assume that it was all good stuff, no. Most of their stories are of the same variety as the one you posted.
The thing is, there are good, honourable men in there, and history proves that those men will suffer as long as is needed to be able to do what is needed, when it's needed.
Your friend, is -in short- a real badass (in a good resilient way.)
Screw the physical awards, he deserves so much better.
Also, thank your friend for sharing this... and DO tell him that.. well, he just plain rocks for being able to hold out.
*bows*
A true hero, yes.
what? you thought they only try that BS on men? good luck with that kind of thoughts boys...
and your friend as fa as i can tell he is a good man...and it takes a REAL COURAGE to be able to stand up to those assholes,look them in the eye, and say FUCK OFF!..in the end what helped him get through this wasn't the mulitary training,wasn't the sargents,commanders or anyone..it was his inner strength...his will to cling onto to who is he is, and his firends. that's made him stronger. i feel for anyone who goes into the miltary....it's the worst thing that you can ever do...
Given how desperate they are to fill their quotas, it would not surprise me to hear them going after *any* group. They probably say all sorts of bullshit about equality for women, when all they want are more warm bodies; gender irrelevant.
>in the end what helped him get through this wasn't the mulitary training,wasn't the sargents,commanders or anyone..it was his inner strength...his will to cling onto to who is he is, and his firends. that's made him stronger.
Absolutely true. I've told him this, but he's modest to an infuriating degree. Maybe if we get oodles of FAers saying it too, he'll finally listen. ;)
>i feel for anyone who goes into the miltary....it's the worst thing that you can ever do...
Well, pouring sulfuric acid on your genitals *might* be worse, but I'm not certain. ;)
I hope that when he does get out, he finds what he's looking for.
Why do I get the sense you're holding back a bit? Don't worry; if you can't talk, I totally understand why. I'm risking my own ass by posting this; I don't wanna get anyone else sent to the stockade too. ;)
Let me put it another way: I could see myself theoretically being friends with someone who worked in the church if they were a truly good person and didn't teach a bunch of soul-crushing bigoted bullshit. But if I found out a friend of mine was a recruiter, I'd tell them to either quit or never speak to me again. And I'm generally very forgiving of individuals, so that's really saying something.
Good luck.
"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin*!
"But ranged an infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
"I shot him dead because--
Because he was my foe,
Just so:my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although
"He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand like--just as I--
Was out of work--had sold his traps**--
No other reason why.
"Yes quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown."
*cup **personal belongings
War is hell, simply put. No sane man could look through that carnage and killing and come back the same again. You think sacrificing so much for that would get you a lot of prestige and gifts in return.
As I skimmed that letter, unsure of whether your friend is in a war or not, I can see that the military does do the things that I thought were useless stereotypes. They break you down into a mindless being so you can obey orders without second guesses. Then I looked at this letter. That's pretty shameful. When you give your body, life, and mind into serving your country, you better damn well be rewarded greatly for it. Sounds like your friend isn't getting those rewards at all.
Within one swoop, my opinion of the military soured a lot...but I can't truly judge them unless I see how it works for myself. However, I am definitely keeping my distance.
I pray for your friend's safety until he comes home.
>That's pretty shameful. When you give your body, life, and mind into serving your country, you better damn well be rewarded greatly for it. Sounds like your friend isn't getting those rewards at all.
I know. The way this country usually treats veterans is reprehensible. It seems like it pretty much boils down to, 'Shut up and disappear, you. Your blown-off limb is unsightly to all the people watching the happy military parade.'
>Within one swoop, my opinion of the military soured a lot...but I can't truly judge them unless I see how it works for myself. However, I am definitely keeping my distance.
I disagree. I think you can indeed judge things without experiencing them firsthand, and in fact should. If I may use an example: Sometimes I'll see a trailer for a movie, and I'll simply know that there's no way in Hell I'm going to go see it. Whether it's not a genre i like, or it looks badly made or stupid, I don't have to actually sit through it and waste two hours to know I am not going to enjoy it. It's true you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I think it's fair to decide you don't like it after reading the back and the inside cover flap.
>I pray for your friend's safety until he comes home.
Normally I'd make a snide comment about my opinion of how well the power of prayer works, but I really do appreciate the thought, and your thoughtful comments. My friend and i both thank you. :)
I am so close to tears right now because my own father works for the military. He's a Captain in Army Public Affairs: they make advertisements, magazines, various Army merchandise, and also work with recruiters. Even though all he does is write magazine articles, take pictures and work the website, my dad is basically a recruiter.
I love my dad with all my heart. I look up to him and come to him for advice and comfort. He's a great guy who's tough and doesn't take any bullshit, but still has times to crack jokes and have a beer and a good time. He loves working for the army and would never, ever, ever even think about screwing a soldier out of anything they deserve, because he went through years of basic training and knows exactly how they feel. But he's just a guy with a desk job. He hasn't been outside North America for years.
I'm going to send this story to my dad; see how he feels about it. I honestly have no idea what he'll say, but if he does say anything I'll post back to you about it.
Your father works for an evil organization, I won't deny that. but in any evil organization, you look to the top to assign blame first. You assign responsibility to those who are truly responsible. I hope your father isn't one of them.
I don't blame the military. I blame those few individuals that put your friend through years of hell. I blame them for bastardizing their role as leaders. I blame them for outright insulting and degrading what the Army is supposed to stand for. But most of all, I blame them for adding yet another blemish on the face of a once-beautiful country that is already become more and more ugly in the world's eyes.
It doesn't matter where you seek power, be it in the military or in a Taco Bell. Power corrupts. Most people who seek power are sociopathic in nature, or just sycophants who know nothing except how to kiss ass. But every now and then you get a good leader, someone who knows that besides leading, they have to nurture, protect and give an example to their followers. That is why the chief, the one who stood up for him against Stupid and Worse, is my personal favorite character in this inspiring tale.
Also, I found that to keep myself from outright crying, I imagine their names actually are "Stupid" and "Worse". Like, their parents named them that.
Frankly, I've heard too many stories like his to believe he had an isolated experience. I'm not saying your dad's wrong about their being good people in the military, but I think there are problems built into the system. I think there are attitudes and unspoken rules that encourage people like my friend to be identified, isolated and ridculed. I think the military is an environment where weakness, or rather perceived weakness, is the greatest sin and the punishment is to pile more and more on top of those who are labeled weak in a misguided and cruel attempt to get them to 'shape up'. Someone else on this journal said that just because someone had a bad experience doesn't mean the whole military is terrible. I countered by saying that just because someone had a good experience does not mean the whole military is competent.
>It doesn't matter where you seek power, be it in the military or in a Taco Bell. Power corrupts. Most people who seek power are sociopathic in nature, or just sycophants who know nothing except how to kiss ass. But every now and then you get a good leader, someone who knows that besides leading, they have to nurture, protect and give an example to their followers. That is why the chief, the one who stood up for him against Stupid and Worse, is my personal favorite character in this inspiring tale.
Absolutely agreed about power corrupting. I think the military's rank system isn't much different from India's caste system. You get a higher rank, and suddenly you start to feel that those below you *deserve* to be below you.
And yes, that chief is a shining example of what the military should be (Hell, what any organization should be). Someone who looks past rank to try and find out the truth of a matter before making a decision.
>Also, I found that to keep myself from outright crying, I imagine their names actually are "Stupid" and "Worse". Like, their parents named them that.
<dry chuckle> They might as well have.
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Iraq_.....fits_1009.html
1162 is not isolated.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head. If you can't handle the stress of military training, it'll eat you alive (though I definitely don't agree with the targeting aspect of the whole thing). From what I could tell, your friend wasn't mentally prepared for what he was going through at first, though it's mostly due to the recruiters rushing him through it and not letting him have time to really think about what he was about to get into.
Also, I saw the link. I read that story last year and it pissed me right the fuck off.
The general man loves taking these journeys alongside the people of truth who really did it themselves... THEY think it's entertainment... long story short, though it's not my type of story (I'm not a non-fiction type), this touched me greatly and I can't imagine this not doing at least moderately well as a book of some kind. You and him should sit down after it's all over and done with and write this as an acctual book. Change the names and places and junk of course, hell put it in outer space, or the dark ages or what have you, just know that people out there want to know this story and are willing to take it up, and (if artificially) live through it all beside your friend's past self and, using their admittedly unimportant and obviously innefective thoughts, pull him through and see him to the end of it, to feel the same feeling he will undoubtedly feel once all is done. People care about this sort of thing, man...
... and in that sense, if one were to take that chance and publish it (aspects changed of course to hide him from the "bad guys", but with enough poignancy for people to understand that it is in fact mostly non-fiction), he could end up profitting from it, even. Irealize how shitty it was, but no matter what happens, people have got to make the best of things in life, and this is the first thing that comes to mind about this situation.
And another thing on that topic: if you really want to get the word out on things, a book would definitely be the most effective. This is, unfortunately, a small section of the world's people. Release a bbook and you're casting a much larger net, and you maay even catch a few more fish, getting them to say "oh shit, this is the current military situation? Fuck that, I'm staying here."
All in all, my heart aches for this guy, and if I had the power, I'd want to be there to see him come home to his family and hug him like a friend just so he knew that someone he doesn't even know cares enough about him to rest easier knowing he's out of that hole. Yet again Alex, the words you've shown me have touched me in a new place. You're quickly reaching that plain of having ellicitted every range of emotions from me, in this case being hope, and deep, deep sympathy. I hope I never have to endure torture such as that, and have always shied away from any kind of conflict, so there's no worries about me joining an army, even the Canadian one.
... I'm having trouble ending this, but |I think I've gotten my ideas and my point across, so I'll just say that I wish I knew the dates he was finished on so I could mark them on my calendar or something. o.o
It can't be half what I feel towards you right now.
I sucks that it didn't work out for him, but its all for the best if you ask me, rather he know right away that its not for him then he find out at a time when he is needed
And the dumb thing is, it's not that he's just weak or can't take it; it's that they consistently break his trust. If he was in combat with someone, I am sure he would do everything in his power to keep his buddies protected. There's a difference between stress from doing a job, and stress from having people you should be able to trust constantly lie to you or display grossly incompetent behavior.
picture if you can this situation.
Your on a urban patrol, your platoon has a detachment of ANA (afghan nation army) regulars with you, your walking through a market place, the whole time you have to watch everywhere and you need to be on the ball, if one of these so called non combatants is wearing a vest then you need to spot it before they tart to pray, so while your focused on that you get contact from a building at the other end of the market. the ANA guys lay down fire for you to move into a position to assault the building,half way to the building the ANA stop shooting and decide to reposition themselves out of harms way, leaving you and your section in the middle of an empty market square with no suppressing fire and with an enemy in an elevated position under cover, because of this 3 men in your section are shot one of them dies from there wounds.
all this happened because someone you should have been able to trust displayed grossly incompetent behavior. and now every time you go out with the ANA your under more stress from not knowing if they have your back or not.
Missing the point completely, check.
You're two for two so far, want to go for a hat trick of fail?
"There's a difference between stress from doing a job, and stress from having people you should be able to trust constantly lie to you or display grossly incompetent behavior."
And put it into perspective when such a situation would affect someone in a similar way, ergo i made a situation that was relevant to his given comment. But thanks for playing
the point was to put it in a military situation, where this persons stress due to broken trust is a good training tool, as it happens overseas. a solider must be trained to deal with the fact that when the shit hits the fan ppl do dumb things.
Secondly, I think that example just proved MY point. My friend has been in, and still is in, environments where he cannot trust people he should be able to trust. Just recently, he was told a direct lie by his CO about why he wasn't allowed to participate in a certain event, because the CO couldn't just be a man and tell him the real reason why. My friend says he found out from fellow soldiers that, yes, what the CO had said was the opposite of what was really going on, and that there was no way it could have been an honest mistake. That, to me, is cowardice. When a man is told one thing by his superiors, believes it because he has no reason not to, then finds out he was callously lied to, that man is not the one who has something wrong with him.
My friend is not in active combat. But I do know he is probably the most loyal man I know and he would _never_ desert someone who needed it like your example ANA guys did. I am being dead serious about this: I would trust my friend with my life in _any_ situation.
I was a little unsure of your post at first though! While reading the first paragraph, I thought for a second you were implying you thought this WAS all a made-up story! (Don't worry, I figured out what you meant by paragraph 2)
>All in all, my heart aches for this guy, and if I had the power, I'd want to be there to see him come home to his family and hug him like a friend just so he knew that someone he doesn't even know cares enough about him to rest easier knowing he's out of that hole. Yet again Alex, the words you've shown me have touched me in a new place. You're quickly reaching that plain of having ellicitted every range of emotions from me, in this case being hope, and deep, deep sympathy. I hope I never have to endure torture such as that, and have always shied away from any kind of conflict, so there's no worries about me joining an army, even the Canadian one.
Wow. I'm... kinda speechless. Lotsa emotions here. All I can really say is thank you. I'm glad to know that I can make others feel such emotion. And my friend and I are both glad to hear you'll be staying far away from that pit of mindfuckery.
I remember watching Dragon Ball (don't worry, the point of this is relevent) and Master Roshi had taken Goku and Krillin under his wing to teach them the ways of the turtle hermit. His regimen was tough and brutal, making them both wear a huge turtle shell on their backs all through training. They hated it of course, but they worked through it and somehow managed survival. They were eventually able to wear the turtle shells as if they were a second skin, barely noticing their weight. So when the day came that Master Roshi told them to take them off, they suddenly found they had ridiculous strength because of it, their normal bodies being much lighter without that added weight. i see this situation here as being a lot like that, the torture and nigh unbarrable treatment being like that turtle shell which he is now so close to removing. His inner strength and resolve shall no doubt be greatly reinforced after all this, but of course, at a significant price. Hopefully... it will end up some day being worth it... to the point where he may thank himself for living through it, but obviously reassure himself that he'd never do it a second time, given the chance.
Always remember that what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. But also that, if my own experience has ever tought me anything, it is the final stretch that is always the toughest. He's likely near the end of his rope here, and he can see the finish line out there on the horizon. Suddenly his progress is visibly measurable, and it will undoubtably become an instance of "a watched pot never boils". Do not concentrate on the finish line, concentrate on getting there. To count the dayys would be to draw them out unneededly. Just ride it out, coast through it, and for the love of hope, hope they don't fuck you out of it. And if they try to, fight them tooth and nail. You do not deserve to be fucked over and you do not deserve to take it laying down if they try it.
Fuck I can be wordy some times. @.@
They've already tried to lie to him and say he can't get out without relisting two more years. Thankfully, I told him they had to be lying, and of course they were. He is already making plans on how to get out and stay out. He is ready. When the day comes, he will leave fire trails behind him when he runs his ass home.
>Fuck I can be wordy some times. @.@
Indeed! ;)
Also, I woulda replied to your chat, but I'm busy repliyin' to these endless comments! BTW, Snakes On A Plane is TOO art!! Hell, it was a better movie than Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
(Fight scenes were good 'tho.)
... Damn I miss my old fencing class.
Say, that just made me have an idea... shall I bring my martial arts movies to AC when we're all together at AC 2010? I've got Last Samurai, Fearless, Forbidden Kingdom...
... You wouldn't mind if I started... pawing right there, would you? I know Alfie wouldn't mind... but I don't want to embarrass or squick anyone... if there's one thing I hate, it's making folks feel awkward or embarrassed, especially when I consider them to be close, dear friends like you, or family like Alfie and Zeph.
... here's a fun mental image for you... Alfie and Zeph double-stuffing me (which we're going to attempt when I visit in late September) and me sucking on you for good measure :3
Then again, I can't imagine they'd need a misfit bandsman that badly anyway. ;)
If it happens it happens. You can learn from it. But I really don't agree with using it intentionally.
Still, comparing them to slugs is pretty funny, I think. :)
I guess the Brits got so good at enslaving brown people, they thought, 'Why not do it to our own?'
Doesn't look like it, though they might have eyes, all it lists them as is 'optical tentacles'. So I suppose they'll only know what you typed in if one of them has some sort of net connection and an FA account... which wouldn't terribly surprise me these days honestly.
Tell your friend he is living proof that the Army doesn't make someone "Army Strong" its the other way around. I'd shake his hand if I could.
HOW THE FUCK IS THAT NOT TORTURE!? Jesus Fucking Christ, I cannot understand how any country can spew such bullshit about how much they love and support their soldiers, while at the same time treating them worse than they do convicted criminals. <shakes head in disbelief>
>Tell your friend he is living proof that the Army doesn't make someone "Army Strong" its the other way around. I'd shake his hand if I could.
If you're gonna be at Anthrocon again this year, I might just be able to arrange that. Keep mum about it though! ;)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/a.....889152,00.html
<shakes head in disbelief> Fuck... Why am I not surprised in the least to hear any of this!? I've said before, "In any evil organization, look to the top to assign blame first. The ones on the bottom are usually getting fucked over as bad as the ones they're fucking over themselves." When I said "I can't believe that a man with any kind of honor could actually sit and think about the fact that spouses and children will never see their loved ones again, Because Of His Actions, without getting up and sticking a gun barrel in his mouth." I guess I was right. You *can't* think about it too long without losing it... I will admit to having empathy for recruiters because of this, but I still believe they are responsible. If any of those recruiters killed themselves to ensure that they would not be forced to lie and hurt other people ever again, then I would call their suicides heroic. They ought to get medals and their higher-ups should be imprisoned.
This journal was mostly written with a certain type of recruiter in mind; the gung-ho, my-life-is-the-military kinda guy with a high rank and no qualms at all about their job. I suppose I should have clarified; recruiters who just *love* their work are the truest evil. It doesn't surprise me that anyone like this probably has plenty of grunts struggling under their thumb like bugs, forced to do the dirtiest of dirty work.
I would say to any recruiter out there with a conscience: Quit. Your higher-ups may threaten you with all sorts of dire warnings about what will happen if you do, but nothing they could punish you with is worse than living with the knowledge of what you are doing to others. Quit. Leave. Do anything you can to get out of there and do not think of the consequences. If I were ever a soldier, and my commanding officer ever asked me to do something I knew was absolutely morally wrong, I would refuse. Oh, they'd probably throw me in jail for it. But I would sit in that cell with a clean conscience, knowing I did what was right. That is worth more than any paycheck, any reward, anything else in the world.
I'm sure my friend would've given up and given in long ago if he didn't have a bunch of friends there to encourage him when he needed it. People in general are too reluctant to lean on their friends and ask for help when they really need it, which is sad.
It's just a sore point of mine: armchair warriors. I get very annoyed by people who sit in their arm-chair and tell other people to suck it up and take it.
My apologizes since I know you are not one of those people.
Ooooooh, I fucking HAAATE fuckers like that. Wanna see a perfect example? Look on this page for some comments by a guy called Kohaku.
>My apologizes since I know you are not one of those people.
I understand. When I tell someone 'you can do it', i'm not telling them to suck it up. I'm saying, 'This will be hellishly difficult, it will hurt worse than you can imagine, and there is absolutely no shame in asking for help from your friends to get through it. But when you do, you will have an iron will and you will not fear any of what the future has to offer, because you will have already been through the worst.'
Just about everyone in the military has faced some rough stuff at one time or another. Your buddy got fucked with. Yeah, that happens. The military is a grown up place. Why do I say that? Because you're responsible. Which is to say, that what you do has consequences.
If the military has built up a harsh, unforgiving culture it's because the consequences of failure are so brutal and permanent. In your office cubicle job, if you screw up, maybe some product is lost, or maybe someone gets the wrong forms, or maybe a customer bitches to your supervisor. In the military, people die.
You can candy coat that all you want, say "Oh, my buddy was excercising his independence, they didnt have a right to treat him so harshly." OR "Hey, he was just a band guy... nobody would die for what he did." And maybe you're right. We're only seeing his side of the story here. His NCO's and officers were "demons, monsters". His words. Of course, I wouldnt dare suggest that he was exaggerating, cause I dont know him... but maybe if he were placed in a position where he were responsible for other people... and was held up to scrutiny for their performance, his attitude towards others might be slightly differant. I'm sure he's a unique and beautiful snowflake. But if a battalion commander looks at his excel spreadsheet and sees that a soldier in C company is constantly failing his PT test, has been brought up on charges for badmouthing and threating his NCO's... has been put in a mental institution for threatening to kill someone... pressure comes down from the top, ya know?
He's thinking about things other then what a great person that soldier might be after you get to know him. He's thinking, how will this person's actions effect the rest of the unit?
There are plenty of individualists in the military. They just better not be on the job. If officer Y says, "We all need to take and hold that building" soldier X shouldnt be saying "Oh, lets have a discussion about this. Sir, I will not go with your course of action because I believe we were not given proper time to go over a cost benefit analysis." He should be assaulting the building, because everyone else in the platoon is assaulting the building and if his dumb ass is standing there talking about it when he should be killing the other guy before the other guy kills his buddy, then we all lose.
SO, in private, be as original and unique as you want. In uniform, you have to wear your game face. Life's hard...wear a helmet. That is the way it was and has to be.
I dont expect this to change your thinking, of course. The whole attitude of this journal is that of a bunch of smarmy would-be-intellectuals whose minds are actually closed. I mean really.... advocating fragging NCO's? How crass can you possibly be?
You can go eat a dick. I've heard all the horror stories from my grandpa, both war stories, and the utter fuckery he went through in training. Hazing's illegal now, you say? DOESN'T FUCKING STOP ANYONE FROM DOING IT, NOW DOES IT?!
THIS shit is WHY I'm never going in the military. My grandpa told me that himself, that I should never enlist, because of everything he went through. Because of everything this friend has gone through. Because of the lies and utter bullshit told to me by military recruiters who I used to be friends with in high school. There is NO cause for what this friend has gone through. There's putting someone through hell to toughen them up for military duty, then there's outright abuse, and that's what this friend has and is apparently going through.
I'm a coward, I'll admit it. I'd never go in the military, despite being a crack shot. Why? because I know I'd do my level best to destroy someone that treated me so badly as my friend is getting treated. I'd be breaking bones and leaving them there to suffer, because of the lies they tell. Because of the abuse they dish out.
It's not right, and you damn well ought to know that.
Your grandfather did this, your friend did that.
I don't give a shit.
That's got nothing to do with what I'm saying. You're talking out of your ass. You admit you're a coward. You also have no self control. I can't even top the things you've already said about yourself.
Talk about things you know something about or keep your damn mouth shut.
The point of my above statement was that the military has little tolerance for people who can't or won't meet their standards. This has more to do with necessity then harshness. If a harsh culture has been built up around, hey, shit happens. At the very least it has the beneficial effect of weeding out those who don't have the moral endurance and mental fortitude to handle the petty stresses of state-side soldiery, before they can get into combat and really fuck up.
Also, thanks for contributing! I'm sure you're a lovely person.
... I also admittedly hate the 'Army Strong' slogan. Whatever happened to pulling yourself up by your bootstraps?
I know I'm biased in this for several dozen reasons, but I just can't seem to equate everything I've been told with everything they trot out to get you to enlist. The punch one of the recruiters threw at me when I called him on the BS recruitment tactics didn't help matters.
>.>
I enjoy strategy. I like reading about old wars and playing simulations. Let me let you in on a little secret. The guy who uses the charge as his main attack is invariably the worst. It only works if you have such overwhelming force that you can afford to drown the enemy in your own blood. Sure, if you're Soviet Russia, you can be happy to kill 20 million of your own troops because there are 20 million more where they came from. Likewise, most of the greatest victories came from someone outside the current military traditions who was not indoctrinated in "how things are done". He had the presences of mind to tell everyone they were nuts.
My point is this. Kohaku is far more likely to die because of the way he was trained and the way he operates. I think that sucks and that we should do things differently.
Be glad. Sitting on your canker thinking about war is a lot safer then engaging in it.
Where exactly are we being "ass-raped" by an insurgency? In Iraq, the various Anticoalition forces are on the run and we've been able to secure provinces that havent seen peace in years.
In afghanistan, every time the Taliban has the balls to fight it gets smashed. The taliban kills 1 or 2 GI's and loses 30 of their own. Thats not winning. Of course, if you only listen to people who share your own viewpoint, I guess you can manage such a fantasy.
Oh, and let me let you in on "a little secret" since we're reciprocating and all buddy-buddy. I was one of the ones in Iraq who was cutting down those insurgent fucktards. I was one of the ones in Afghanistan who was hunting down IED's and breaking Taliban ambushes. What we are facing is 4th generation warfare in a fractured, mountainous country with many differant ethnic groups. I didnt get my knowledge out of a book.. I got it first hand.
There is no military advantage to be had in nurtering a "Can't hack it" mentality however you want to cut it. Independent thinking DOES have its place in the military. Suggestions, discussion BEFORE combat, role-playing scenario's...this all goes into the intelligent leader's planning. AFter every mission I've ever been on, we have an After Action Report. During this AAR, soldiers, NCO's, and officers are freely expected to speak their minds (respectfully) about how things should be improved, sustained, etc. Gripefests, however, are not productive. People who have nothing to contribute but gripes are not wanted. Productive comments, sure. Bitching.. no.
Kohaku is far more likely to fuck up the Taliban then some dude who never does anything more then think about it. If you've got a great idea, contribute.
I think he might have been referring to that stretch of time back in... I think it was '05, just after the whole "Mission Accomplished" dumbass move by Bush that it seemed like there were three or four attacks a week that made it on the news... My memory's lousy though, so don't quote me on that, I'm likely completely wrong in terms of timeframe.
The whole "Are" thing kind of throws that argument for a loop. If we were being raped 4 years ago, we certainly aren't now.
And it was 03' that Bush said "Mission accomplished".
True enough. Now it seems like we can't get fresh support from people fast enough. I'm hopeful about Iraq.
And there you go. Told you my memory's lousy.
Anyway...
At that point, it really sucks to miss the last chopper out...
And I don't want that happening to our soldiers which is why I bring this up.
*shrugs*
We took down Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito in four years. Germany had the most technically and tactically advanced war machine on the planet at the time. Japan had a navy that completely outclassed our own and airplanes that put ours to shame.
Four years. Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito went down.
Six years, and we still haven't secured Iraq. What's taking so long?
What empirical results do you have that show success?
In afghanistan, every time the Taliban has the balls to fight it gets smashed. The taliban kills 1 or 2 GI's and loses 30 of their own. Thats not winning.
I question your numbers. It's certainly not so rosy in Iraq.
Using the kill totals I've seen... it can be. Historically, you have to have a VERY high kill ratio to maintain an occupation, and that's before the insurgents had the communication technology we have today and it was easy to keep them divided.
The point of guerrilla warfare is not to capture objectives in a traditional military sense, nor it is to preserve assets or personnel. The point is to insure you get killed in a way that causes more recruits. That's why insurgents use civilians as shields. If you kill them you just make two more insurgents.
Furthermore, insurgents are a lot cheaper to arm. There's no supply line and all you have to do is find someone who hates the enemy enough that he doesn't care if he gets killed. Hand him a rifle and point him in the right direction. When you consider the cost of training a regular soldier, sending them across the planet, and maintaining a supply line to him because the parts for their high-tech equipment can not be locally acquired, you suddenly don't have to kill many soldiers to completely bring a warmachine to a halt.
Eight insurgents attack your supply truck while it's en route to a destination. One soldier is wounded. All eight insurgents are killed. Who won the engagement? The insurgents did. You have to evacuate the wounded to Germany. You have to repair the truck. The supplies didn't get to the objective on time. And now, since they have shown that they can attack your supply line, you have to divert protective forces to the delivery trucks, which costs more resources and worse, stretches your forces thin. And then a couple of the brothers of the people you killed realize that a new area near them is vulnerable, so they grab the family rifle...
Okay, so you want some constructive ideas, here are some:
1. Don't occupy sovereign nations. If you have to take them out, follow up with a Marshall Plan like the one that rebuilt Europe and prevented WW3 from breaking out.
2. When a mass-murderer organizes a massacre on your own soil, capture him as a police action, not a military one. Give him a Nuremberg style trial like they did for Nazi war criminals. Holocaust deniers are a discredited fringe because of this. Likewise, if we had put Osama Bin Laden on trail with all the evidence out in the open, no one would be able to claim it was "Victor's Justice" or other such propoganda.
3. If it actually does come down to an all out war with a rival nation state, your job as infantry really doesn't mean much. I'm sorry, but the current state of weapons is that we press a button in the comfort of our base and launch a missile that annihilates the enemy half the planet away. All you have to do is find the enemy, and we have surveillance satellites to do that. Being able to shoot someone at close range really isn't that important in a war between modern nation states.
Of course, the sheer destructive ability along with the threat of nukes means that a war between modern nation states is VERY unlikely to happen. Too dangerous. Better to kick around the little guys for political purposes and get our soldiers torn to shreds in the process... Sickening.
The strategy I outlined here is the same strategy that they used to defeat the Soviet Union. They didn't have to defeat the enemy military. They just had to make it so expensive that they couldn't afford to stay.
Our economy is in shambles and we are relying on the Chinese communists to finance our war. Our military has supply lines so long that they can't keep equipment in good repair in our soldiers hands. Our soldiers are taking multiple tours of duty, the first time that's been done in American history, and it's being done because we don't have enough soldiers.
Tell me that their strategy isn't working.
Listening to you talk about war is like listening to a virgin talking about sex.
I don't give a shit if you question my numbers. You want a body count? Fucking go out there and look. We're never going to get a straight body count. My contribution is just to tell you that ever every engagement where the enemy actually stood and fought we piled up Taliban bodies like sandbags.
The traditional paradigms of victory do not apply there. In Iraq, the government is nearly strong enough to support itself without our help. In Afghanistan, the improvement has been more gradual. Afghanistan is a larger country then Iraq and with less infrastructure. ITs more fractured and mountainous...and we have far fewer troops there. That will shortly change.
In any case, I'm not interested in a strategic or tactical discussion. Thats not why I'm here.
>I think its pretty much bullshit that you call Kohaku an "armchair warrior". Unlike pretty much everybody else in this thread, he's actually "been there, done that". He IS speaking from experience, which is about as far from an "armchair warrior" as you can get. Come to think of it, he's been through a metric fuckton more shit then your buddy. Your buddy didnt have to kill anybody. Stuff that in your pipe and smoke it.
It's valid to call him that because all that he, and you, know about my friend is what's in this journal. You do not know what he's been through. So to try to downplay his pain because the same events would have affected you differently is arrogant and cold-hearted.
"Your buddy didnt have to kill anybody" I assume you mean that Kohaku has. Sorry, but I would rather go to the stockade than be put in that position myself, and my friend likely would too. Yes, I would try to kill someone if my life were in danger or if they were endangering others. But I think that the act of killing another human being takes something away from you, on a deep level, and I would never want to have to make that choice. You can call that what you want, but I don't think there's anything weak, soft or cowardly about it. My life's experience has taught me that there are very few truly evil people in this world. I could not go to war and kill other humans and not think for the rest of my life that maybe they were no different or better than me. I could not help but think about the people who would never see them again. I could not help but think that real people are not one-dimensional video game enemies. I could not kill someone who I did not see as a direct threat to myself or others, just because I had been ordered to do so. If that makes me a bad soldier, then good. I am glad I am not one.
>Just about everyone in the military has faced some rough stuff at one time or another. Your buddy got fucked with. Yeah, that happens. The military is a grown up place. Why do I say that? Because you're responsible. Which is to say, that what you do has consequences.
You didn't get the point of the journal, did you? This wasn't 'rough stuff'. This wasn't just being 'fucked with'. This journal is only a tiny handful of examples of a system which consistently betrays trust and assigns punishments and rewards based not on performance, but on who you know and what rank you are. When you cannot predict what the consequences of your actions will be, because the rules change depending on who's giving them, then you cannot be responsible.
>If the military has built up a harsh, unforgiving culture it's because the consequences of failure are so brutal and permanent. In your office cubicle job, if you screw up, maybe some product is lost, or maybe someone gets the wrong forms, or maybe a customer bitches to your supervisor. In the military, people die.
It's not an 'unforgiving' culture, it's an 'incompetent' one. Sure, the military is a great place for people who are militant in the first place. So who or what does it benefit to try and take someone who is obviously not that type of person and try to *force* them to become it? My friend cares deeply about his band's performance and feels personally insulted when some higher-ranked fool threatens that for selfish or just plain ignorant reasons. Why the hell not make use of someone who actively wants to seek out and solve problems?
>But if a battalion commander looks at his excel spreadsheet and sees that a soldier in C company is constantly failing his PT test, has been brought up on charges for badmouthing and threating his NCO's... has been put in a mental institution for threatening to kill someone... pressure comes down from the top, ya know?
If the military were fair, that spreadsheet would show the reality of all those events. It would show the kind of man his chief saw when he said "You have pushed harder than ANYONE I have ever seen in my military career for something that meant more than just an extra $185 a month."
>He's thinking about things other then what a great person that soldier might be after you get to know him. He's thinking, how will this person's actions effect the rest of the unit?
If that's the case, why do they consistently not have the balls to just tell him that to his face? He's told me of occasion after occasion where he's promised 'this will happen if you just do this' and he finds out later there was never any intention of giving him what was promised. There was a recent example of a CO telling him a direct lie to keep him out of some event they didn't want him in. He found out the truth from another soldier, and it was literally impossible for the CO to just have made an honest mistake. Why such cowardice? Why can't these people just act like men and tell him the truth?
>There are plenty of individualists in the military. They just better not be on the job. If officer Y says, "We all need to take and hold that building" soldier X shouldnt be saying "Oh, lets have a discussion about this. Sir, I will not go with your course of action because I believe we were not given proper time to go over a cost benefit analysis." He should be assaulting the building, because everyone else in the platoon is assaulting the building and if his dumb ass is standing there talking about it when he should be killing the other guy before the other guy kills his buddy, then we all lose.
Why then, do they keep Soldier X? Why keep him in the military for years, against his will, if he is not an asset to the group? Why not let him go home, and not be petty or punitive about it?
And also, I'm sorry if this sounds like a cheap shot but I honestly believe it: maybe the military could use a hell of a lot more people like soldier X, so we'd kill a lot fewer innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm _aware_ that sometimes it cannot be helped, but I have heard of plenty of incidents where people on both sides have died because our intelligence wasn't good enough. Or because someone acted without thinking first. Hell, when the police in America sometimes can't tell a gun from a cellphone and they gun down an innocent man because he had the wrong skin color, I'm supposed to believe that soldiers in combat, who are probably under shitloads more stress, don't make similar mistakes and cause similar deaths!?
>I dont expect this to change your thinking, of course. The whole attitude of this journal is that of a bunch of smarmy would-be-intellectuals whose minds are actually closed.
<rolls eyes> You were doing so well there. Disagreeing with me but keeping civil about it. Why'd you gotta go and ruin it with a childish insult like that?
>I mean really.... advocating fragging NCO's? How crass can you possibly be?
You can't for a second imagine that I might have been joking?
That said, while I think there's probably ways out of a situation like that other than killing someone, if you're in a jungle surrounded by the enemy, and your CO is either so arrogant, crazy and stupid that you know none of you are going to survive if his orders are followed, I can definitely understand how soldiers in that situation would resort to fragging. I'm not saying it's right; I'm just saying I can understand why they'd make a decision like that.
An "armchair warrior" is a perjorative assigned to Walter Mitty types, who live out their rich fantasy lives while continuing in their day to day, banal existance. They achieve great feats in their imagination, but then make the mistake of drawing parallels between their "gaming" and objective reality. I think you and I and Kohaku have very differant interpretations of what an armchair warrior is. In the military, its a very nasty thing to call someone.
The tone of this journal has been very, very negative and unforgiving towards the military and military personnel specifically. Everybody who isn't your friend is unimaginative, heartless, a drone, brainless, idiots, cowards, or insert whatever insult you want here. I read over what your buddy said and as a soldier with 9 years experience (though now back at the house, for the time being) I have to say it sounds a lot like the "sour grapes" phenomenon. *If* the recruiter lied to him, then that was wrong... but going to a recruiter is like going to a used car salesman. You're supposed to have your guard up to begin with. Get things written in your contract and SIGNED or you really have nothing. I mean, I've had 3-4 encounters with recruiters now... and even had one as my platoon sgt. They aren't despicable human beings. People come to the military with unrealistic expectations. You've got an 18 year old kid who thinks he's gonna sign up and be transformed into Superman. Nope. Wrong. Also, if his chain of command lied to him, thats bullshit also... but again, we're only seeing one side of this. When I see a soldier calling his squad leader a "monster", his platoon sgt a "demon" and his 1st sgt a ...whatever... I really have to wonder whether the whole rest of the world is fucked up or whether this guy simply was having trouble wrapping his head around the whole thing.
You're right though. I'm not him. I don't know what he's been through, specifically. I *do* though, have a broad range of experiences in the very military apparatus which he's talking about. If we were talking about painting or working at the mall, very subjective experiences, then I wouldn't be responding to this at all. But the military is a largely monolithic structure. The rules and regulations and traditions which hold it together are uniform. Therefore, when someone makes a claim about it, then I feel I have room to make a response. Promotions, for example, are granted based upon a couple of differant things. Time in service, time in grade, and merit... also, on recommendations from the soldier's chain of command. Failing a PT test is *automatic* disqualification for promotion or favorable action. This is by regulation. Missing formation will rate at least a counseling statement... and 3 counseling statements means an Article 15 and loss of rank. Then following up on this by going off on his chain of command. Threatening to kill your 1st sgt is not going to make you any friends and will NOT help your situation. I'm just saying, when provided with a stimulus, your buddy reacted in the wrong way. This doesn't mean he's a bad person, just that he made bad choices, from my point of view. It just so happens that my point of view and the military's coincide on this point.
Another thing, there is nothing I would like more then to see people who are not hacking the military lifestyle to be able to get out. ANd honestly, over the years, I've seen plenty of people who have found ways to do just that... Hell, I know it would have been EASY for him to get out of it in basic training. Hell, it would have been easy for him to get out of it by just not even trying to pass on his PT tests. Fail three PT tests, go home. End of story.
"Your buddy didnt have to kill anybody" I assume you mean that Kohaku has. Sorry, but I would rather go to the stockade than be put in that position myself, and my friend likely would too. Yes, I would try to kill someone if my life were in danger or if they were endangering others. But I think that the act of killing another human being takes something away from you, on a deep level, and I would never want to have to make that choice. "
Yeah, thats what I meant. Well, here's reality. When you join the military, you're volunteering to be put into that position. Your buddy signed the dotted line and if he didnt know that that meant he could be put into harm's way, then he was a fool and didnt need any recruiters to lie to him, because he was lying to himself. You'd kill someone if your life or someone else's was being endangered? Whooo I guess this means people in the military just kill people to get their rocks off. Bullshit. Our job *engenders* killing the ones who endanger you and everyone else. As for killing 'taking something' from you... whatever... virgins talking about sex, again. I've got news for you, there are more then a 'few' truely evil people in this world and were it not for people who were willing to face them, they'd be gang raping your ass right now. And while you might enjoy that part, the beheading afterwards you probably wouldnt.
"It's not an 'unforgiving' culture, it's an 'incompetent' one. Sure, the military is a great place for people who are militant in the first place. So who or what does it benefit to try and take someone who is obviously not that type of person and try to *force* them to become it? My friend cares deeply about his band's performance and feels personally insulted when some higher-ranked fool threatens that for selfish or just plain ignorant reasons. Why the hell not make use of someone who actively wants to seek out and solve problems?"
The military... is a good place for militant people...? HE VOLUNTEERED! HE VOLUNTEERED! HE SIGNED THE DOTTED LINE TO JOIN AN ORGANIZATION WHICH WORKS ON STRICT, RIGID STANDARDS! They aren't going to bend the rules for him just because he's a band guy. If you can't A) Pass a PT test, B) Be on time for formation C) Be professional D) Dont threaten to kill your boss... then you don not belong here! Your buddy wasn't asked to murder women and little babies or roll a boulder up hill all day.
"There was a recent example of a CO telling him a direct lie to keep him out of some event they didn't want him in. He found out the truth from another soldier, and it was literally impossible for the CO to just have made an honest mistake. Why such cowardice? Why can't these people just act like men and tell him the truth?"
I don't know... maybe the CO was worried he'd threaten to kill him.
"Why then, do they keep Soldier X? Why keep him in the military for years, against his will, if he is not an asset to the group? Why not let him go home, and not be petty or punitive about it?"
I dont know your buddy or his chain of command. But an NCO is expected to at least try and get a soldier into shape. Sometimes, if you give someone a little pressure, some stimulus to improve... they do. I've seen this many times. And they were able to carry on successful careers. Its the rarity that you find someone who simply cannot hack it. Most of those people are weeded out in basic... but I hear the standards have gone down a bit, so maybe that isnt working anymore.
"And also, I'm sorry if this sounds like a cheap shot but I honestly believe it: maybe the military could use a hell of a lot more people like soldier X, so we'd kill a lot fewer innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. " Yeah, that is pretty cheap. Our rules of engagement in both countries are ridiculously restrictive already. You're only talking about causing more military casualities.
"<rolls eyes> You were doing so well there. Disagreeing with me but keeping civil about it. Why'd you gotta go and ruin it with a childish insult like that?"
I take it pretty seriously when you say "This should happen more often." If I were to show you a picture of a black man being hanged, and you were to say "This should happen more often" and I happened to be black, I think you'd understand where I'm coming from on this. Thats fucked up, dude. And not only that, but the whole attitude of this thread is one thats insufferably smarmy.
If its not the armchair strategists, its the demonizers... just looking at a few posts from the top down, I can see that your empathy is limited to those who share a political and social viewpoint similiar to your own. The military is composed of lemmings... brainless, cowards, stupid, murderous... it just drips from your language. You marginalize us, then feel free to dismiss us. How open minded is that?
You are the kind of person who assumes that his experiences are sufficient to completely judge someone else's. Someone you've never met, never served with, and who is in a completely different country from you now. And then you accuse *me* of being closed minded because I know my friend and his situation better than you? Maybe 'armchair warrior' is not the right term, but 'unempathetic' sounds right.
In another thread on this page you insulted someone my friend cares a lot about, and he has asked me to block you because of that. I am being honest when I say that if it were my choice, I wouldn't. Not because I don't think you're a rude, smug, uncaring person, but because you're not enough of a problem for me to block. But you deeply offended my friend, and so I am taking away your voice as a favor to him.
People like you always accuse people like me of disliking you because we just can't stand to be disagreed with. Absolute bullshit. We can't stand you because of your attitude and your behavior. It's YOU we have a problem with.
When i was in infantry school a bunch of us were sitting in the back of an ML on our way to the range. one of my buddy's then pipe up "man i swear to god we better not have to ruck our way back to the base after this, id rather shoot myself then do another 20k ruck march with sgt Doyle." he was joking of course and he all giggled at it. so me being the smart ass i am replied with "nonono dude your in the fucking army, if your going to kill yourself be original don't just shoot yourself, try and swallow a grenade or shove an m72 up your ass and fire or strap a claymore to your chest. me personally if i was going to kill myself id put an m203 to my chin, lets see the medics figure that one out ;)". the next day i was called out of ranks to talk to my platoon commander and my sgt, it turns out that the sgt had heard some of my comment and to him all he heard was "I'm going to put an m203 to my chin" i ended up having a long talk with my platoon commander and then was put on suicide watch which basically meant every morning i had to go talk to the padre and stuff, who thought the whole situation was funny as fuck.
Basically its a game of broken telephone what one person says is not always what the other person hears and if a sgt comes up to his co and says such and such said he wanted to kill you, the co isn't going to say "hmmm i wonder what the troops side of the story is" no he is going to trust what his sgt told him. misunderstandings suck but that's just how shit goes at times.
This all being said were not uncaring ppl, think of us as the other side of the coin, there are guys back at my unit who i harp on all the time, ill yell and scream at them and jack them up in front of everyone. why? cus i care to see the do well and sometimes that's just what you need to do, cus next time they go to make that mistake they will remember me yelling at them and will be far more less likely to do it.
And you know something? They all thank me afterwords for it, its just how the army goes, it happened to me when i first got in and now its me that's doing it. the only time the yelling is not out of love is if a troop is being blatantly insubordinate and is talking back or refusing to do as they are told. Such actions normally end in the troop being charged
also Koldsteel is American, I'm the Canadian ;)
But it's just so goddamned STUPID!! Sorry, but it's frustrating to me to hear this. It reminds me of being in high school back when Columbine was still fresh in people's minds, and the principal thought that banning trenchcoats would somehow do *anything* to protect anyone. Same thing here. There are far more signs of someone being suicidal than just them talking about it. Hauling people in because they made a joke is a maddengly inefficient and simpleminded way to try to detect potential suicides. I'm not saying the military's unique in this regard: I see all over the news, people wanting quick and simple solutions that totally ignore subtlety and root causes.
>This all being said were not uncaring ppl, think of us as the other side of the coin, there are guys back at my unit who i harp on all the time, ill yell and scream at them and jack them up in front of everyone. why? cus i care to see the do well and sometimes that's just what you need to do, cus next time they go to make that mistake they will remember me yelling at them and will be far more less likely to do it.
You may think you are showing you care for them, but do they *know* that? Do they ALL thank you afterwards? I've seen plenty of studies showing how positive reinforcement works WAY better than negative, but that's almost unimportant here. Here's the point: Unless you _tell_ someone that you're yelling at them because you care, then how are they supposed to figure that out? Sure, some of them will, if they've been raised by people who also show caring by yelling. But what about someone who hasn't? What about someone who naturally assumes you're just yelling at him because you hate him? Let me put it another way: if I call a gay guy a faggot, I might have meant it as a friendly jab, but if he gets offended by it, it would be _wrong_ of me to get upset by that.
Besides, while this might be true for some of the people in my friend's story, some of the people he has told me about absolutely had it in for him and their only intention was to kick him to the ground and then keep kicking him to make him stay there.
and yes i know they all understand it, if it gets to a point where i see a person is shutting then i pull them aside and have a more relaxed talk with them or change up the way I'm yelling at them. for instance normally ill yell at them to "don't fucking move around in ranks you fucking...you fucking thing!" however if during lets say tent group drills i note one troop is shutting down then i may yell "come on troop don't you fucking shut down on me now!"
Its not all just mindless screaming. believe it or not we actually learn how to do it. and yes at the end of the day or once there course is over were all in the mess having a beer laughing about it, its sort of a right of passage, they know its nothing personal and it comes with the job.
this being said there are always going to be afew ppl out there who hate you, on my courses we always had a shitpump we all hated simply cus they couldn't cut it and had a shitty attitude towards everything. remember when your in a stressful situation frustration runs high, and its not uncommon for ppl to start to hate on others.
there are also times when one person just plane doesn't like another and want to see them fail so they can get rid of them. i had afew in my unit who didn't like me at first, and i just took it and worked hard and now, there some of my closest friends.
I think this is crucial to my point. Okay, so you got over what was going on between you and them. That's great for you. But can you understand how some stories don't end like that? Can you understand how, if someone with a higher rank is going out of their way to fuck with my friend and keep them from advancing, it does not make my friend weak for wanting to vent about it? Seriously, have you ever had someone with absolute power over you who did everything they could to not just hurt your career, but hurt you emotionally?
My friend forgot to put it in here, but he told me when he transferred to his new location that his new superiors looked over what those two sergeants had done to him and agreed with him that their actions violated military law. Simply put, the people who were fucking with him eventually went so far that they got caught, and my friend was vindicated. After months and months of no one listening.
And what has he done that's weak? He's Risked His Ass to put this journal up. He's kept his cool and kept his mouth shut on base for nearly a year now. He hasn't killed himself or hurt anyone else. He has done his job in the band consistently well, despite all the shit that's happened to him. That's the one point that really pisses me off: I keep hearing how my friend 'couldn't hack it', and yet he is still doing his job, as good or better than most of the people around him. It's not like he's just curled up in a corner crying. He's complaining, yes, but he's not neglecting his duties to the band one iota. He has never missed a single gig that he's been scheduled to play in. Not one. So why's everyone, both here and where he is, acting like he's some crybaby when his performance clearly shows he's still doing what he's being asked to? There's no reason why someone can't complain of workplace incompetence and still come into work every day and do his job to the best of his abilities.
and yes iv been in situations like that as well. and i trooped it out until the situation got better. best thing i could do was just keep my mouth shut and just take keep doing them shit jobs. cus one day others will notice how hard your trying and wonder why such and such is ripping into them so hard, that's when you start to get others helping you.
I'm sorry, but to me that sounds an awful lot like "When someone bullies you, you should shine the bully's shoes and then maybe he'll like you." It's been my experience that this kind of advice does not work. In my experience, if someone doesn't respect you, kowtowing to them is unlikely to make them give you respect. Maybe this advice does work for you, and if so that's fine! But for me, when I encounter bullies, I prefer to endure their crap and smile in their face until eventually they dig their own graves and fall face-first into them. I have told this to my friend, and he has found success with it too.
Read my first reply down at the bottom.
Part of the reason I considered suicide was because I was working 6 days a week, as a PFC, running a Company-sized CBRN shop, Training NCOIC, Battalion Multimedia Specialist, HQ Orderly Room Clerk, and Flights/Manifests NCOIC. During that time I was also 2% over body fat standards and a minute shy on the run time; The new 1SG that we got in got all up in my business and made my life a living PT hell. At the time, I thought it was because he had it in for me. Looking back on it now, I realize that it's just because he wanted me to succeed.
I think that as "creative" and "individual" as your friend may be, he needs to be open-minded and forward-thinking enough to see that as backwards as it may be, they're using every power they have available to him to SHOCK him into getting his shit together.
It's true that the Army isn't necessarily friendly towards new ways of doing things, or things that make sense (There's a saying we had - "If it makes sense, Run. Run as far and fast as you can, because something is fundamentally wrong with the situation"). But it doesn't matter; He's getting paid to do what he's told, and so he needs to STFU, do what he's told as fast and efficient as possible, and then bring up ways that they could have done it /better/ later (This is commonly known as an "After-Action Report/Review") after the job's done.
Additionally, by doing what he's told to do and executing it properly, then he can get promoted to leadership ranks, and then START CHANGING THINGS FOR THE BETTER.
People like Roadkill and myself dislike you not because we can't stand to be disagreed with, but because it annoys the ever-living piss out of us when you A) have no room to talk, and B) don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
~Redfield
Apollo-
Funny how the ones who cant cut it are the ones who get called a hero and stuff for just trying. yet the ones who stay in and excel in teh job get called a murdered or a war monger.
:=D
+1 Kohaku
~R
I was just there to rape women and kill ppl
~R
F***!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Signal Corps miscommunication strikes again. :(
You say something like that...
And hen you say that *I* have no idea what the fuck I am talking about!?
You arrogant prick. Let me make this as clear as possible: I have known my friend for _years_, and this is just a TINY SAMPLE of the shit he's told me about. You have no idea who he is, what he's like or what he's gone through. I don't give a shit about your patronizing, condescending opinion on what happened to him, and I know he doesn't either. Because it's only YOUR OPINION. You do not have enough information to say what really happened, and your individual experiences aren't universal. What happened to you in the military is not what happened to everyone else. If you can't understand that, then the problem lies with you.
Koldsteel, I want to thank you for the part of your statement about the pressure from the top. There are always many sides to a story and, while it cannot excuse what they do, they are, in effect, bullying, and bullies are always victims first.
As for the conflict between views here..
What I'm getting is that Koldsteel, you are saying that the military *must* be this way to function.
This is absolutely true. Humanity does not fare well in combat. We need tactical, cold units that will execute orders immediately without taking the valuable time to question or refute them.
The other side is that this is inexcusable.
This is also true. What the military does is take away the humanity from its soldiers. They are tortured. They are broken physically, mentally, and spiritually. Then they are rebuilt with specific programming. This is utterly despicable.
So there's the rub. We have idealism clashing with practicality here.
Morally, the military is an abomination.
Practically, we could not possibly change the methods.
This is a problem. But it is a complex problem, and no amount of yelling 'This is wrong!' can fix it. I doubt strongly that anyone here has the solution, and still more strongly that any of us will live to see this problem resolved.
But I do hope so.
For everyone's sake.
Maybe it's my training as a computer scientist, but whenever I see a clash like this, my immediate response is to immediately assume that there is a problem... somewhere else. So then I start tracing until I find the problems true source, which may be very far removed.
I don't have all the puzzle pieces, but I think I've identified a few.
1. In order to defeat a nation, you must break the primary means by which it functions.
1a. A military invasion of the US by a foreign nation-state is very unlikely since our nation has far too much in the way of natural defenses. We could bombard any large invasion fleet or army attempting to cross from Mexico. Invading from Canada puts soldiers through a frozen tundra, not easy.
1b. An economic attack is far more likely to succeed. However, the military is not necessary for success here.
2. Terrorists do not possess the infrastructure needed to militarily attack a first world nation.
2a. Terrorists are criminals. They are murders. The way to stop them is similar to any other criminal. You stop criminals with police actions, not military actions.
2b. They may post a criminal threat, but terrorists do not pose a military threat. At least not to our nation.
My analysis:
The military is not the best suited for the current purposes for which we used it. The military is significantly larger than necessary for its stated purpose at the current time.
Therefore, just tone it down. Get rid of 300 billion dollars of funding. We'll still be outspending our single biggest competitor (who is an ally) by $100 billion. Sure, I'll have to get another job since I'm a contractor. I'll deal. I'd rather enjoy it if there were more choices in who I worked for anyway!
As for how the military is toned down, it would need to be toned down in such a way that it could be grown quickly, like we did for World War 2. By that I mean taking government control of our factories and converting them to produce military hardware instead of civilian products. Likewise, we should maintain training bases and staff so that we can quickly train recruits when needed.
Depending on the circumstances, they'd probably kill you for it.
(And you just KNOW I couldn't help but hear "Oops, I fragged my CO" in my head to the tune of a famous pop song...)
Regarding the fragging thing, it reminds me of an R. Crumb story. In it, all the beer-swilling conservative macho jock assholes decide to take over the country. They storm the White House and kick all the wimpy imtellectuals' asses. Then when they get down to deciding who'll do what in their new world order, they all want the best spots for themselves, so they end up all fighting and killing each other until there's none left.
I too was contemplating joining. but I think...
and here's where I get perplexed. I know two friends who both joined the military, and they actually enjoyed it. bootcamp was hell, but it's meant to be.
I BELIEVE that you have to WANT military, and be...MILITANT to do ok in the military.
if you're like me, sweet, affectionate, individualistic, like this poor soul, a thinker, you'll get RAPED. cause that's what other people tell me, that they mold you.
well, sure, if you already FIT the mold then hoo-ah to you! but what if you DON'T fit the mold?
so this just turns me away even more. thanks Fuffy. I'll help spread this around.
I'm glad I showed this to you, too, then... *Hugs*
I'm gonna spread it too, as much as I can.
it was tempting, but I think there are more doors opening for me, so I dun think I wanna.
>I BELIEVE that you have to WANT military, and be...MILITANT to do ok in the military.
Yes, exactly!! You've got it exactly right. My friend has described in detail the many, many shallow, intellectually-dull, empathy-devoid people he has to work with, who treat him like an alien. People who care nothing for their individuality and are only too happy to have the army supply their identity for them. If those kinds of people wanna sign up, FINE. Let 'em. But the way they force people like my friend (and you) to stay in and take the torment until they lose everything that makes them who they are is absolutely evil. This is NOT a volunteer army.
>so this just turns me away even more. thanks Fuffy. I'll help spread this around.
I cannot tell you how good it feels to hear you say that. Thank you. My friend thanks you too. You have saved your soul from a man-made Hell. Feel an incredible relief, amigo. :)
And if you do spead this around, my gratitude will be endless. :) :) :)
just so they can at the least take it with a grain of salt.
but yeah, another friend of mine, told me they're the ultimate conformists. you must be like us. in every way.
they need to have a.....MERCENARY army.
mercenaries use each person to their best advantage.
if I wanna be a sniper, I'll learn to be sneaky, and have god aim...
if i wanna be this, or that I lear what works best for me. and there's more individuality.
but no such thing really as a merc. army.
Most of the tim when I do journals like this, I accept that I cannot make other people's decisions for them. I just want to sit them down and make them see the side of the issue they haven't been told before, to let them make a true, informed decision.
>but no such thing really as a merc. army.
I really dunno much about mercs, aside from that they pop up in action movies sometimes. <:)
unless you contract them, or soemthing. or make a private type army....
Unless... you saw that and recognized a bit of it in your heart. Did you? I can't think of any other reason why someone reading this would out of nowhere act as if I'd meant them specifically by that comment. I promise, I am not asking this to be insulting. I'm saying that maybe this made you uncomfortable because deep down you know some small part of it to be true. _Maybe_. All I'm saying is maybe you should search your heart a bit.
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/.....8/#cid:5799251
It's really surprising that more people *haven't* heard stories like this. I'm sure my friend is not unique. I'm sure plenty of other people have suffered the same way he has. I just wonder why their stories aren't widely heard. Thankfully, we do have writers like Harry Harrison, who've written about how the military really works in several of his sci-fi books, and Michael Moore's book of letters he's gotten from soldiers, many of them saying how they were lied to by recruiters too.
((Please know that I am not pro or against the military. 4 of my uncles served. My father-in-law was career Army. One of my best friends tried to kill himself during his time in the service. I have the utmost respect for people on both sides of this issue))
Tin Soldier
by Stiff Little Fingers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl5V26oXHUI
He joined up to get a job and show he wasn't scared
Swapped boy scout hat for army cap, he thought he'd be prepared
At the age of 17 he was forced to choose
At the age of 21 he's in Catch 22
He joined up for just three years, it seemed a small amount
But they didn't tell him that the first two didn't count
At the age of 17 how was he to know
That at the age of 21 he'd still have one to go?
(Chorus:)
Tin soldier, he signed away his name
Tin soldier, no chance for cash or fame
Tin soldier, now he know the truth
Tin soldier, he signed away his youth
He joined up cos Dad knew best, to do right by his son
And now he hates and counts the dates that mark time on square one
At the age of 17 he did as he was told
Now at the age of 21 tin still won't turn to gold
(Chorus)
If at the age of 17 you fall in line too soon
Then at the age of 21 you'll still march to their tune
Tin soldier, you signed away your name
Tin soldier, no chance for cash or fame
Tin soldier, you never see the truth
Tin soldier, you sign away your youth
Tin soldier, you go and join the queue
Tin soldier, do what they want you to
Tin soldier, they take away your name
Tin soldier, they treat you all the same
Sign away your life
((To the person in this post... You have my love, support, and respect. Don't give up. Live. Make your experience and pain mean something, not only to yourself, but to the people you'll be able to help.))
>((To the person in this post... You have my love, support, and respect. Don't give up. Live. Make your experience and pain mean something, not only to yourself, but to the people you'll be able to help.))
He's asked me to tell everyone who's written comments like that that he's truly grateful, and that it really means a lot to him to hear it. I have no doubt that as soon as he's out of the service and free of at least some of their speech restrictions, he will do plenty to let people know the shitstorm he's been through.
He has the support of a lot of people. Hopefully our words can give him strength of spirit and see him through this.
Also, I keep seeing your username in my peripheral vision and thinking it says 'BelchingBear' <sweatdrop>
Great to meet ya btw! *gives ya a big friendly bearhug*
Here's something ya might like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyRDDOpKaLM
Dude, for me it was all about the Kennedies, Anti-Flag, Exploited, The Unseen, Casualties, etc...
*hugs* Yay! fellow punker at heart!
Long ago, I decided to never join the army and if the draft was reinstated, I would hightail it to Canada. This journal right here has sealed it that I will SURELY never join the army. I don't care what those bullshit commercials say. I AM NOT ARMY STRONG! The only war I wanna be involved in is one on a video game. I don't wanna give up my personal freedoms, leave my family and friends just so I can be physically and mentally abused by some R. Lee Ermy look-like drill sarge and be sent off into a battle where I don't know if I'll ever come back.
Anyway, your friend sounds familier and I will send out wishes that those set number of months go by quick for him.
My friend thanks you for your wishes. Hearing that, knowing that he's being listened to and that people care about him, really means a lot to him.
let me spell this out plain and simple, the army is NOTHING like a video game, in a video game all you do is shoot and kill ppl, do you ever see a video game where your going around knocking on doors and talking to village elders or giving candy and pens to children? nope the closest you come in a game is demon babies that you blow apart with a shotgun. all video games do is pollute what the army really does. combat is a very small part of that.
think of the war in the middle east like this, think Flint MI, you have gangs and you have cops and you have bystanders, the gangs are out making trouble for everyone and the bystanders ask for help from the police to remove them, the cops now come in and start fighting the gang. however they now must do so without doing more harm then the gangs were doing, cus if they do then they start to loose support from the bystanders and more and more of them will join gangs to fight the police.
I spent most of my time guarding civilians like yourself who were there just trying to help out and build buildings for the local populace, it was the Taliban and friends who would fire on us and force us to respond with deadly force to defend the lives of these innocent ppl.
and finally, i fail to see why everyone thinks the army steals your soul, i have all the rights i did before i joined, i still go to cons and fursuit, as a matter of fact i have several fursuits and make them! i don't live on a base and i still get to see my friends, family and girlfriend. sure in basic and infantry school i was yelled at, but that's what they are supposed to do, "if you cant work while someone is yelling at you how are you supposed to do your job when grenades are blowing up in your face" that's what my mcpl told me while we were learning weapon drills in basic and you know what? he was right, all of that stress he put me under helped make sure i was able to function and get the job done when i had rpgs and bullets flying at me. and sides after something like that everything in the civi world seems so much simpler.
Of course, this is directed at the American Military who have been colossally stupid in Iraq. They're trying to fight insurgents as though they were an all-out attack from Russia. I mean, they even keep tanks inside a town where they can RPG them from a window, against the soft top-side armor no less! What are they smoking?
I have far less knowledge of the Canadian military, and can not comment.
Restraint is the rule. Overwhelming force is the exception.
As a tanker by trade, we have several ways to deal with that kind of ambush. Besides, I'd hate to see the insurgent with the RPG when the loader cuts him in half with the '240.
~R
The point is this, our tank is designed to destroy Russia in a massive terrain battle across Europe.
The US tanks do what they are designed to do VERY well. During the initial confrontation with the Iraq military, our tanks creamed theirs. They also creamed their infantry.
Which was fighting out in the open.
You see, the only way an infantry man can take out a tank is with a bulky anti-tank weapon. The anti-tank weapon has far less range than the tank. So if the tank is in a location with lots of visibility, infantry can do very little to hurt you. The only way an infantry (or an insurgent) can damage a tank is if they find some way to sneak up close.
A city provides far more opportunities for people to sneak up on the tank. An IDE can be planned and explode to get at the weaker under armor. An RPG can be fired from several stories up to hit the weaker top armor. Furthermore, brick walls can provide cover to hide behind, and there's less risk of dieing from heat exhaustion than laying in camouflage in the desert sun. In addition, the buildings also limit the tank's line of sight, so the tank's range is far less useful.
In short, a city exposes a tank's weaknesses while preventing it from using its strengths.
This diatribe is not directed at you, the guy who is driving the tank. It is directed at the people who told you to do something stupid. They painted a bullseye on you and put you in a very expensive target, a juicy opportunity for any insurgent who can get his hands on an RPG.
I don't like it when our soldiers have a bullseye painted on them. Not when something better can be done.
This is only valid for our current breed of tanks, of course. Tank designs have changed a lot throughout the years. The first tanks were made to storm trenches in World War 1. They were big slow things with high, angular treads. They could just drop into the trench, and the front tread could be just the right slope to hit the ground. This finally gave them a way to cross the battlefield without the machine gun nests tearing them to shreds.
Once weapons powerful enough to punch through tank armor became common, the tank was quickly redesigned to be lower to the ground. This made them harder to hit, as well as gave them more speed and stability. This is the design still being used, but it's still meant for advancing over open terrain. Maybe they'll eventually design a tank that's meant for city fighting. Until then, I'm going to be pissed off at your generals for putting you in a lot more danger than is necessary.
>I support the troops.........but FUCK THE LEADERS
Beautifully stated! <clap clap clap>
#1) Your buddy should have researched his job (Like you should research a used car before you buy it)
#2) Failure to Adjust is an uncharacterized discharge, it's neither dishonorable or honorable. It means that his supervisors didn't have time to evaluate him as a sailor. The fact that he "didn't exist" is A Good Thing ™, it means that his employers and federal agencies can't use the fact he got out against him.
#3) He was banned from reenlistment because Failure to Adjust comes with a Re-entry code of 4 (1 and 2 mean that you can reenlist whenever, I forget what 3 is, and 4 is a bar to reenlistment. My RE code is 4, as well). The reason for this is that if he can't adjust to life in one branch of the military, why would he be able to adjust in another?
Thank you for playing.
You're right: whether anyone calls it that or not, these are abuses of human rights. And no fancy words or bullshit nationalist ideas can change that.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't still point out what we're still doing wrong in this era. Far from it! Complainers are essential to society. How would we ever get better if we didn't have people like me pointing out where we still need to improve? ;)
I will take my 10 years of college, and years of pleasing professors and professionals in the music world any day above playing for the United States Armed Forces; because I know I am better than anyone who could look down on me in their "league" and tell me that I am not good enough.
I feel bad for your friend, because he may never play music again after leaving the army, which I find painful, in my heart. I hurt because something he loved will hurt him now forever. Every piece of music he ever hears, ever would look at...any instrument: It will remind him of pain.
He will never have the love for my career, and what he wanted as his career, that I will have for the rest of my life.
I feel pity for your friend.
Tee hee. Awesome.
>I will take my 10 years of college, and years of pleasing professors and professionals in the music world any day above playing for the United States Armed Forces; because I know I am better than anyone who could look down on me in their "league" and tell me that I am not good enough.
A wonderful attitude to have!! It's always good to accept criticism, but there's a big difference between that and someone who is trashing your work just to hurt you.
>I feel bad for your friend, because he may never play music again after leaving the army, which I find painful, in my heart. I hurt because something he loved will hurt him now forever. Every piece of music he ever hears, ever would look at...any instrument: It will remind him of pain.
I kinda doubt it. My friend breathes and bleeds music. If anything, I can imagine him rushing out to find something that will allow him to finally play his instrument alongside competent musicians who also care more about the music itself than petty power struggles.
>I feel pity for your friend.
Don't. I do honestly appreciate the thought, but he is past pity now. I've done all I can as a friend to be there for him and back him up and make sure he will be strong, confident and unbroken when he leaves. I've actually told him recently that it's his tormentors who deserve pity. My friend will get out soon, but most of the people who have given him shit will just stay where they are for years and years, while their humanity shrivels up into a little withered ball. Now THAT'S pitiful! ;)
Personally I think more people need to realize that corruption has its dirty tendrils laced through the very fabric of our nation, its fingers caressing every branch of the government like a star-struck lover.
PLEASE DO!!!
>Personally I think more people need to realize that corruption has its dirty tendrils laced through the very fabric of our nation, its fingers caressing every branch of the government like a star-struck lover.
Wow... that's a thoroughly disturbing metaphor.
Longest rant I ever read, and probably the most well-written and useful.
My cousin tells me that there's always a couple National Guard or Army recruiters at his school, with a booth set up near the cafeteria.
Like any high school student is going to sign up for the military. Most of them may be fuckin' morons, but they're smart enough to know it's A Bad Idea.
I only had a couple come to my high school once. Marines in full uniform. I spotted 'em in the hallway, looked one right in the eye and said, "What a cute little hat!!" Oh, if he could've killed me in that moment, he would have. Tee hee. ^__^
>Like any high school student is going to sign up for the military. Most of them may be fuckin' morons, but they're smart enough to know it's A Bad Idea.
I dunno... I went to two different high schools, and there were an *awful* lot of morons at both.
BTW, what's the difference between army recruiters and skanky prostitutes?
Well, they both fuck you over good, and you might die from coming into contact with either, so... Nothing, I guess!
One later returned AS one of those fucking recruiters, and tried to get me to join. We haven't spoken since.
once he escapes that relm of hell on earth. I never liked the military.. Evil bastards.. People suffer so much for their lies.
I have a friend who went to join the marines.. I found out 3 months after he left.. I wanted to punch his lights out not only for joining.. But For not even telling me.
I would have warned him way.. He seems to be doing well.... But I doubt what is on the surface is the truth.. I'd never join.. Ever. Period
Glad to hear it. Sorry to hear about your friend though. Maybe he's just the military type? Some people thrive in that environment. I say, let 'em go. People like us will stay and keep our individuality intact.
1) Most of the military is composed of a "Good ol' boys network," If you aint a redneck southerner, and you can't act as one, you ain't gonna go far, boy.
2) The reliance on the PT tests over skills is prevalent, since most servicemenbers are not skilled in their jobs.
3) Anyone who *IS* good at their job, they will be passed over for promotions, since they're actually able to make the unit look good. The useless gits are the ones sent off for NCO training to get them out of the way, and then they end up being Sergeants.
4) Most career military live in a delusional world, and actually believe that the military is the best thing for everyone, even if they need to be beaten half to death daily until they agree that the beatings are wonderful.
Bottom line, thinkers aren't good for the military, but the recruiters go after them in droves, because the rednecks, and jocks are all focusing on "sports scholarships" and don't want to talk to anyone who isn't going to offer them 'six digits,' even though they're too stupid to know what that phrase means.
Recruiters are also in a bind themselves. You don't volunteer to be a recruiter, you get 'recruited' for a term of recruiting, and you have to make your quota every month or face disciplinary action. And they usually select people who have recently signed up for a second enlistment, people they can easily bully; "You could have left with an Honorable six months ago, now we're going to sent you over to this liberal-minded collage to get us more volunteers. If you manage to bring in X new enlistments a month for the next two years, you'll earn yourself enough points for a promotion (another lie, you need promotion points to advance beyond E-5, but it's not like D&D, where you need X points for E-6, when it comes time to do the promotions, the battalion gets so many 'promotion slots' based on the vacancies within the units, and the ones who get promoted are chosen based on a combination of promotion points, promotion photograph, and interview with the Battalion Command Staff, which means that the minorities will get promoted faster because the military is still on a quota system for diversity, and the upper levels are still too 'white-heavy.') but if you choose to disobey a direct order to recruit X people for the month, it means an Article 15 on your record for insubordination. Fail this and you forfeit all you worked for."
My advice for anyone is this: If you see a recruiter, turn and walk away, don't even make eye contact, they won't do anything but ruin your life. The military indoctrination is no better than being in a cult.
Do your friend, I say the following:
Hang in there, do your time, try not to make waves, don't do things to get yourself noticed, and get out when your enlistment is up (remember that any leave on your balance can be taken as 'terminal leave,' which beans you get to check out early, and get your military paycheck sent to your home of record while 'on leave,' and when your leave is up, you're a civilian again. No, you're not a civilian, you're a Veteran. That'll be worth something further down the road.
They tried to break your spirit, to turn you into one of them, but THEY failed, you'll be coming home with your soul intact, and just a bit more cynical and distrustful than when you signed up.
<shakes head in disbelief> That... Jesus, that's horrible, but it makes so much sense. I've gotta tell my friend this, it may make him feel better. Even it means they're keeping him in one spot for selfish reasons, it least it means his skills are being acknowledged.
>but if you choose to disobey a direct order to recruit X people for the month, it means an Article 15 on your record for insubordination. Fail this and you forfeit all you worked for."
Keeya linked me to an article about how recruiters are killing themselves in droves.. Check out my response here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/.....8/#cid:5799251
>My advice for anyone is this: If you see a recruiter, turn and walk away, don't even make eye contact, they won't do anything but ruin your life. The military indoctrination is no better than being in a cult.
Actually, what I like to do is call their sexuality into question. One time I looked one right in the eye and said, "What a cute little hat!" Ohhhhh, was he pissed! ^__^
>They tried to break your spirit, to turn you into one of them, but THEY failed, you'll be coming home with your soul intact, and just a bit more cynical and distrustful than when you signed up.
Damn right. My friend will still be himself when he returns, and he'll have loving friends helping to keep him that way. :)
"What a cute little hat!" I'll have to remember that one. I heard the peanut butter story as a kid and never forgot it, but that phrase seems much less... involved.
Also, I am not sure what is this peanut butter story of which you speak of.
is the greatest...
thing...
EVER!!!
Too.
Apollo-
Succinct, yet it perfectly captures the truth of the matter. ;)
>You and your friend have my deepest sympathies, good sir.
I will let him know. I am certain it will do him good.
>For what it's worth. You're worth more than any man who could possibly call you anything less.
<kinda speechless> ...thank you. That means a lot. Thank you.
~R
+5 Koldsteel
I totally understand the need to keep morale up, and to punish those who try to talk bad about the military in order to aid the enemy, but stories like my friend's are called whistleblowing when a civilian does it. When some big corporation is doing something immoral, and someone inside tells the world about it, we understand that they did so at great risk to themselves and that they are heroic for caring more about others than themselves. It's the dishonesty my friend can't stand. It's not being able to trust people who he should be able to trust. And I think that until the military actually does something about these ingrown patterns of dishonesty in its system, people should stay out. I'd say the same thing about any business that lies to its workers. Free speech is one of the most important values that America is founded upon. If we don't give that right to the people we count on to defend us and protect us, then we are betraying what this country is supposed to be.
The things that your friend are describing are a symptom of POG MOS's like the band and (for me) signal corps. I've seen all of that happen in my own unit; I've been on the receiving end of some of it. However, I will second a lot of what Koldsteel said with my own experiences:
APFT - I think that your buddy underscored his issues with it. #1) If he failed a PT test and was overweight, he CANNOT get promoted. He should know this. AR 600-9. Read it.
Late to Formation - It's shitty that his NCO's charged him with AWOL, but if you are even five minutes late to a formation, you can be charged with AWOL (I know this, because I was, too). They had documented evidence (three counseling statements), and the only way it would have been double jeopardy is if those FTR's (fail to report)'s were used in an article 15, and then again later on.
I was chaptered out (Chapter 13, Unsatisfactory Performance) for failing my APFT three times. I got an honorable discharge. I don't hold any animosity against the Army for what happened to mewhile I was in -- I /knew/ that I was joining the Army. I /knew/ that Basic was going to suck (and you know what? it wasn't that bad -- Nobody ever physically kicked the shit out of me like they used to in the '40's). Yeah, a lot of it was retarded while it was happening, but afterwards? It was done.
I'm mildly annoyed that your friend volunteered to go wherever to "get out of Iraq." If he didn't want to go to Iraq, WHY DID HE EFFING JOIN. There is no safe MOS. 3ID's bandstanders were guarding chow halls on Victory South while I was there. I cannot stand people that shirk out of deployments just because they're scared. Eff that. That's the problem with the Army right now -- s****y NCO's that got promoted and hid out from a deployment being put in charge of deploying soldiers.
Sorry that your buddy got (in his opinion) the shitty end of the stick, but you know what? That's /his opinion/. He's not the first, and he won't be the last.
And you know what? If I hadn't joined the Army, I'd be a socially retarded, slovenly fat furry waste of life with no spine.
From what I read, it seems like yes, they rightfully withheld his promotion for APFT failure, but he *did* say he passed them eventually and his higher-ups started withholding it further, using cheaper excuses. The formation lateness is also not AWOL. Absent WithOut Leave. I have friends in the JAG offices who, when I asked them about it, said that Absent Without Leave is only applicable to a soldier who is not anywhere near his base and has not reported for duty after an extended period of time. Five minute tardies are not to be punished by an Article 15. (This would be like killing a mouse with a bazooka - overkill)
Also, you stated you were chaptered out. Alex's friend, while having problems with his APFT, did not say he was being chaptered out. Therefore, and again, I say this not to annoy, but from the standpoint of someone in a leadership role actively, he would be better looked at than you because even though he complains, he is still following orders. And you got an honorable discharge? Hmm...always thought that being chaptered for PT failures was Discharged Under Other Than Honorable Conditions. Maybe I was wrong about that. I'll have to check.
Digital, it seems that you aren't reading more closely what the soldier said. I interpreted what he said about "doing whatever to stay out of Irag" not as his being scared to fight, but because he as an American has his right to not be there and serve his country somewhere else. He didn't want to go. Why look down on him? Why immediately call him scared or any other names synonomous with "wimp"? That's being very rude of you. Yes, he's not the last person to get shafted, but it sure doesn't help the public eye to see us as more than being those monsters they say we are when you bash someone you know nothing about. Look objectively, but don't act arrogantly. That's what I am told by my commander and all of us, military and not, on this thread would do well to heed it.
Chapter 13 (According to AR 635-200) is a catch-all discharge for unsatisfactory performance. The /majority/ of the discharges pushed through this one are for APFT failure. Chapter 13's can be either General - Under Honorable Conditions, or Under Honorable Conditions, depending on the commander's recommendation (In my personal case, I was chaptered out a month and 3 days before my ETS date -- May 10, 2009). If you'd like to know more about my situation, feel free to drop me a note and I'll let you go through the massive LJ posts regarding the politics behind my discharge.
So far as his promotion being withheld for a couple months, there's nothing in the regulations that says he is /entitled/ to have it back. I had a soldier that was busted down to E1 from E2 in AIT for drinking, and didn't get it back for a year and a half (no APFT or overweight issues). Yeah, his command probably could have pushed it through, and maybe his PSG didn't submit it -- but his PSG also has anywhere from ten to thirty other soldiers that he has to take care of, too.
"I interpreted what he said about "doing whatever to stay out of Irag" not as his being scared to fight, but because he as an American has his right to not be there and serve his country somewhere else. He didn't want to go."
As soon as he signed his contract, he doesn't get to choose where he goes or when he goes there (within limits -- reenlistment, putting in a 4187 with his admin office after being a year on station, etc). There are divisions of infantry soldiers that would love to have the "right" to not be in Iraq.
Whatever his situation, however bad he thinks he has it, it's /nothing/ compared to what some of us (see Kohaku's posts above) have been through and dealt with. Until you're laying on the side of a wadi seven feet away from EOD, doc'ing them doing stick probes for tank-busting IEDs (the ultimately dug out five 155's), you don't have the right to bitch about stress.
>Until you're laying on the side of a wadi seven feet away from EOD, doc'ing them doing stick probes for tank-busting IEDs (the ultimately dug out five 155's), you don't have the right to bitch about stress.
So, you're saying that you somehow have a completely unique viewpoint on stress that no one else could ever understand? I agree that I have no idea what that's like (and I thought WADL was a TV station), but I have known plenty of stress in my life. Is my stress automatically less because you believe yours somehow was deeper or more real or more important than mine? What about, say, a seven-year-old girl who is repeatedly raped by her father? Would you say she is under stress? More or less than yours? You _can't_ know, because you Cannot Judge Other People's Subjective Experiences. If two people stub their toe, and it hurts one person less than the other, it does not mean that one of them had the right reaction or the wrong one. You cannot try to argue someone out of their likes, their dislikes, their taste, their offense, or their pain. For you to act like you know more about stress than someone else, just because you would have reacted differently in their situation, just means that you are a very cold person.
~R
I've heard several defenses like this. "Well, what they did was allowable by the rules." I do not agree with the idea that we must abide by the rules simply because they are the rules. I do not believe that just because something is legal that it is right, and vice versa. Even if what was done to my friend was allowable under the rules, that does not make it _fair_, y'see my point?
>I cannot stand people that shirk out of deployments just because they're scared.
So, the only reason people wouldn't want to go to Iraq is because they're scared? It isn't possible that they would object to the war itself?
>And you know what? If I hadn't joined the Army, I'd be a socially retarded, slovenly fat furry waste of life with no spine.
So... you're saying that the Army is responsible for that. Which means that if you hadn't joined, you would have *chosen* to be a socially retarded, slovenly fat furry waste of life with no spine? That you have no inner drive to better yourself, and need some organization to define your life for you? I'm just askin' man, 'cause that's what it sounds like you're saying.
Apollo-
Do it.
And before anyone comes back with insensitive hatemonger bullshit, until you've walked down a street, red, in the worst ghetto in the world, not knowing how your life is going to play out in the next few seconds, I don't want to hear it.
You haven't had to come home remembering the things you did overseas.
The military is a complex animal to understand when you're in it, and those of you that aren't have no CLUE about how things work on a daily basis.
Let the soldiers that didn't get all of their knowledge from wikipedia talk please.
~R
But the fact that you must do difficult things, the fact that you have to kill and place your life in danger is not a part of this topic. What is being discussed here is the way the command structure treats lower-ranking officers. The hardships of war are an entirely different set of mental anguishes.
I say this in the hopes that this will be understood, rather than allowing pages of comments to assert that the others are wrong.
And, once again, we see that "Power corrupts" is among the truest things ever said.
I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE'RE YELLING ABOUT. D:
Once you become a shitbag and have no basic thrill to become anything better then you will be labeled as a shitbag by everyone else.
Apollo-
Guess what? Those "muffin tops" out-performed the ones who could easily pass the pt test on the next record. Why? Because while the ones who passed were out getting shit-faced damn near every night, the "muffin-tops" were training themselves. Not to make assholes like you happy. To make themselves happy. Not for the military did they run faster than anyone in my unit. They ran for themselves. Not for promotion points. Not for anything.
Simply to prove that they WERE worth something to themselves. They didn't care what anyone else said, not even the higher-ups. Nor would they care what some of the high-and-mighty pricks who I have seen comment on this journal have said. It's people like you who ARE giving us in the military a bad name. The ones who open their mouths and prove they have no capacity for goodness or honor. The ones who THINK they know everything, simply because they've been trained that way.
I could go off and tell you to shut the fuck up, but you wouldn't listen. None of you would. I personally am staying out of these debates because while I may not sympathize 100% with the unknown soldier up there, I would rather catch a beating with a brick stick than to be seen agreeing with any of you "pro-military" morons. I like my job, do it to the best of my ability, but it's not my end-all, be-all. All of you have shown that you think you know better than anyone else, that yours is the right and anyone who dares disagree with you is wrong.
It's fucking disgraceful.
Way to show that we have honor and integrity, guys. Way to show them Warrior Values they preached at us so much. I would dearly love for this whole mess to be over, but it continues because people like you want it to...you want the civvies to be afraid of the big, badasses we are. You want them to respect you, so much that you'll force it on them.
Congratulations. We now look like the terrorists that you say you all love to kill. The second any single one of you mooks shows a shred of decency, respect, or perspective on this whole situation, I'll change my view, but until then, I'm frankly embarassed to be a soldier right now.
And really, if all you have to reply with is that either "I'm not a marine so I can suck it" or "well, I need to stop being such a wuss" or the like, then what does that say about you?
The reason some people are calling this kid a "pussy" is because he's in the band, which should be an easy job to begin with. Your promotion rates are real high because you dont stick to one rank for more then a year so to better yourself there is easy shit. If you cant do that, then it goes to show that you have nothing inside. Sometimes you gotta dig deep, like you said. But in no way are we know it alls as you say, but in all real talk of this statement, I see nothing in you that shows that you are a soldier. Thats just my opinion though but perhaps you need to stop being a wuss~
Apollo-
Do you know for a fact, and can provide actual, solid PROOF that what you say is true? Can you prove beyond word of mouth that the bands of the military promote faster than anyone else?
Or is this simply your opinion? Because herein lies the problem: what makes a soldier?
The answer to that differs from person to person and as such, no one is going to agree 100% on what makes someone a soldier/marine/so on and so forth. You and I won't see eye-to-eye because we are different. That isn't to say that my opinion trumps yours or yours mine.
I was taking everything you said seriously, but calling me a wuss at the end was cheap and petty of you. If you intend to have people listen to you actively and take what you are giving with a grain of salt, then do so with tact and class. I'll apologize for the morons bit myself. But, I'll leave you with one other question before I go.
Are you so sure that I am below or equal to you in rank? Or did you just insult an officer? Do you know for certain? Or will the phrase "It's only the internet so it doesn't mean anything" be your excuse? Will you just insult me offhand, not even knowing what consequences that will bring? Or will you use the brainpower you have and THINK about what you say to others, knowing that right now, civilians are watching and forming opinions on us.
Viewed from that point, I'd say that the people who have come on and ranted and cursed at and denounced Alex's friend are the ones who are doing more damage to the military's credibility than he ever did just by telling his side of things.
The military way runs differently from all other ways of life. Thats is the way it has always been. The military way of the present day tries to incorporate all the Old School methods, all the diciplines, from the Roman soldier to the 'Iron Men and Wooden Ships'. From psycology to algebra. From the gally slave to the frat boy hazing. And everything in between. If there's anything you think you can add to that list, you'd be right too.
The training of the american military is a multidisiplinary FUBAR. They take you apart mentally, through the crudest means possable. They drug your food, and not all of which is for your benefit. They lock you in with a horde of people and try push them all to the breaking point of murder. They take common physical fitness (which civilian life needs a little more of) and use is as torment, so that military life needs a little less of it. They are supposed to train you to be fit in the enviroment of battlefield conditions. Can you hear him a hundred yards away while the bombs are falling? Can you run that distance holding the last tank shell, carrying the wounded soldier, memorizing the equipment's instructions? You need better nerves! You need better training! Real men sew. Real men cook. Real men are capable and knowlegeable. If you don't want to be punished then don't screw it up.
If a mortor is two hundred yards away on a 17 degree slope what is the zone you shouldn't be in? Yes, there's is much the army is supposed to do, is supposed to put people through, but it is lost under brutality to it's own recruits. When you become a soldier your life is over. You are meant to die and they treat you that way.
They try to preserve the amount of troops they have, so the more human of the staff try to treat you that way. It is not a perfect balance of schools. It's one upheld by a collection of sadists, children, and defectives, hiding in the numbers of the military staff. People who have no sense of the honor that the military is supposed to be built on. The military isn't supposed to be kind, but it is not supposed to attack it's own men. The branches of the air force, navy, military, ACOE, is supposed to be made of a number of crackerjack troops, the place where all the cowboys went. What we have is a mass of accidental slaves, a collection of sadists who joined the army since serial killers don't apprentice, and too few good men.
Trooper Unknown is just another nobody. An example of the reasons why people would rather fight an invasion in the streets then join the military. It's the miliary's equipment they praise, the trooper's skill and training they praise. Both of which could be bestowed in a shorter of length and more capable system they don't have and don't want.
It would put the brutal ones out of a job. The jails are already full.
-
I don't know where to put this sentance fragment: The godsend of his friends and the few real soldiers in the area.
I'm stubborn to the point of OCD, but Trooper Unknown has more fortitude for his career then I would have. I would have jumped the fence at least once in his explaination, and thought about sleeping on top of the officer's barracks in the streach to get my case heard.
Some of my family had a miltary career, and I have always strived to be capable and unpredictable.
This bit really struck my heart though: "When you become a soldier your life is over. You are meant to die and they treat you that way." <shudders> That is absolutely the unspoken message I hear. I was reading a Time magazine article about recruiters committing suicide left and right, and it's mostly due to their superiors working them like literal slaves, berating them all the time, all in the quest for a set number of recruits per month which is literally twice the amount they actually need!! It chills me to hear from people who are so unfeeling inside that they see no problem with that mentality. If someone cracks under the pressure, that means they were weak.
Ever see Disney's "Education For Death"? It's an anti-Nazi cartoon. In one scene, a German teacher shows on the blackboard a fox eating a rabbit. He asks the class what they can learn from this. When one student says, "The poor rabbit," he is sent to the back of the room with a dunce cap. The lesson here is that the fox is strong and the rabbit is weak, and so the rabbit *deserved* to die. Looking over some of the responses I have gotten to this journal, I wonder how many of us have been in that classroom, in one way or another.
---
http://harpers.org/subjects/Army
Dec 2006
Number of private firms that have been hired since 2002 to recruit soldiers for the Army: 7
Average amount the firms are paid per recruit: $5,700
Aug 2005 Number of new U.S. soldiers the Army would need in 2006 to replenish ranks abroad : 80,000
---
That's about 456 million dollars there, not counting for the up/down of how it actually worked out.
Germany doesn't really have anything to do with it, that was just the clearest example I could think of for that kind of thinking that 'weakness deserves punishment'.
>That's about 456 million dollars there, not counting for the up/down of how it actually worked out.
<melodramatic gasp of incredulity> What!? You mean that perhaps the demand to increase recruitment numbers might be because someone stands to make profit from it!? <monocle flies off>
Christ, how unsurprising. Look behind any large-scale human tragedy and you'll find some motherfucker raking in the cash...
Im and evil guy.
this thread is full of epic failiure.
thanks.
ill be sure never to serve this country or be a law enforcement officer, and a anti narco-terrorist op ever again.
you guys are on your own.
im en ex soldy, contractor and ex cop.
im pro Military.
I wish my service did not benefit them.
I fail to see why everyone and there uncle seems to think they know what the army is like cus of what they have read or heard. i also find it kinda funny that just about everyone in here comes from a military family yet none of them actually had the stones to join up themselves.
I'm glad i did, its done nothing but improve my life, iv never been in better shape or had more confidence in myself and my ability's and that has changed my life for the better. where as all my friends from high school are still the same ppl they always were and are going nowhere fast.
Funny how no one ever seems to take note of all of the positive things the military can do to a person
and a long rant, and effort.
FUCK these people.
thar we go.
And CAPITAL LETTERS.
USE THEM.
Apollo-
~R
your talking to a vet btw.
Kohaku, goats should also be factored into your equation.
~R
Kohaku, I will be honest and tell you that my friend who wrote the journal very much wants me to block you too. But so far you've disagreed with me without being rude about it, and that's something I respect. It's one of my principles to only block people because of how they act, not what they believe. Just keep in mind that if I did not have that principle, I would have blocked you long ago as a favor to my friend, because some of what you've said has _really_ pissed him off.
this being said i don't agree with blocking a person simply because you don't agree or like what they are saying. these are ppl who are simply trying to give their own 2 cents on a situation. the way they talk only goes to show just how deeply they feel for what they are saying. not to mention its very easy to understand there frustration.
Look at it from our point of view, I'm a career solider i plan on staying with the military till they say I'm to old and kick me out. I do jobs no one else wants to do and things many ppl don't even realize we do. how do you think it makes me feel to have to sit here and read nothing but comments about how bad the military is and how its evil and steals you soul or how the ppl who can take this job are mindless drones.
better yet ill use a situation we can all understand.
A /B/-tard comes onto a furry board and makes a journal about how he used to be a furry. its a log drawn out story about how he was ridiculed and groped at cons and how basically everything about being in the fandom sucked, everyone was mean to him and was a overweight gay scat loving baby fur pedophile so he left. I'm sure you would feel the same way as i do now and want to sort them out and show them that not everyone in the fandom is a overweight gay scat loving baby fur pedophile (to each is there own however).
Remember, ppl in the army work hard to help others and keep ppl safe, we ask for nothing in return but your gratitude.
if it were up to me id take the first born daughter of ever person who i helped :p
If that happened, yes, I would want to try to get them to understand that the fandom is not all bad. But if I was really rude about it, they would have every right to block me. I don't know how many times I can say it: I DO NOT block people who simply disagree with me. I block people who act rude and insulting. I block people when they *have* no point to make, other than, "I think you are wrong, so that gives me the right to be a complete dick to you and anyone else here."
And as I soldier myself, I gotta throw this out there:
I understand this guy had a rough go of it. Bad leadership mixed with a personality that is not condusive with the military way of doing things. And I can respect, understand, and sympathize with that.
What I can't and refuse to get behind is the idea that the entire military system is flawed, fucked up, and out-right negative. Because it's not. The military is NOT for everybody and some people just aren't cut out for it. They might be strong people on the civilian side, but they just don't have the correct mentality to make a life in the US Armed Forces work. I know. I've seen it happn first hand. Its not for everyone.
But to imply that the military is some great evil that steals your idenity and makes you 'kill yourself inside'. Yeah. Sorry. I gotta call bullshit. I'm the same person I was before coming in and it hasn't changed me at all.
Have I been screwed over? Yeah I have. I should've been promoted 3 months ago rather than having to wait until June. But I got screwed over by a couple of higher ranking guys that told me it was legit to do something when in fact it wasn't. So when it came up for early promotion, I got passed over.
But I didn't let that bug me. I'll still get promoted and I learned from it.
I've also done some amazing things since I joined up. My unit deployed to South America last fall. I built clinics, schools, and provided medical care in 9 different countries down there. I also air-lifted hundreds of thousands of pounds of aid supplies to Haiti after it get its ass kicked by 4 hurricanes in 4 weeks. Hell, we ran 2,000 feet of water line to a town that hadn't had drinking water in over a month. I fail to see the evil in that. Helping people in 3 World countries? Building infastucture? Dropping into an isolated area and remodeling an AIDS clinic? Acts of evil, I suppose.
So yeah. Just because one person had a bad experience, doesn't mean the military is terrible as a whole. It aint perfect, thats for damned sure. But to rail against it entirely? Bad form.
Again. Its a different way of life. It's not for everyone. but it is not some all-encompassing evil who has the soul mission of destorying the hearts, minds and wills of everyone that signs on the dotted line.
Just my two cents.
"So yeah. Just because one person had a bad experience, doesn't mean the military is terrible as a whole."
Just because one person had a good experience, doesn't mean the military is competent as a whole.
By complaining about what is wrong with the military, my friend is not saying we should just scrap the entire armed forces. He is saying we should _fix_ things, and he and I are both telling people to stay the hell away until they show some inclination towards doing so. My grandfather was a mechanic during the Korean war, and he finds the things my friends has gone through literally inconceivable. He cannot imagine how the army he knew has become what it is now. I have heard about many, many military scandals in which the SOP was 'cover it up and keep doing what we've been doing'. This attitude may not have infected everything in the military, but when the public keeps seeing it (Walter Reed, recruiter suicides, female soldiers raped), it does not make the military as a whole look good at all. The smart thing to do would be to get rid of this attitude that problems can be made to go away by intimidating people into not talking about them.
It's not just the military; everywhere I look I see people who have been raised to believe 'admitting to problems equals being a wuss'. I don't know where it comes from, but I know that it has never solved anything. To learn you have to admit to ignorance, and to become strong you have to admit to your weak points. In the case of the military, they could work better and more efficiently if they admitted that, for SOME soldiers, they are indeed mistreated horribly and feel like their spirits are being crushed. Riddle me this: is it more productive to try and force that person to try and become someone they're not? Or to let them go back home and not be punitive about it? Or maybe even keep them in and try to make use of what skills they do have?
SUCCINCTNESS FAIL. ;)
this ENTIRE journal is FLAME bait.
We have proof right here that shit ain't right, and if you don't want us to see the military as another tainted branch of the government, then do something about fixing what's wrong. Don't bitch at the rest of us for stating fact. Instead make it so it's no longer fact.
yes. the army has its problems. like CHARGING me for damaged body armor when i got lit up/ thats fucking bullshit.
but this is NOT proof. this guy is a LIAR.
L
I
A
R.
no job is perfect period.
Iv heard horror stories about ppl getting shafted and screwed over while working at Wal-Mart. Your going to find ppl power tripping anywhere you go. does thi mean that the whole organization is bad? no, it simply means that some ppl in that organization are bad.
When i was on my way to MFF08 i was hit by a semi in MI that wasn't paying attention. I, along with everyone else in my car, was nearly killed. As fr the truck driver, the first thing he did after he stopped was check the damage on his truck and radio in that he was going to be late, then he walked over and started making excuses about how i was in his blind spot. Later on when filing all this with my insurance company i was screwed out of a rental car, leaving me stranded in MI as well as screwed out of an money what so ever. my destroyed Saturn still sits in that MI impound lot to this day.
Was this guy a dumb ass and a prick? yes. Does this mean that all truck drivers are like this? no. Did i get fucked over by my insurance company? yes. does this mean that insurance company's are evil and everyone there is an asshole? no. I was caught in a loophole and there was nothing anyone could do to help me.
You see just cause some ppl have ad experiences with something doesn't mean its bad. it means they got a shitty situation, yes it sucks but sometimes that's life.
Also someone saying something happened doesn't make it proof, not to say its all a lie, but jut cus one person says something doesn't make it proof of something else. A proven statement is one that can be backed up with facts and hard evidence, in a situation like this we are only getting a persons word. proof of this situation would be things like recordings of conversations or several ppl coming forward from all different sides of the coin and saying the same thing, or even in some cases chat logs.
I am trying to find exactly where I said "...the whole organization is bad...". Closest I came to saying anything similar is when I mention that corruption is very deeply rooted in that branch of the government, as with all branches of the government. I don't believe I ever said that all of one organization was bad, for that matter, ever, anywhere.
What I was trying to point out is that current practices and people within the structure of this establishment need to be scrutinized a lot more carefully.
This wouldn't have been the first horror story I've heard. I've had several friends enlist, five at the very least, and each one of them had a similar story. Each one of them goes out of their way to tell me and other friends to not join if we value who we currently are.
I am not saying that is a bad thing, though. I understand that when you are going into the military it's their duty to buffer your psyche so that you maintain your cool while under fire. That means they will do their damnedest to change your personality if you are not already predisposed to the military mindset, and anybody who has an inkling of an idea of how fragile the human mind really is will tell you straight-up that doing such can not just destroy but dissolve and obliterate who a person once was, turning them into useless husks barely able to maintain a stable life if they are lucky.
That's a risk which can be minimized by looking at people currently in power on all levels, looking very carefully, and weeding out even the highest of powers if it means getting things straightened out, and taking a much more thorough look at recruits and having a much more strict qualification for admittance. You might get fewer soldiers by the end of it all but they'll most-likely be a lot better. Quality over quantity.
There are things wrong in the military, just as there are things wrong in the police force, or things wrong with insurance companies and banks and blah blah blah. There are ways to fix what's broken, however. The tricky part is going about how, as I don't think many people would agree on exactly what should be done.
LOGIC FAIL.
You sit here and rail on the negative implications of the US Military. All fine and good. Free country, say what you want and that's legit.
HOWEVER. As a CAC carrying member of the Armed Forces of the Good Ole U. S. of A., it's my duty as much as my desire to point out that it isn't all bad. It's only bad if you can't physically and mentally handle it. Which this is a prime example of.
I know this guy is a legit good person. He tries hard, he means well and he did not deserve the bullshit that was flung his way. I watched it all unfold and even I was crying foul.
He just doesn't have the mentality to make it work. Not everyone does. And so he is doing his time and getting out...as well he should. If you can't perform to the level necessary, take your gear and get off the field. It's that simple. Yeah its harsh, but its the same anywhere you go. From the guy that bags my burger at BK to the politicians that run this country. "If you can't deal with the rigors of the job, get out and try something else"
Again, coming from personal experience: I stood in front of my First Sergeant for over an hour and a half while he berated me up and down the damned office. I know that in essence I did nothing wrong. I did what three guys above me told me was legit. But regardless of that, what I did tore apart at least three articles of the UCMJ. So I stood there, stone faced and took it. Whe I walked out, I wanted to drive my fist through a wall and rage at the bullshit that was going on. But...I didn't. Because thats just how the system works. And my 1st Sergeant was just doing his job.
Fuck, 2 weeks later, we were workng a volunteer assignment in the local area and you'd have thought he and I were best friends. Because he saw I didn't hold ita against him for doing his JOB of tearing me apart and I knew that once I left his office and the situation was Alpha, that it was done, over with and we moved on.
*ahem* Rambling.
You have a biased opinion. As does he. I could go on and on and on about how I put up with more physical and mental BS than this if only because I'm in a combat unit on a 1:1 cycle, have harder PT requirements, and wear the medal of someone who has spent time in a hostile combat area....and you should compare all of that to his MOS and then talk to me about what it means to be tortured and fucked with.
But none of that would do any good. You're minds are made up and legit, I respect that completely. You're free to say what you want, when you want, and how you want to say it. :)
Just know that every time someone stands up against the military...ranting and raving about how fucked up it is...expect me (or someone similiar) to come along to give the other side of the equation. Its only fair to point out that while it isn't all peaches and cream around here, it's not terrible for EVERYBODY. Just those that can't hack it.
To avoid catching shit before I go: Yes. That's right. Can't hack it. THIS IS NOT saying anything negative about the solider in question. Not at all. I know what kinda guy he is and I hate what he has gone through. But if you don't have the proper mindset for this business...then you don't have the right mindset. He'll be fine in other areas, of that I have no doubt. Just not here in the service.
/done
Finished. Said my part. Not coming back. :)
I'm sure he'll be better off once he gets his walked papers and gets back Stateside.
Anyway, this is just a question, and it's not about you.
I do not mind getting conflicting viewpoints on my journals. Hell, my whole point in writing them is present the other side of an argument which I feel is not being heard. I don't mind disagreement. Yet I have had to block more people because of this journal than _any_ other I've ever made. Not because they disagreed, but because they were being incredibly rude and insulting about it (and you already know by now what Maverick's done. Did you know he pulled that shit on FIVE other FAer's pages!?) I have never had opposition like this. I have tore into religion claws bared, and have so far gotten no righteously-offended believers telling me I'm going to hell. I rip into the military, and the response is unprecedented. I get people mercilessly trashing my friend and defending the military as if I'd insulted their mother. I get people who practically insist that the military is perfect and flawless and that anyone who says different must be lying. What am I supposed to think about the military when I get this kind of response from its defenders? This kind of loud, bullying, intimidating gorilla-type shit? Obviously, all military people aren't like this. Kohaku, whom I deeply disagree with, still manages to be civil to me, and I respect that and will not block him. But here's my point: I've never shied away from controversial topics. I have accepted that people will be offended by some of my journals. But of all the things I've ever gone after, I have _never_ gotten this kind of a response from so many individual users before. What am I to make of that?
BTW, look below at natedogg's post to see an example of what i mean. It's so painfully blatant I almost can't believe he's serious.
Yes, some people are going to give the guys who admit problems a hard time. However, we always bust on each other, it's part of being in the military. A lot of guys even admit that when their friends give them a hard time about it, they feel better because they can joke around with it.
Yes, some people are going to give the guys who admit problems a hard time. However, we always bust on each other, it's part of being in the military. A lot of guys even admit that when their friends give them a hard time about it, they feel better because they can joke around with it.
If that's the case, then I'm extremely happy to hear it and I applaud their efforts.
Now, just show me some proof and I'll believe it. That's not being snarky: I am legitimately asking you if you can show me anything that proves the military is actually making this effort. Not just a token gesture, but a real effort.
I was just telling a friend, I was hoping you would respond to this. I am legitimately happy to hear this. Honestly, I'd fucking love nothing more than if the military improved to the point where I *couldn't* bitch about it anymore. ;)
What you are thinking is combat arms, but everyone from band to infantry has the same basic skill sets that make them all soldiers.
You're right *I'm* not an American Soldier. I am a civilian. (Cheap shot, I know, but it was funny)
And frankly, I see nothing in that poem or creed or whatever that conflicts with my friend, except maybe living the Army Values. As I've said elsewhere, my friend may complain, but he's not curled up in a ball in his room weeping. He points out things that are wrong and need to be fixed, and then he gets up every morning and does his job. He has never missed a band gig. His actions prove that he is, in fact, loyal to his bandmates and loyal to his duties. You may have a point in saying my friend is not a soldier, but he is absolutely American.
...
Um, this is satire, right?
<facepalm>
That's sad beyond belief. You are so very, very blocked.
I've been reading both sides of this argument and I've noticed an interesting trend. Most of the people who are are against Alex's friend have a certain way of looking at things. "Shit happens. Suck it up and move on." "There are shit jobs. Just do them and get over it." They basically accept that bad things happen.
I have a very different mentality. When I see a shit job, the first thing I do is say, "This sucks. Why are we doing this again? Is it really necessary to do? Can we find a better way to do this?" Unless someone is paying me enough money to hold my nose, I'll balk. Likewise, I want to prevent as much shit from happening as possible, because I don't like it when shit happens.
I'm pretty sure that this would be considered "weak" by one side in this journal.
But I ask you, is it really? Is using a vacuum cleaner "weak" because you should just suck it up and use a broom like strong people do? Is using machine automation to improve industrial output "weak" because they should just suck it up and work harder?
Except, no one here is actually going to say those are weak. They are accepted as better now. So what is really going on?
I think it's a resurfacing of the "nose to the grind stone" thought train. Yeah, society needed that when the only way to get anything done was to grab a shovel or sword and do it yourself. In an age of machine automation and "nuke them from a country away" weapons, it's not needed anymore.
My 2 pieces of copper.
I'm not sure why, but some people are just dead set against solving problems. My grandpa is like that. If the tiniest thing complicates his usual routine, he'll declare it too much trouble to deal with and probably just stay home and lie in bed. You are quite perceptive to see the same principle here. "Keep your head down! Suffer in silence like everyone else! That's what makes you a man! Only whiners complain! Keep your nose buried in this pile of shit like the rest of us! Breathe deep until you convince yourself it smells like roses! And above all, never question why we're doing this!!"
Isn't _that_ weakness?
Doesn't it display much more inner weakness if you just sigh and accept bad things, instead of trying to change them? Which does it take more guts to do: go with the flow, or stand up and fight back?
A part of me wonders if the screeching, desperate defenses of Mommy Military certain people have put up here is due to the fact that they are *terrified* they might think too hard about how badly they're getting ass-fucked.
What this individual has gone through is an entirely different set of anguish from combat.
Mental, spiritual, and emotional abuse are all just as harmful as physical abuse, or combat injury.
Males have a rigid gender role which causes the general belief that emotions are weak, feminine, and unimportant.
But we all have them. Every last one of us. They're important to our well-being.
I say this because I want to validate this issue, to show people that, while combat is incredibly difficult on soldiers, there can be just as much harm done in the peaceful bases.
That's right. You fail at being sympathetic.
Apollo-
Maybe next time, don't jump in to defend a situation unless you have all the information.
Apollo-
You know what? You caught me at a bad time. I'm tired of being polite with you peabrained pussies. YOU'RE the weak ones. Got that? You pro-military ones are the giant fucking crybaby wusses. You know why? Because you're the ones who say my friend just needs to 'suck it up' and 'get a thick skin'. And yet, when I insult your precious armed forces, you fuckers whine like crazy!! I've _never_ seen this kind of response from _anyone_. If you've got such thick skins, how come you can't just LET IT GO!? You've gotta stamp your little feet and pound on your highchair tables and attack my friend out of blind, hateful ignorance and throw big fucking baby tantrums all over this journal. You're like a bunch of unwashed pigs running loose in someone's house, squealing and smearing shit all over the place.
Oh, and answer this: Who has more guts, loyalty and honor? Someone like my friend, who sees problems, speaks out against them, and tries to save other people from going through the same hell he did? Or someone with a terminally closed mind who's too weak to ever admit to anything being wrong with his perfect. perfect military; someone who insults and rats on and tries to drag down the person who's speaking out and trying to fix things!? You people are EMPTY. You people are HONORLESS. You people are CHICKENSHIT. You people are NOTHING BUT COWARDS.
And to prove it, I know you won't reply to this.
Considering that you're obviously a furry, since 'furry' is a part of your freakin' username, you must mean that I'm describing *you*, right?
I just removed the context from your statements and realized you're describing a great many people in the fandom.
I am describing the people on this specific journal who think that they're making an intelligent point when they say things like "FUCK HIPPIES AND COMMIES."
Also, if you think the people I've described are what 'stereotypical furries' are like, then you've just insulted the entire fandom. Nice job.
And yes, I'm insulting the entire fandom, including myself. I have no right to talk about anyone else if I cannot say the same about myself as well.
"I have no right to talk about anyone else if I cannot say the same about myself as well."
<atomic facepalm> My head hurts. Aside from the fact that I disagree with that idea completely, what you seem to be saying is that ONLY the pot can call the kettle black. What!?
Dammit I just want us to be the BEST at what we do!!! :D
The reason my friend has not left is that, even though he's miserable there, he has pledged to stay in until his time is up. As he told me last night when we were discussing exactly this, he is honoring the commitment he made and taking responsibility for his choice to sign up. He is staying in to prove to himself that he can. I have no doubt that he will, too.
I happen to have a best friend who is in GA for his military training for the National Guard (I forget what they call it), and he LOVES it. His dad is an active recruiter for the National Guard and will retire soon.
It strikes me that a lot of this "drama" has come about due to information that should never have reached online, let alone in the most drama-prone section of the Internet, the furry fandom.
Not really going anywhere with this, just my ignorant two cents.
Do you think our enemies will be any less kind in the battlefield?
What makes you say that? What proof do you have that that's true? I've heard that same idea used by other people here and I haven't heard one iota of justification for it. The kind of things that happened to my friend were often against the military's own rules, yet he wasn't listened to because of his rank. How does that attitude proper or efficient? Additionally, I have heard about many scandals within the military, of soldiers being treated worse than criminals, then told to keep their mouths shut about it. Then eventually the news finds out and it makes the military look worse for having tried to cover up the problem instead of taking it seriously. There's been scandals regarding treatment of patients at Walter reed, about female soldiers being raped and then told by their COs not to report it, about soldiers coming home and killing themselves or family members, about recruiters' suicide rates skyrocketing, about recruits being told to lie on their applications in order to pass requirements, about soldiers being given experimental vaccines and some of them nearly dying from it, about soldiers massacring civilians in Haditha, and I'm sure we've all heard the fake stories concocted about Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman. In every case, the military itself has not come forward on its own. It's either taken investigative reporters, or more often people like my friend who have stood up and spoken out, to force them to admit to their wrongdoings. To me the evidence seems to indicate that not allowing free speech to soldiers is part of what leads to a culture of isolation from outside scrutiny, where the SOP in most cases is to keep things quiet and handle them 'within the family' as it were. Only usually, they don't actually get handled at all.
(I will give the military credit for being the first to investigate and report on the Abu Graib scandal, BTW)
(And before you ask why'd I take his part of it down when his cover got blown; he's willing to make a calculated risk, not a suicidal one.)
Comment redirect here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/.....8/#cid:5835289
"What makes you say that?"
How many democratic militaries have your heard of?
And I know for sure that if he'd read a journal like this before he signed up, he never would have.
Here's a question: We decided to make this journal in order to give people the other side of the story; the one the flashy military recruitment ads don't depict. We intended to warn the type of people like my friend and myself who would never be able to fit in in the military. Now, someone who is militant in the first place and genuinely wants to be in the army, if he read this journal he'd dismiss it as a bunch of whining and sign up anyway. And that's fine for him. So, what we were trying to do (and have accomplished in at least one case) is keep people out of the military who'd never be able to 'hack it' there anyway. Isn't that a good outcome for both sides!?
HALLE-FUCKING-LUJAH!!!
I'm not being sarcastic here: I am genuinely overjoyed and relieved, after slogging through so much closed-minded bullshit from other people, to find someone with whom I can at least share one thing.
I would offer that by nature, people attract like-minded fellows to them. Broadcasting a message to people that aren't willing to listen is not the most efficient way to get your message across. You've broadcast your views and those of your friend and have received both ends of the spectrum here. I just hope you're not too surprised that such a controversial subject has received the attention and passion it has.
"I just hope you're not too surprised that such a controversial subject has received the attention and passion it has."
Actually, I am. I expected opposition, sure. But I have literally never seen this kind of response on any journal/submission I've ever posted here. I've put up bizarre, kinky art and gone after all sorts of controversial topics. I have _never_ had so many people on any one topic be so rude that I've had to block this many of them.
See, you're disagreeing with me but doing it in a respectful way. That's totally cool by me. I only ever block people when they set out to be as insulting as possible and have absolutely no interest in listening to any opinion other than their own. I've had to block about six people like that so far. The most I've ever blocked before on a single topic was, I think, two. *Maybe* three.
I'm not blaming _all_ pro-military FAers here, but this journal has gotten the largest total amount of rudeness I have ever received on anything I've ever posted. Heck, I've ripped into religion WAY more harshly and more often than I've talked about the military, and the opposing responses have been waaaay more polite overall. Attention and passion, I anticipated. The level of hatred and the amount of insults directed at my friend is what I didn't expect.
Mostly, that is. When you touch a sensitive nerve, you're sure gonna see it like you have here. X3 And you're right when people tell their friends, as I'm a very very good friend of
Well I'm not trying to justify the response, but again that is just a military response. It's honestly not surprising to me as so much of what I know of the military life is "tough love". It can suck and can be a bitch, but it's one thing I've heard and experienced about military people that just doesn't really change.
No, not everybody is made for the military life, but I think it's still really shocking when some people realize that well-made movies like Full Metal Jacket are not far from the truth. I'm not sure why you got such a response in this journal, but I do hope you don't take the more passionate and "rude" responses *too* personally.
Actually, I had heard before that a lot of people say they got a bunch of stuff in that film spot-on. I've seen it a few times. Damn good film and it made me wanna see more stuff with Matthew Modine and Vincent D'onofrio. Also, R. Lee Ermey played the exact same drill sergeant in Peter Jackson's The Frighteners.
>I'm not sure why you got such a response in this journal, but I do hope you don't take the more passionate and "rude" responses *too* personally.
Nah. Just because I encountered a lot of it here doesn't mean this is the worst. At least none of these guys seemed sociopathically crazy. I've encountered a small but terrifying handful of those kind before and they are by far the worst. Batshit tops angry any day.
O'course, look who I'm talking to. If anyone can find out the answers to stuff, it's you, Pad.
I'm not necessarily disregarding your viewpoint, I just don't think you're *right*. You probably have valid, or at least convincing, reasons why you believe the way you do. It's just that the accumulated evidence of what I've seen and heard in my life leads me to a different conclusion.
Also, I actually caused so much Andy Kaufmanesque trouble my last year of high school they begged me to drop out. I took my GED and found it offensively easy. I've never been to college, but I have read psych textbooks for fun. To each their own preferred method of learning. ;)
>Additionally, focusing on the point of this journal... I felt like "bullshit" would fall into the 'ignore' category as I'm sure you've seen enough of it.
Considering how much *I* use the term, I'd be a hypocrite if that were the case. ;)
Glad ya liked the journal.
You actually read everything? Damn, I wish I could give you a medal for your determination! :)