Probably the same way I did. Long line of respected men in the family gave their service without ever reflecting on the atrocities they committed and the plunder they oversaw for colonial masters; I was groomed into it from one direction by my father, and groomed into it by another direction because a recruiter got me to sign a Delayed Enlistment paper when I was 15. With my father’s not only cosign, but direction to have me signing that young, no less.
Conservatives shriek about “groomer this, groomer that”, when the Department of Defense is the single most prolific groomer in the country next to the Catholic Church.
That’s a lot of why I hold grace for some fellow veterans. These recruiters prowl high schools on some predator shit(and I know I’ve seen headlines about recruiters getting pinched for statutory); so if a comradely veteran tells me they were DEP too, I hold space for them that I wouldn’t hold for a graduate careerist or an actually proud veteran.
They would keep trying to get me to join and I’d tell them to fuck off, I was going to university. One time they called home when I wasn’t there and my grandma answered and they told her that I was interested in joining and they were just calling to follow up and gather more information about me for my application or whatever. My grandma saw right through that and told them to fuck off and that I wasn’t interested in joining and hung up on them and then told me when I got home. I was just a kid.
We take a far too edgy stance on troops here. We’re horrified at conservative takes on kids who commit serious crimes, we’ll have all sorts of nuanced takes on brain development not fully finishing until your mid-20s, we’ll post all day about how vast swaths of the country have no serious career opportunities, we’ll quote class traitors and at each other, we’ll go into fine detail discussing how militaries acted in historic revolutions or coups, then… we come up with the brilliant take that being a troop is some indelible sin deserving summary execution?
There’s simply no way to square leftist thinking on people who commit horrible crimes with this sort of approach towards troops. If you think Bob should get restorative justice after he puts someone in the hospital during a bar fight but Bill should be shot because he’s a cook on an army base in Kansas, you have not thought this all the way through.
I’d like to think that would be the consensus in a serious discussion, but that’s not at all what comes through.
The more immediate question is how to interact with current and former troops right now. A lot of leftists are hostile to the idea of a troop becoming a comrade in a way that’s totally inconsistent with leftist thinking on people who have committed serious crimes. And that’s to say nothing of the whole discussion around the value of bringing around people who were/are in the machine itself.
Yeah I agree, it was really shitty yesterday watching people call this guy a loser or whatever on here. Another kkkracka down type shit. When he was clearly a comrade. That he did this at all makes it obvious there’s more to him than “a troop”
Probably the same way I did. Long line of respected men in the family gave their service without ever reflecting on the atrocities they committed and the plunder they oversaw for colonial masters; I was groomed into it from one direction by my father, and groomed into it by another direction because a recruiter got me to sign a Delayed Enlistment paper when I was 15. With my father’s not only cosign, but direction to have me signing that young, no less.
Conservatives shriek about “groomer this, groomer that”, when the Department of Defense is the single most prolific groomer in the country next to the Catholic Church.
Fuuuuccking hell. Signing kids up to die at 15. I had no idea that was a thing. Jesus
That’s a lot of why I hold grace for some fellow veterans. These recruiters prowl high schools on some predator shit(and I know I’ve seen headlines about recruiters getting pinched for statutory); so if a comradely veteran tells me they were DEP too, I hold space for them that I wouldn’t hold for a graduate careerist or an actually proud veteran.
I had recruiters at my high school.
They would keep trying to get me to join and I’d tell them to fuck off, I was going to university. One time they called home when I wasn’t there and my grandma answered and they told her that I was interested in joining and they were just calling to follow up and gather more information about me for my application or whatever. My grandma saw right through that and told them to fuck off and that I wasn’t interested in joining and hung up on them and then told me when I got home. I was just a kid.
Those recruiter fucks are scum.
We take a far too edgy stance on troops here. We’re horrified at conservative takes on kids who commit serious crimes, we’ll have all sorts of nuanced takes on brain development not fully finishing until your mid-20s, we’ll post all day about how vast swaths of the country have no serious career opportunities, we’ll quote class traitors and
at each other, we’ll go into fine detail discussing how militaries acted in historic revolutions or coups, then… we come up with the brilliant take that being a troop is some indelible sin deserving summary execution?
There’s simply no way to square leftist thinking on people who commit horrible crimes with this sort of approach towards troops. If you think Bob should get restorative justice after he puts someone in the hospital during a bar fight but Bill should be shot because he’s a cook on an army base in Kansas, you have not thought this all the way through.
I imagine most of us would say Bill should only be shot post-revolution if he’s an unrepentant fascist who is a threat to the revolution.
I’d like to think that would be the consensus in a serious discussion, but that’s not at all what comes through.
The more immediate question is how to interact with current and former troops right now. A lot of leftists are hostile to the idea of a troop becoming a comrade in a way that’s totally inconsistent with leftist thinking on people who have committed serious crimes. And that’s to say nothing of the whole discussion around the value of bringing around people who were/are in the machine itself.
Yeah I agree, it was really shitty yesterday watching people call this guy a loser or whatever on here. Another kkkracka down type shit. When he was clearly a comrade. That he did this at all makes it obvious there’s more to him than “a troop”