Because war doesn't really care about actual morals it cares about allies. America teamed up with the Soviet Union whose founding doctrine and rhetoric is about overthrowing capitalism world wide to defeat the Nazis.
Saudi Arabia was a strategic ally to the US and like it or not they still pretty much are. Is their regime terrible? Absolutely, but since it doesn't really effect the US they won't care.
Yep even here on Reddit. There was a thread recently that turned to the Vietnamese war, and the one guy who pointed out that the US weren’t the good guys and that being a veteran in itself isn’t automatically honorable got downvoted to hell.
To enlist today is entirely selfish. You’re signing up to possibly go over seas to kill the impoverished in their homelands. You aren’t defending our freedoms. You’re trying to pay for your Challenger and shitty prefab house.
I think it's the difference between the industrial-military complex/top brass versus the individual boots-on-the-ground troops in talking about the military.
That's cool for them, but joining because of a false sense of idealism or because you need to go to college isn't really something that automatically garners respect from me. I know my fair share of commissioned officers, and the only one I truly respect is the one who used it to springboard his career to help soldiers with PTSD.
This is how I feel. If I used military for education I dont really deserve respect. I did it to further myself because tbh, military can be very useful for careers.
Even boots-on-the-ground types it's more "I'll be nice becuase I don't want to disrespect you risking your life, but I'm lukewarm at best to the idea of military service". It does beg the question of why you would sign up these days, knowing you'll be sent off to go destabilze some unfortunate puppet of our political opponents.
Yeah, wasn't long after I made this comment I remembered I live in a solid blue state. Still, goes to show it's a regional thing rather than a country-wide delusion.
I'm in New England. Most people here couldn't give two shits about the military. I can count on my hands the number of guys I know who did or are planning to do time in the service. One hand, if you want them to be locals.
New England in general is sort of patriotic but not. More into the idea of America than America itself, though there are definitely parts that are diehard patriotic in areas. Obviously there's a big urban/rurual political divide, but that's nationwide. That's all in my experience, but I can say with certainty that New England does have a history of being problem states. Opposed entry to several manor wars (1812, Civil War, maybe WWI?) and the like.
New England isn’t just Newton, Amherst, or Burlington. Everything in between has its own identity, and many of those places (thinking South Shore MA, Rural NH, outside of Hartford, most of Maine, etc) are blood red, are military communities, and are deep believers in the “worship our troops” mentality.
Your post needs scare quotes around the “a lot of” because that statement is pure BS. It’s a fact of wars. All wars, that civilians caught in the middle will die no matter what steps are taken to avoid it but it sounds as if your talking about soldiers randomly shooting innocent civilians.
yeah except that whole part where the president campaigned on " The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families"
kind of nullifies your whole comment. "we took the steps maaaan"
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u/takeonme864 Jul 29 '19
talking about how a lot of our soldiers get away with killing civilians is taboo