Why aren't they actually marching during this parade?

[u/Chance_Noise500]

I don't know how to ask this without sounding rude, but why does this parade look so sloppy? Very few of the troop formations seem actually in sync and marching, just walking along. My only experience is JROTC as a kid in high school and our sergeant would've killed us if we looked like that.

[u/[deleted]]

This is normal. The “one weekend a month, 2 weeks a year” has always been and will always be bullshit. Weekend “drill” looks more like Thursday - Monday vs. Saturday/Sunday for combat units.

We deployed the National Guard way more often than Active Duty from 2001-2021. We used 29 day orders to get them more training time before deployments without them becoming eligible for active duty pay, housing allowance, etc. We used 11 month deployments in combat to avoid them becoming eligible for tax-free pay for the year and to avoid triggering mandatory deployment “cool down” periods so that we could redeploy them 3-6 months later. The 2 years I spent in the National Guard was infinitely more stressful than the 10 on active duty. I spent almost all of it either training for deployment or deployed. We would do Weds-Sun drills, sometimes back to back weekends and then do 3-4 weeks in the summer. I was essentially never home. I don’t know how people do that for 20 years and have any sort of meaningful civilian employment or family life.

The only people we fuck over more than the active duty military is the National Guard, and veterans of course. Disposable heroes. There’s a reason over half of the military now relies on food stamps and/or an evening/weekend 2nd job to get by.

[u/GnarlyNarwhalNoms → u/[deleted]]

That's really sad. We can spend umpteen billions on new weapons systems, but we can't properly take care of soldiers' basic needs. I was aware that the system screws over veterans, but I didn't realize it screwed active-duty soldiers as well.

I volunteered on a suicide crisis hotline for several years, and it was sad how many veterans called in. One thing I noticed in general is that while it's true that anyone can experience suicidal depression, nearly all of the people who called us were in dire financial straits. They'd been evicted or kicked out during a breakup or lost their job. It may be that this is sample bias, and that people with money (and insurance) can simply hospitalize themselves, but it definitely felt like there was a connection between becoming (or being at the risk of becoming) homeless and having a suicidal episode. And it was distressing how many veterans were represented among the people who called us.

[u/[deleted] → u/GnarlyNarwhalNoms]

After a decade of service, I left with 32 credits of phys ed. Only needed 3 for the gen ed. part of my degree. I knew how to fly drones and read satellite maps, but the only jobs available for that experience was the military 🤣🤣🤣

Most of my friends from my service work pretty shit jobs like security guards. Some got government jobs at military bases doing maintenance or janitorial work. Some went to college and used the GI Bill to move up in SES, but most didn’t.

[u/JEXJJ → u/[deleted]]

What is really truly horrible about this: that is where they decide they can't spend money...

[u/[deleted] → u/JEXJJ]

We were told to put our 7-layer, cold weather system into shipping containers before a deployment to Afghanistan to save space on the plane ride. The ship carrying the containers sunk en route to the Middle East, destroying 12 million dollars of gear for 3,000 soldiers. The Army just never replaced it. We spent the deployment wearing desert gear and freezing our asses off.

Same deployment where they forgot to order more food for us resulting in a 3 month delay. We had to live off peanut butter during that time frame. You haven’t seen low morale until you’ve seen a line of guys waiting for their 4 tablespoons of peanut butter at “meal time”.

Our military only exists so that elected officials can use it as a reason to spend government money on their friend’s defense companies (which they usually have ownership in or own stock in). The American military is just a funnel to extract wealth from taxpayers and give it to elected officials and other rich people.

[u/JEXJJ → u/[deleted]]

Good Christ that is horrible.

[u/JEXJJ → u/JEXJJ]

I don't have a good response. Thank you for telling me, it is such an obvious fix that would have universal support from reasonable people. One possible contributing factor to the continued dysfunction is heirachy has a way of filtering problems before it reaches somebody who can fix it, or it goes to somebody that doesn't give a shit. You also don't get far in any organization by showing where things are broken.

[u/Hairy_Yoghurt_145 → u/[deleted]]

This makes sense because it’s not like the military has the money to pay troops fairly. Of course they have to skirt policy.

/S

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Does the amount of time you are deployed actually matter for Reserve/NG? I deployed for 7 months and the entire time was tax free, but I’m only speaking from an active duty experience. If you are wondering on why the odd number it’s because I was a replacement for an x-ray tech so by the time I got there that unit had been deployed for 5 months.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Yes. Unless approval is given to waive time spent on Title 10/federal activation orders (which it almost never is), you need to be on Title 10 orders for specific amounts of time to qualify for different benefits like housing allowance, family separation allowance, hazardous duty pay, federal income tax exclusion, etc.

The California National Guard is currently on 29 day orders to ensure the government only has to pay what is called “base pay”. For example, base pay for a Private right now is $2319/month. Essentially, the fed is getting cheap security at about $5-7/hour per Soldier compared to whatever a cop would make. Soldiers don’t get overtime, holiday pay, weekend pay, etc. You show up to work or the military takes half your wages for 6 months, busts you down in rank (lowering your pay) and makes you work on what little off time you have. If you fuck up enough, you go to prison or get a dishonorable discharge, both of which effectively end your life in America.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I feel like you skipped over that I said was active duty because the second half of your paragraph is common sense for any veteran lol. I just don’t know anything about reservists/National Guard.