Do you remember when the US Army asked “how has serving impacted you?” on Twitter and the most common answers were PTSD, harassment, rape? Maybe that’s why.
Fight who? Our biggest threat climate change caused by multinational corporations. Often the same ones that our soldiers are deployed for.
I’m not convinced a soldier has been sent to fight for my country at any point during my lifetime.
I’m an oif veteran, and I honestly don’t think we’ve fought for our country since pearl harbor
what’s an oif?
“Operation Iraqi Freedom” in quotes because that’s its name, I should clarify I find the name ridiculous because we freed no one
managed to turn a 2nd world country into a 3rd world country and boy howdy did we stop all those wmds :|
but honestly, thanks for serving when so many never consider it. hope you got your disability and bennies covered.
Operation Iraqi Freedom I believe, wild guess really.
Ukrainian soldiers being sent right now.
Ukraine isn’t my country. They’re fighting for their country.
My point wasn’t that “fighting for your country” isn’t a thing that happens; my point was that the many fights the United States involved itself in over the last 30+ years…aren’t that.
They are pretty much fighting for all of Europe and America.
If there’s one thing I can guarantee is on no Ukrainian soldier’s mind right now, it’s “What will happen to America if we lose?”
A foreign power has invaded their country, and they’re fighting back. Ukraine is on the right side of history here. They don’t need you to grandstand for them.
Weird it’s an argument their president makes all the time.
See? They can grandstand for themselves.
Is it grand standing if it’s true? There are absolutely Ukrainians who believe they are fighting to stop a modern fascist form invading all of Europe and pressing through to America, the country which led the international response to the invasion and which is Ukraine’s political and economic partner over the past decade. I know they aren’t defending America so to say as fervently as they are defending their home, but they know what is at stake.
Raise a hand. Who wants to sign up as cannon fodder for the rich?
… And its 1, 2,3 what are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn,
The next stop is Vietnam,
And its 5, 6,7 open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why,
WHOOPEE we’re all gonna die
I’d definitely fight FOR our country. But I would not fight for our country and those that currently control it. They’re after all, the ones we have to fight against.
… so what period in history was this ever a country worth fighting for lol
Almost never. FOR however, almost always.
… you’ll have to explain that. I think you’re contradicting yourself lol
Not really. You just need to go back to my first post in this thread. Explains it perfectly. The country itself. I would fight to save it from the people that currently run it. But I would not fight for (in service of) the country and the people that currently run it.
The country isn’t, like, its own entity. America isn’t real. There isn’t some ideological spirit of America that you can separate from the people that run it. At most you could argue that America is also its culture, but uh, the culture has been pretty fucking bad since the start!
American society is terrible. America’s government is terrible. American culture is terrible. It’s an irredeemable shithole country.
What the fuck would you fight for?
Actually there is. They talk and talk and talk about it ad nauseam. They simply just do it rhetorically and always fail to embody it. Even countries with a traditionally large immigrant population like the United States have a lot more culturally that tends to bind, then they have differences that divide. And after all what is a country? If not the people in it?
Americans don’t want to fight for
their countrythe fossil fuel industry anymoreFtfy
why in the fuck would any sane person sign up to die in a failed attempt to implement some shitty politician’s whim half a world away? no one has fought for America in decades, they fight for the aristocrats.
That’s because Democrats are brainwashing people to hate their country and has absolutely nothing to do with Republicans voting AGAINST any and all help for veterans, Republicans constantly stopping service member pay with government shutdowns, billionaires killing us so they can make an extra dollar, billionaires using us to do dangerous tasks for minimal pay or Republicans voting to dismantle the VA. It’s OBVIOUSLY the Democrats fault!
Almost everyone I know that went into the military did it for the experience and to be able to go to college. That was when people believed a college degree would set you up for a stable future. Now that millennials know this isn’t true and we’re not lying to gen Z, they sure as shit don’t believe it either.
The military should add to its incentives. If the military could for example, build you a modest home then I’m sure people would start joining again.
I mean, in a roundabout sort of way, the military does do that. If you’re active duty, you earn an okay salary (compared to other jobs whose entry requirement is a passing GED), but a significant portion of your paycheck is composed of nontaxable benefit payments. For example, BAH or Basic Allowance for Housing. As a junior NCO in a low cost of living state, I was getting nearly a thousand dollars a month specifically to offset housing costs. That afforded me the opportunity to rent a very nice apartment I would not have been able to afford on my salary alone. If I had chosen to rent a cheaper place, or cohabitate with someone, I would have been able to pocket the difference. I also received something like $400 ish for food in the form of the Basic Allowance for Subsistence stipend. Not to mention free healthcare through Tricare. Additionally, most veterans qualify for the VA Home Loan program, in which the government guarantees a portion of your mortgage, which can mean better rates from lenders vs a civilian.
So, while the military isn’t necessarily out here building homes for folks (that being said, I’ve stayed in on base housing before, and most places certainly qualify as modest single family homes), they do provide tools that vets can use to make that a reality.
Does the incentives balance out against the cons of military service? For me, they did. For others, maybe not.
Thanks, yeah I think in service benefits are great but life after the military is always the pain point. The military sometimes has crazy signing bonuses and you get the GI bill as well, I think if the military appealed to people’s life after service more then more people would sign up. Maybe do that in place of the GI bill. Homes are crazy right now because there aren’t enough homes, not so much because they’re expensive to build.
Unless you go with an MOS that you’d like to do after the military, a lot of the time the skills you learn don’t really transfer to civilian life. Young adults don’t usually know what they’d find rewarding and the recruiters can often trick you into some job you didn’t want. I wouldn’t recommend it to most people.
Eustice, who served 26 years in the Minnesota National Guard, noted that young adults were the military’s prime target for new recruits—currently Generation Z, or those born after 1997—and argued that growing up in the internet age had made them used to “immediate gratification.”
Oh look, another out of touch boomer. ItS tHoSe DaMn CeLlPhOnEs! Gen Z grew up watching America get involved in, then stay involved in, a deeply unpopular war. Gen Z grew up in an age where you can fact check someone on the spot and it makes it that much harder for recruiters to lie. They grew up in an age where half of the government is trying to drag the country backwards by any means.
I am in the military. I overheard my leadership talking with a woman who wanted to get out. When they asked her why she said it was because of the Roe V Wade decision. “Why would I fight for a country that won’t fight for me?” I don’t blame her.
A person saying kids don’t want to join the military because they’re too used to “instant gratification” is some of the most obnoxious shit I have ever heard lmao
If someone went up to me and said that, I’d tell them to go fuck themselves and leave, because fuck all of that.
Ah well, soldiers haven’t fought for their country for decades. Instead they’ve been fighting for the interest of industrialized military, and the whims of politicians.
I mean why would someone want to fight for a country that doesn’t care about them?
I mean when we watch decades of wars that kill thousands of American’s and MILLIONS of people in their own countries for no reason, maybe we need a little additional justification rather than “fight for your country”. Nah! Probably just the fault of the “instant gratification” generations being selfish again.
We see more, and trust less now. Seems like a good first order explanation to me anyway.
You’ll end up with PTSD, divorced and homeless, but think of all the brown people you’ll get to kill in the name of our Lord and Savior, Walt Disney.
A country is supposed to provide 4 things to it’s citizens, and the united states are failing on all 4.
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safe to drink water: Nearly half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with ‘forever chemicals,’ government study finds
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safety: The record 48,830 total gun deaths in 2021 reflect a 23% increase since 2019
additionally, nearly every fundamental system (education, healthcare, insurance, car-dependent city designs, etc.) within the united states is designed to take everything away (or restrict access to everything) from it’s citizens through poverty, thus making the above problems exponentially worse.
What is there to fight for?
Millennials are killing the killing industry.
