What is going on in our military?

[Indus]

How about a not safe for anything tag on that link, and maybe some mention of it being a shock site where demented fucks can get their rocks off.

Fixed with a better link.

 

[Indus]

Please think twice before posting a shit link like that again.

btw, that was 5 years ago.

An actual news article if anyone is interested:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/...ling-of-transgender-woman-in-philippines.html

and a follow up re his appeal:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...e-in-transgender-womans-killing-idUSKBN17C0FT

Removed.. Sorry about that.

 

[Viper1j]

Guys I am sorry.. I just picked the first link from google about the story.

This is the first chance I've had to review that and that link is gone.

Deepest Heartfelt apologies.

No problem. It's just a net thing.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Removed.. Sorry about that.

S'cool.

 

[Greenman]

Guys I am sorry.. I just picked the first link from google about the story.

This is the first chance I've had to review that and that link is gone.

Deepest Heartfelt apologies.

All water under the bridge.

 

[JSt0rm]

This nothing compared to war crimes. Well documented during the Civil War as "allowed". You pansies think embarrassing Iraqi detainees in Iraq was a crime?

You fuck your daughters?

Over the top response, albeit to a thoroughly reprehensible diminuation of the Abu Ghraib atrocities.

Perknose
Forum Director

 

[GobBluth]

And so herein lies the rub. I got into a conversation with a friend, who is moderately patriotic, and was explaining to him that the majority, maybe not the majority, but a lot, of the people in the military are pieces of shit. People who wouldn't have gone to college, were doing drugs or selling drugs, people just looking for stable income. He was offended saying that I, being a veteran, should respect and honor all veterans. I said, all veterans are not created equal, and I just couldn't. I saw too much of this type of thing during my tenure.

I'd say maybe 1% of the total armed forces were people who woke up one morning and said "I love America, and I will defend her with my life." The other 99% of us were looking for free college, a setup for adult life down the road, or just a free pass with some cash and meals paid for.

just my $0.02.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

And so herein lies the rub. I got into a conversation with a friend, who is moderately patriotic, and was explaining to him that the majority, maybe not the majority, but a lot, of the people in the military are pieces of shit. People who wouldn't have gone to college, were doing drugs or selling drugs, people just looking for stable income. He was offended saying that I, being a veteran, should respect and honor all veterans. I said, all veterans are not created equal, and I just couldn't. I saw too much of this type of thing during my tenure.

I'd say maybe 1% of the total armed forces were people who woke up one morning and said "I love America, and I will defend her with my life." The other 99% of us were looking for free college, a setup for adult life down the road, or just a free pass with some cash and meals paid for.

just my $0.02.

Not too far off. Most of the people I ran into in the AF weren't complete pieces of shit (with a few notable exceptions). A lot of the Army cats were, unequivocally, complete shitbirds. Still plenty of good eggs there, just plenty of bad ones to spoil the bunch though.

Most people are fairly reasonable before they go in, so they figure it's a good place to start their lives/get their life in order. I was the latter, basically going nowhere fast, and was on a trajectory to be a Mostly Useless Human if I didn't change anything. Joined up, got some great learnin', and now I'm in a great place in my life. Unfortunately not everyone else takes the same path, and ends up in a worse state during or post-military.

I'll give a pass though to most people that end up in action (I was lucky, worked in IT). That shit will fuck you up to the point that you don't behave like a human anymore, whatever that means. I won't forgive everything, but I'll at least understand how a person got to a given point if they were in combat.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Not too far off. Most of the people I ran into in the AF weren't complete pieces of shit (with a few notable exceptions). A lot of the Army cats were, unequivocally, complete shitbirds. Still plenty of good eggs there, just plenty of bad ones to spoil the bunch though.

Most people are fairly reasonable before they go in, so they figure it's a good place to start their lives/get their life in order. I was the latter, basically going nowhere fast, and was on a trajectory to be a Mostly Useless Human if I didn't change anything. Joined up, got some great learnin', and now I'm in a great place in my life. Unfortunately not everyone else takes the same path, and ends up in a worse state during or post-military.

I'll give a pass though to most people that end up in action (I was lucky, worked in IT). That shit will fuck you up to the point that you don't behave like a human anymore, whatever that means. I won't forgive everything, but I'll at least understand how a person got to a given point if they were in combat.

And so herein lies the rub. I got into a conversation with a friend, who is moderately patriotic, and was explaining to him that the majority, maybe not the majority, but a lot, of the people in the military are pieces of shit. People who wouldn't have gone to college, were doing drugs or selling drugs, people just looking for stable income. He was offended saying that I, being a veteran, should respect and honor all veterans. I said, all veterans are not created equal, and I just couldn't. I saw too much of this type of thing during my tenure.

I'd say maybe 1% of the total armed forces were people who woke up one morning and said "I love America, and I will defend her with my life." The other 99% of us were looking for free college, a setup for adult life down the road, or just a free pass with some cash and meals paid for.

just my $0.02.

As someone that knows plenty of military people - believe me when I say that they are some of the most compassionate and hard working people I've ever seen.

I don't doubt it's a mixed grab-bag of some crappy people, but 99% is just insultingly wrong. That is something that can only come from the mouth of someone with no real perception, understanding, or knowledge of our military and the people it comprises of.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

As someone that knows plenty of military people - believe me when I say that they are some of the most compassionate and hard working people I've ever seen.

I don't doubt it's a mixed grab-bag of some crappy people, but 99% is just insultingly wrong. That is something that can only come from the mouth of someone with no real perception, understanding, or knowledge of our military and the people it comprises of.

To clarify, I don't think 99% is accurate, but I'm prior so you can be sure that the words coming from my mouth are from someone with real perception, understanding, and knowledge. It's all anecdotal as with most things, but that doesn't mean my experiences are to be dismissed just because you don't agree with them or because they aren't congruent with your anecdotal experiences.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

To clarify, I don't think 99% is accurate, but I'm prior so you can be sure that the words coming from my mouth are from someone with real perception, understanding, and knowledge. It's all anecdotal as with most things, but that doesn't mean my experiences are to be dismissed just because you don't agree with them or because they aren't congruent with your anecdotal experiences.

Yeah - No worries, my post was mostly a reply to Gobbluth... I guess I quoted your post as well since you were a part of the conversation. Apologies for the confusion.

 

[GobBluth]

As someone that knows plenty of military people - believe me when I say that they are some of the most compassionate and hard working people I've ever seen.

I don't doubt it's a mixed grab-bag of some crappy people, but 99% is just insultingly wrong. That is something that can only come from the mouth of someone with no real perception, understanding, or knowledge of our military and the people it comprises of.

You mean like a veteran who watched it and lived it day in and day out for the better part of a decade?

 

[GobBluth]

Yeah - No worries, my post was mostly a reply to Gobbluth... I guess I quoted your post as well since you were a part of the conversation. Apologies for the confusion.

And to be fair, I agree with you mostly. A lot of the people I met, some of my very best friends, have all the qualities you listed. However, you're missing the point. When you live it, and you see these guys, these "Brothers in arms" (and its mostly the men), raping kids, raping female service members, stealing, assaulting people, selling drugs, ripping off the gov't for housing money, it changes your perspective. As far as the 99% goes, you changed that to suit your argument. What I said was, maybe 1% joined solely for the patriot reason. And you can put that in your "hard pill to swallow" case. It's true. Ask a service member.

Don't act like you can intelligently speak to someone else's perspective/understanding/knowledge just because you know a few people. Unless you know all 2M servicemen an women, and can accurately and factually speak to their character, give it a rest.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

You mean like a veteran who watched it and lived it day in and day out for the better part of a decade?

You (as a veteran) honestly think 99% of the military are "looking for free college, a setup for adult life down the road, or just a free pass with some cash and meals paid for." and the majority of which are "pieces of shit"?

Mind if I ask where you worked in the military and what ranking you achieved?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

You (as a veteran) honestly think 99% of the military are "looking for free college, a setup for adult life down the road, or just a free pass with some cash and meals paid for." and the majority of which are "pieces of shit"?

Mind if I ask where you worked in the military and what ranking you achieved?

In my experience, most started that way, or for similar reasons. (like me, as I said). There was probably a glut of people that signed up on 9/11 for nationalistic/patriotic reasons but that tends to diminish shortly after we've been actively attacked.

Not to say there cannot be patriotic people in the military, just that most didn't sign up for patriotic reasons. I'd say that over 50% of those I met were pieces of shit though. My personal experiences were 6 in the AF doing IT stuff (fair bit of interaction across AFSCs though, nature of my job), and 3 working for the Army as an IT contractor, same thing, plenty of cross-interaction.

 

[GobBluth]

You (as a veteran) honestly think 99% of the military are "looking for free college, a setup for adult life down the road, or just a free pass with some cash and meals paid for." and the majority of which are "pieces of shit"?

Mind if I ask where you worked in the military and what ranking you achieved?

Careful, quote it accurately if you're going to use it for an argument. Yes. Absolutely 100%. I do believe the things I wrote that you quoted in the manner in which I wrote them. Hell, I was one of them, as was Osiris who you quoted. Its the truth.

I also said "Maybe not the majority, but a lot". You seems to have left that part out.

What does my rank/location have to do it with? I don't mind sharing, I'm just curious what you're trying to gain by knowing it.

 

[glenn1]

There's over a million active duty service members and a lot more reservists, you're going to have some criminal activity in a population that large. Would be interesting to see if the crime numbers are above statistically expected values either in totality or in certain categories (like child pornography or whatever) but that's not something I have time to research.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Careful, quote it accurately if you're going to use it for an argument. Yes. Absolutely 100%. I do believe the things I wrote that you quoted in the manner in which I wrote them. Hell, I was one of them, as was Osiris who you quoted. Its the truth.

I also said "Maybe not the majority, but a lot". You seems to have left that part out.

What does my rank/location have to do it with? I don't mind sharing, I'm just curious what you're trying to gain by knowing it.

Sorry, didn't intend to misquote you overall - I edited it from my initial post of saying 99% are pieces of shit.

Just curious - I'm sure high ranking officials have different perspectives than lower ranks - at the same time I'm sure different service arms have different experiences as well like @[DHT]Osiris experienced with Army vs. AF.

Similarly I'm sure the type of position (boots on the ground, etc.) and/or where you're based out of can all be factors that yield different experiences.

 

[soundforbjt]

There was also the big lowering of standards during the Iraq War to meet enlistment quotas, such as waivers.

Waivers, which are generally approved at the Pentagon, allow recruiters to sign up men and women who otherwise would be ineligible for service because of legal convictions, medical problems or other reasons preventing them from meeting minimum standards.

The story of that unnamed Air National Guard recruit (whose name is blacked out in his statement) is based on documents obtained by Salon under the Freedom of Information Act. It illustrates one of the tactics that the military is using in its uphill battle to meet recruiting targets during the Iraq war. The personnel problems are acute. The Air National Guard, for example, missed its recruiting target by 14 percent last year. And the regular Army missed its goal by 8 percent, its largest recruiting shortfall since 1979.

This is where waivers come in. According to statistics provided to Salon by the office of the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, the Army said that 17 percent (21,880 new soldiers) of its 2005 recruits were admitted under waivers. Put another way, more soldiers than are in an entire infantry division entered the Army in 2005 without meeting normal standards. This use of waivers represents a 42 percent increase since the pre-Iraq year of 2000. (All annual figures used in this article are based on the government's fiscal year, which runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30. So fiscal year 2006 began Oct. 1, 2005.)

https://www.salon.com/2006/02/02/waivers/

 

[GobBluth]

Sorry, didn't intend to misquote you overall - I edited it from my initial post of saying 99% are pieces of shit.

Just curious - I'm sure high ranking officials have different perspectives than lower ranks - at the same time I'm sure different service arms have different experiences as well like @[DHT]Osiris experienced with Army vs. AF.

Similarly I'm sure the type of position (boots on the ground, etc.) and/or where you're based out of can all be factors that yield different experiences.

In that case, I was enlisted, an Air Force NCO, and I worked in Communications until I was forward deployed into an Army unit for the purpose of combat communication. Hard to explain without getting into the nitty gritty.

Perhaps the officers and commanders do have a different perspective. I won't argue that. All I can tell you is that, based off of my experience and the troops that I trained and supervised, it seems like our military is comprised of less and less patriots and more and more pieces of shit. As evident by the hundreds of court martial cases regarding really nasty crimes.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Would be interesting to see if the crime numbers are above statistically expected values either in totality or in certain categories (like child pornography or whatever) but that's not something I have time to research

I'd be interested in that too, but I don't know if you could get realistic numbers unfortunately. Even pretty hardcore stuff gets swept under the rug a lot of the time, or if the person gets punished it's for something unrelated/not labeled what it actually was. I will say that it seemed as though the AF (or at least the units I was with) was/were more willing to prosecute/punish people than the Army was, but even that had limits, and I saw plenty of people get away with plenty of crap.

 

[Commodus]

I see this in the same way I do police forces. Most (if not the clear majority of) members are fine, upstanding people, but it's not just "a few bad apples" as some would say. The cultures seem to disproportionately attract people with violent and authoritarian streaks, and sometimes we only find out about that after there's been a crime.

 

[trenchfoot]

And then we have recruiters with quotas to fill or they if they don't then bye bye promotions. Ergo, there is motivation here to get as many recruits in the door as possible with recruiters trying their utmost to get them in.

Corners are cut, exceptions are made. Psych evals? What psych evals? Voila.

 

[glenn1]

I see this in the same way I do police forces. Most (if not the clear majority of) members are fine, upstanding people, but it's not just "a few bad apples" as some would say. The cultures seem to disproportionately attract people with violent and authoritarian streaks, and sometimes we only find out about that after there's been a crime.

The military is a culture where absolute obedience to lawful orders is demanded, as is the willingness to kill another human being on demand. That such a position would attract those with "violent and authoritarian streaks" is literally the most "no shit" observation ever.

The true purple unicorns are the unconventional warfare guys. I'm guessing every single guy I ever met in the special forces had well above average traits on the psychopathy scales while at the same time being able to score highly on collaboration traits and other "soft skills." The challenge is finding guys both high on the psychopathy traits, yet are able to perform in teams that require extremely high levels of social cohesion, group trust, and other "high functioning" traits not generally found in the typical psychopath.

 

[Commodus]

The military is a culture where absolute obedience to lawful orders is demanded, as is the willingness to kill another human being on demand. That such a position would attract those with "violent and authoritarian streaks" is literally the most "no shit" observation ever.

The true purple unicorns are the unconventional warfare guys. I'm guessing every single guy I ever met in the special forces had well above average traits on the psychopathy scales while at the same time being able to score highly on collaboration traits and other "soft skills." The challenge is finding guys both high on the psychopathy traits, yet are able to perform in teams that require extremely high levels of social cohesion, group trust, and other "high functioning" traits not generally found in the typical psychopath.

Militaries ought to do a better job of screening out the people who take that too far, though. You want people who are dutiful, but not mindless drones (that's how you get the "just following orders" types who'd willingly commit atrocities) or power trippers.

I'm not sure we want much psychopathy in the armed forces. Yeah, to some extent you need to avoid being too sensitive (since you know the enemy is out to kill you), but you do want someone who can empathize with innocents and act out of compassion rather than cold logic.