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On May 24 2009 04:02 Rakanishu2 wrote:
If the mods catch this, I've been lurking here for like 2 years, and I haven't been able to register because your email auto-validation system doesn't like the @u.washington.edu part. Just made another email for this website.
Fixed, thanks.
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On May 24 2009 05:19 Cambium wrote:
Physical training seems like a big plus, which many people lack these days.
No need to join the army for that, plenty of gyms, and if you really want it as a goal you can go further in physical advancement at a gym than in the army.
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On May 24 2009 05:56 Servolisk wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2009 05:19 Cambium wrote:
Physical training seems like a big plus, which many people lack these days.
No need to join the army for that, plenty of gyms, and if you really want it as a goal you can go further in physical advancement at a gym than in the army.
Theres a difference because PT is mandatory, if you dodge PT you find out a lot about yourself. Yeah I wasn't a huge PT buff but I could hack it when I felt like shit and thats important.
e: theres no goal, just do it
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On May 24 2009 03:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2009 22:05 Aegraen wrote:On May 23 2009 21:45 VIB wrote:On May 23 2009 21:21 Aegraen wrote:On May 23 2009 21:19 Mah Buckit! wrote:On May 23 2009 19:22 Integra wrote:On May 23 2009 19:00 QuoC wrote:
they brainwash the fuck out of you when you first get there.
it's bootcamp like a mofo, strip you of your pride & dignity..
it's all for a good cause though. yes, to start wars and kill people you never met in strange countries you never been to before. And not forgetting that most of the people couldn´t even place those countries on the worldmap or give shit. That´s democracy for ya all ! Have to love the extreme bias and ignorance of some of the members here in regards to the military. "You guys have obviously biased opinions in regards to the military." - Active Military who admittedly is a huge fanboi of the army. Claims to be a high IQ army badass who could stand waterboarding no problem. But doesn't really think the army makes you an asshole. You know what is the different between Irony and Contradiction? Fun Fact: I'm not in the Army. Fun Fact: The long traditions and customs and courtesies of the US military is no way comparable to whatever Brazilian Military is accustomed to / has done. Fun Fact: Military life does not make you an asshole. You are either an asshole before you join or not. For most, (my family has a long heritage of military and law enforcement service), it mellows you out due to the experiences. Fun Fact: You should thank the military for the protection of the citizenry. We do the hard work so you can live the cush life. Show some respect. Fun Fact: your army doesn't help your citizens. It rather invade country for the private interest of your corrupted governement, and the messianic pseudo-fascist ideology of the idiot you had as a president for eight years. Fun Fact: Therefore I don't show any respect for US soldiers.
you're fucking stupid biff, seriously, I don't blame French Napoleonic soldiers for what they had to do. I don't blame the Soviets in Afghanistan. I blame the leaders or on exception the people who perpetrated. you're just fucking stupid no one should respect your opinion 'cause you don't hold any merit.
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Are some people actually citing the discipline you learn from the army as a positive side? You learn to obey without questioning and that is a good thing?
A corrupt politician says sit, you sit. He says play dead, you play dead. He says attack that random country who is my economical enemy so I make more $, you attack that random country who is his economical enemy so he makes more $. He says waterboard these guys who have some valuable information because I told you so, you waterboard those guys who have some valuable information because he told you so.
Without ever questioning if any of those could possibly be wrong. It's your orders, you just obey orders. Just like a trained dog... and that is a good thing?
Is that the discipline you want your kids to learn? "Be a dog my son, you should learn something from Spike, he never has an opinion!" Why not go to a dog training center instead of the army? I bet the food is better.
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My grandfather used to tell me "When you're in the army..." because apparently his years of conscription were terrible. So I am glad I never had to join as conscription was terminated a few years before I had to.
Anyway, most people I know who joined the army voluntarily were complete assholes who were too intellectually challenged to mop a floor and were always trying to pick a fight.
They wanted to join the army because being a soldier is badass and you get to fight and shoot guns. These guys were socially inadequate, and I guess joining the army could teach them some discipline and prevent them from ending up in jail.
I know a few people who joined after taking a competitive exam for "intellectual" jobs (air traffic controllers in the Air Force or the Navy), and they joined because the training was paid and the army offers many opportunities to take degrees for free. These people never said they learnt anything from their basic training, but the army helped them get qualifications they would have been unable to acquire had they remained civilians.
So yes, the army CAN be good for SOME people. But some of us do not need that to learn self discipline, willpower, or to get a proper degree or whatever.
Besides, it seems that the Army is very well considered in the US, whether in France, soldiers (even senior officers) are very often looked down on, so it is much less enviable when you try to get a job as a civilian after you quit.
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On May 24 2009 06:22 VIB wrote:
Are some people actually citing the discipline you learn from the army as a positive side? You learn to obey without questioning and that is a good thing?
A corrupt politician says sit, you sit. He says play dead, you play dead. He says attack that random country who is my economical enemy so I make more $, you attack that random country who is his economical enemy so he makes more $. He says waterboard these guys who have some valuable information because I told you so, you waterboard those guys who have some valuable information because he told you so.
Without ever questioning if any of those could possibly be wrong. It's your orders, you just obey orders. Just like a trained dog... and that is a good thing?
Is that the discipline you want your kids to learn? "Be a dog my son, you should learn something from Spike, he never has an opinion!" Why not go to a dog training center instead of the army? I bet the food is better.
Regarding your statement on corrupt politicians, you're balancing on the edges of conspiracy theory. For one, the middle east isn't an economic enemy. That makes absolutely no sense and shows you have no sense of world economic trade and moreover, politics. A resource available in a country which isn't as widely available in another country is always valuable to the latter. The middle east isn't just the world's largest exporter of oil - it exports more oil than every other landmass in the world combined. If the middle east was not sending us oil, our economy would collapse. But our army presence in the middle east is, in fact, there to keep the fight out of the United States. Whether or not that's justifiable is, again, relative to the person.
So if our forces are there to keep enemies on defense, than why invade Iraq? This is a good question, that you could answer yourself if you understood the true nature of politics. Iraq is one of the most oil-saturated countries in the middle east, next to saudi arabia (as far as I know). Some conspiracy theorists then go so far as to insist that Bush's friendship with an 'oil family', who had many pumps in and around Iraq, is what prompted our invasion. They say that because the rich family had invested in one of Bush's companies, it was Bush's turn to return the favor. I guess you just have to have some sensibilities to see through this.
Yes, the Bush family were great friends with an 'oil family', which is why the latter invested in the former. They were rich people who shared common interests: more money. What you have to ask yourself is: after somebody has been president, why in the world would they need to scratch somebody else's back for personal gain? Do you know the pension past presidents get for their services? It's enough to invest and provide for generations of inheritance-babies - I'll tell you that much. So why did bush meet with that family again?
The answer should come easy: they share a common interest. This time, however, Bush isn't Bush. Bush is the US. So what do the US and this oil family both profit from? Yes, oil. With the threat of sectivist muslims seeking to take over Iraq (and already doing a good job of it), the oil was in danger. If the oil wasn't safeguarded, the family would no longer have control of their own product, and the US would take a major economic blow. This is politics. Yes, money is important to everybody - including yourself. The oil being guarded served your interest as much as it did mine.
So you're the president. You face two problems. One: you're being told that you have to take the fight to the middle east, else risking another attack at home. Two: old friends visited you to let you know that it would be in a common interest to start the occupation in Iraq, because otherwise the family may lose their (rather, our) oil, thus dealing a strong economic blow to the US and several other countries.
Was Bush's administration right in the fundamental decision to go to Iraq, and middle east in the first place? That all depends on perspective; there is no right answer to that question. Was it a corrupt decision? Not really, as there was no malice or personal profiteering involved. The decisions made thereafter - bombing villages, torturing, etc. - were poor decisions, but still done with the best interest of the US in mind. To be "corrupt," you must knowingly do something relatively evil. The Bush administration may have done some bad things, but they all felt the actions were justifiable.
I would say that most of congress is "corrupt" in that they've taken bribes to lean the opposite way on a voting matter. But the only politician in the US who has control over the army is the president, and again, there's no reason for him to take a bribe or seek personal financial gain.
*****
Getting to the other part of your argument, "discipline" and "obedience" are two different words, and you'd do best to learn them. "Discipline" certainly doesn't mean "obedience without question," like you're suggesting. When you're in the military, you're allowed to file complaints against your superiors if you think they are morally reprehensible. You can also directly dissent from orders as long as it is for a reason that you can justify in court. It's confusing because you're told that you have to follow orders to work together as a unit (and it's true). But if your ranking officer orders you to run out into the middle of live fire for no discernible reason, you should know that the answer to that is "no, sir".
There are people who are just unintelligent and need to follow orders for their lives to make sense. When you see this person - one who is totally and utterly dedicated to fighting for their country for whatever reason, and following orders without question - you might assume that he is the purest form of the military end-product. This is not true. As a human being, you can choose to take specific lessons and guidances from the military and ignore others. You can take skills you believe to be useful, applying them to life at home, and drop the rest. With the exception of war experience, the military doesn't stand a chance at taking your humanity from you.
So as far as making fun of military enthusiasts goes, their propensity to follow orders is a part of them simply because they weren't built to do anything else. As much as society likes to skirt the truth, intelligence is largely contributed to by genetics.
What you're left with, then, is a post including nothing but irrational political and economic theory, plus poking fun at the intelligence of 'born soldiers'. Good job.
In regards to war, it is a person's decision to join a warring military branch that will undoubtedly ship that person overseas. It'll probably affect them in ways they don't expect - but so has war since the beginning of humankind.
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There is a distinction between discipline and blindly following orders. You can be disciplined to follow through training and action in the field. Before joining you should realise you could encounter a situation were you disagree with orders you could eather swallow it down or choose to leave before you are at a point of no return. You can be very driven and persitent to endure and have minimal regard for authority but just have enough to fit in. Or vice versa. Some just take the shit without blinking because of their drive to succeed. Personally I have little regard for authority but I got through highschool without getting into trouble.
There is a big difference in oppertunities depending on wich countries army you enlist.
If your a grunt or a tankdriver there is little usefull jobexperience to be gained.
I think bonding with your fellow soldiers helps a lot to achieve more then you can do on your own. Like the training misions someone wrote about. I can hardly imagine identifying myself with an organisation or even my own nation. I do identify somewhat with coworkers.
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I've known a lot of people who have been in the military or were for a long time. I don't think any of them regret the decision to join the military, but none of them are really happy with there experience. I have had several employees that I hired after coming back from Iraq or Afghanistan, and they were noticeably effected by there experience. Mostly in the sense that they were very temperamental. Some of them would lose there cool over the smallest thing. I would openly talk about this with them, and they said it was really hard for them to adjust from an environment where everything is black and white and everyone knows there roles, to a civilian environment. I've only known one person to reenlist after there contract was up(I know several people who were stop lossed), everyone else would never think of reenlisting.
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On May 24 2009 06:22 VIB wrote:
Are some people actually citing the discipline you learn from the army as a positive side? You learn to obey without questioning and that is a good thing?
A corrupt politician says sit, you sit. He says play dead, you play dead. He says attack that random country who is my economical enemy so I make more $, you attack that random country who is his economical enemy so he makes more $. He says waterboard these guys who have some valuable information because I told you so, you waterboard those guys who have some valuable information because he told you so.
Without ever questioning if any of those could possibly be wrong. It's your orders, you just obey orders. Just like a trained dog... and that is a good thing?
Is that the discipline you want your kids to learn? "Be a dog my son, you should learn something from Spike, he never has an opinion!" Why not go to a dog training center instead of the army? I bet the food is better.
You don't understand discipline. You're confusing it with obedience.
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On May 24 2009 10:38 Xenixx wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2009 06:22 VIB wrote:
Are some people actually citing the discipline you learn from the army as a positive side? You learn to obey without questioning and that is a good thing?
A corrupt politician says sit, you sit. He says play dead, you play dead. He says attack that random country who is my economical enemy so I make more $, you attack that random country who is his economical enemy so he makes more $. He says waterboard these guys who have some valuable information because I told you so, you waterboard those guys who have some valuable information because he told you so.
Without ever questioning if any of those could possibly be wrong. It's your orders, you just obey orders. Just like a trained dog... and that is a good thing?
Is that the discipline you want your kids to learn? "Be a dog my son, you should learn something from Spike, he never has an opinion!" Why not go to a dog training center instead of the army? I bet the food is better. You don't understand discipline. You're confusing it with obedience.
exactly, the army does not teach discipline, it teaches will submission and total obedience that develops in a stockholm syndrome and pavlov's conditioning even to the most simple tasks.
Sure it promotes comradely but that is because a group of males is subjective to severe distress and this bond is the natural reaction as a human, but that does not turn the whole experience as good, its the same as if you subjected many males to imprisonment and torture, they would bond in an alike fashion, but it doesnt mean its a good thing.
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stopped the redcoats from invading
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I was in the swedish army for ten months. Since I was a platoon leader it was a good leadership experience. It also get you working with a different people that you would never have met in regular life.
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On May 24 2009 14:30 baal wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2009 10:38 Xenixx wrote:On May 24 2009 06:22 VIB wrote:
Are some people actually citing the discipline you learn from the army as a positive side? You learn to obey without questioning and that is a good thing?
A corrupt politician says sit, you sit. He says play dead, you play dead. He says attack that random country who is my economical enemy so I make more $, you attack that random country who is his economical enemy so he makes more $. He says waterboard these guys who have some valuable information because I told you so, you waterboard those guys who have some valuable information because he told you so.
Without ever questioning if any of those could possibly be wrong. It's your orders, you just obey orders. Just like a trained dog... and that is a good thing?
Is that the discipline you want your kids to learn? "Be a dog my son, you should learn something from Spike, he never has an opinion!" Why not go to a dog training center instead of the army? I bet the food is better. You don't understand discipline. You're confusing it with obedience. exactly, the army does not teach discipline, it teaches will submission and total obedience that develops in a stockholm syndrome and pavlov's conditioning even to the most simple tasks. Sure it promotes comradely but that is because a group of males is subjective to severe distress and this bond is the natural reaction as a human, but that does not turn the whole experience as good, its the same as if you subjected many males to imprisonment and torture, they would bond in an alike fashion, but it doesnt mean its a good thing.
wat, once again your expertise is ban-worthy because its so clueless. any idea what you're saying? you try to say that you will have comraderie using the example of prison and torture but that may be the most retarded thing I've ever heard, GOOD JOB.
discipline is different than obedience, discipline has many facets, obedience I think is just the one
"they would bond in an alike fasion" - bruh, you have no idea what you are talking about, we've already discussed how you NEVER bring any reinforcement to your arguments, you're just raw opinion, no education, no experience, save yourself your next ban and educate yourself hercules.
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Physician
United States4146 Posts
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What happens if you ask your superior officer to justify his orders before you agree to help him out? And what happens if that officer rejoins civilian life as a secretary?
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8751 Posts
On May 23 2009 20:12 Aegraen wrote:
I would recommend everyone to join at least for 4 years. To those saying 'schooling' will teach you the things that you get taught in the military....that is absurd. Kids these days have no clue, they go to college, parents paying the way, party all the time slack off, no repercussions.
We have a little thing we like to call the UCMJ. First time on that green mat getting masted infront of the Captain will scare the shit out of you. Nothing like it anywhere else.
Are you saying that if a person lacks self-discipline, he's better off joining the military than going to school? And perhaps if a person has self-discipline, he's better off going to school, since so much of the military is discipline?
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On May 25 2009 00:35 Physician wrote:What has the army done for you? I am not sure, but it is particularly expensive in the US. (federal funds pie chart; 54% of US federal income tax goes to military use) http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm
I noticed it conveniently includes "past military". In the sense of creating a pie chart to represent the current budget, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Stop taking pie charts from retards who don't understand how to make one. If you can spread the word, it'd be great.
This is the federal budget: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget
Anyway, arguing the military in terms of politics is totally different than arguing personal experience. I hoped you guys would've picked up on that by the fifth page.
The funny thing is I'm not terribly pro-military. I was never in it and don't want to be in it. I'm against middle eastern occupation. Sometimes I even identify myself as a pacifist... It's funny because I'm the one who has to come in here and say, "what the hell are you guys talking about?"
On May 25 2009 00:58 Liquid`NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2009 20:12 Aegraen wrote:
I would recommend everyone to join at least for 4 years. To those saying 'schooling' will teach you the things that you get taught in the military....that is absurd. Kids these days have no clue, they go to college, parents paying the way, party all the time slack off, no repercussions.
We have a little thing we like to call the UCMJ. First time on that green mat getting masted infront of the Captain will scare the shit out of you. Nothing like it anywhere else. Are you saying that if a person lacks self-discipline, he's better off joining the military than going to school? And perhaps if a person has self-discipline, he's better off going to school, since so much of the military is discipline?
While I disagree with aegraen about how 'everyone should join', and his opinion that all young people need to be strictly disciplined, discipline is best learned in a place that forces you to learn it. The idea that self-discipline and military discipline are two different concepts, I think, is off. Self-discipline must always be learned of free will. In school, you will learn that self-discipline is vital for your education. In the military, you will learn that self-discipline creates mental fortitude and allows you to operate as part of a unit - you'll also learn that it doesn't earn yourself and others punishment like slacking does. Either way, you can learn to be disciplined, you're just more likely to come out of the military a disciplined person than you are coming out of school.
Branching off, Aegreen, what is most important in life? To you, it seems function is most important - or at least that is how your opinion represents itself. To myself and many others, living life as one chooses is most important.
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Baltimore, USA22260 Posts
sudo.era - I thought it was pretty obvious that "past military" meant money CURRENTLY payed out to people who USED to be in the military; retirement funds/pensions, various benefit programs, etc. You don't need to be acting so pompous when you didn't even understand it yourself in the first place.
Just noticed there was a description right in the goddamn link which you didn't even read that describes exactly what it means:
Past Military,
$484 billion:
• Veterans’ Benefits $94 billion
• Interest on national debt (80%) created by military spending, $390 billion
Anyways, really just came in to say - VIB, stop trolling this thread please. I think it's pretty obvious you have no first-hand knowledge of the subject, all you're trying to do is get some reactions IMO.
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Almost everyone has a unique experience with the military (duh?).
It really depends on your personality and upbringing before you joined. Basically I was a lazy shit, and enlisting in the US Marines surrounded me with a healthy combination of hard workers and other lazy shits, and helped me wake up and realize that I wanted to do something better with my life.
A lot of people come out the same way they went in, basically burdens on society. Other people stay in and make a career out of it, and then others realize that the military is wasting their potential and they're better off somewhere else.
My advice to anyone with any drive to succeed who is seriously thinking about the military is to get a commission.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.warresisters.org/pages/images/pieFY09.gif)
