general Do you think the military is misunderstood?

[CapnKrunk 307]

(I'm not sure if there's already a thread like this, but eh)

 

I feel like some people today misunderstand what the military is about, and this goes for any branch (Army,Marines,Etc.)

 

Here's an example of what I mean: A few months ago I had to go to the doctors for a check-up. My doctor who was going to do my check up came into the room and apparently one of the other nurses told her that I have enlisted into the Navy. Before she even starts with the actual procedure. She seems to be a bit mad with me and starts ranting on about how it's a terrible idea and that all I'm going to be doing is mopping the deck 24/7. Which is not true because when you enlist, you go to MEPS and they assign you a job that you choose for (based on your ASVAB scores). Then she says that I'm going to end up being poor, college is better, etc. This frustrated me at the time because just imagine having to make a decent decision in enlisting in the military that could help better you life, then have it crushed by someone that has no experience in the military telling you what you should do with your life.

  Another thing that happened was when i told my friends about me enlisting. Then they told me that the Navy is "useless".

 

idk if that's just me overthinking all this, but what do you all think about the topic of others misunderstanding the military?

[Lunar Echo 10,334]

It's the honest truth, the Armed Services of our great nations just use and throw away. They don't want a trained killer who knows how to operate machines of war. If you join the military it should be because you have nothing and are on the verge of becoming homeless. Otherwise, it's a waste of your time/life and you should focus your resources on securing a safe future for yourself. The bulk of the military personnel I've seen are struggling once they leave the service. 

Edited March 21, 2016 by Lunar Echo

[Once In A Blue Moon 894]

I think a fair bit of the issue is what you think you are going to get out of it. There are some people who go in knowing what they want to do, be it make a life-long career out of it or use it as a stepping stone to some other job (if you can put F-35 maintainace on your CV that's going to look quite impressive for mechanical engineering jobs) and I suspect that is where a lot of the 'the military made me what I am today' comes from.

 

Equally, if you join up because you can't think of anything else to do and you like living in that kind of environment ('live here, do this, sort that out') and then, for example, you suffer from some life-changing injury (be it physical or mental) or the loss of opportunities (such as further education) and start to resent the military for it then you would probably be quite vocal about it.

 

Neither is strictly incorrect (so far as I understand it) but it is a case of know what you're letting yourself in for - if you have realistic goals and ambitions then it can be a great career choice.

 

As for the navy being 'useless', the political power the US wields by being able to put a floating island full of high-tech aircraft, electronics and enough munitions and soldiers to topple a small country anywhere in the world accessible by sea is immense. Even here in the UK it was only due to having the ability to put a fleet to sea and keep it supplied in the South Atlantic that we were even able to fight the Falklands War, never mind win it.

 

Of course, the Iraq war demonstrated that military might alone doesn't solve all problems, and has lessened public support for military intervention abroad - which leads some to resent high defence spending in a time of austerity ('what do we need it for?') so that will account for some of the sentiment as well. So yes, it is misunderstood in that different people (inside and outside of the military) have different expectations, and whether those expectations are met will affect their views.

[Jackie Snack 1,498]

I have... mixed feelings about the military. (Navy, seven years)

 

On one hand, it's great for getting started. Free college, healthcare, plenty of benefits...

 

On the other hand, when you get into the nitty-gritty of it, you get to watch (and often) be apart of how the military screws over the general populace and is really... REALLY not who they say they are.

 

I was an IT, an information technician. Worked alongside NSA at NIOC Hawaii before they kicked all of the military out of the facility. This was when the Patriot Act was NOT currently instated, as it had been in earlier years. It is against the law for ANYONE, civilian or DoD, to collect and store information on American citizens. And yet, everyday I went to work, every time I walked across the multiple watch floors in the base, I was treated to listening to phone calls and watching screens who were... you guessed it, pointed at our own people. Emails, data, everything you could think of, stored in our databases.

 

Remember Edward Snowden? Remember the Prism project? Yeah.

 

Fast forward to the USS John C Stennis. I'm now involved with the inventory side of the Navy. Normally, you go to Home Depot and get a can of off-white paint for like, 15-20 bucks, right? The Navy pays 158 dollars for a gallon of unmixed paint. $158. One hundred and fifty-eight dollars.

...

Little ridiculous, right? This is not just one item. Almost every single thing that the military orders is faaaar overpriced. That's where part of our taxes go.

 

Fast forward, still on the Stennis. Last month in the Navy. I've been given trash duty, which they usually reserve for those on the way out, after they've trained their replacements. Nothing too bad. I go around, make sure all the trash rooms are doing okay. My particular room hands a large food disposal, which dumps right into the ocean. Nothing too bad, since it's food. We can sually spot fish feeding off the run-off. But we also handle unprocessable materials, like metals and misc.

 

'Oh, do we store it on board like we do the plastic?"

 

Nope. It goes right overboard into the water once we are twenty-five nautical miles out. We grab all the scrap, throw it in a potato sack, if we have weights, we throw them in there to make sure they sink and we toss them overboard at 3 am. We would toss around forty bags a night into the middle of the ocean. Plastic too, when we would SOMEHOW RUN OUT OF ROOM ON AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER.

 

Now, we were only out on a month long run. Imagine a 9 month deployment. Now, think about how many ships might be out in the water, dumping all that trash.

 

Sickening, huh?

 

Not misunderstood. We have a good idea about what the military is. The individual service member is generally innocent. But the military as a whole is a corrupt organization that serves corporations first and it's country second.

Edited March 21, 2016 by x0jackie0x

[Thermonuclear Kitten 70]

It's the honest truth, the Armed Services of our great nations just use and throw away. They don't want a trained killer who knows how to operate machines of war. If you join the military it should be because you have nothing and are on the verge of becoming homeless. Otherwise, it's a waste of your time/life and you should focus your resources on securing a safe future for yourself. The bulk of the military personnel I've seen are struggling once they leave the service. 

 

Uhhhhhhh.......... I hope you realize that we should never have to have a trained killer(at least how I am interpreting it) If you think about it logically, if we did not have any sort of Army, then that would cause a major disruption worldwide. Most veterans actually have an easy time readjusting to civilian life, but the ones you see you have had a traumatic experience or have become physiologically or physical disabled, which proves to be an enormous problem for those trying to get back.

 

ALSO! YOU KNOW WHAT ARMY I BELONG TO?

 

THE GRAMMAR NAZIS!

 

NATIONS SHOULD BE SINGULAR!

 

[Jackie Snack 1,498]

Uhhhhhhh.......... I hope you realize that we should never have to have a trained killer(at least how I am interpreting it) If you think about it logically, if we did not have any sort of Army, then that would cause a major disruption worldwide. Most veterans actually have an easy time readjusting to civilian life, but the ones you see you have had a traumatic experience or have become physiologically or physical disabled, which proves to be an enormous problem for those trying to get back.

 

ALSO! YOU KNOW WHAT ARMY I BELONG TO?

 

THE GRAMMAR NAZIS!

 

NATIONS SHOULD BE SINGULAR!

 

 

Uh... first off, no. You're not a grammar Nazi.

 

Second, the military trains its service members to destroy, above all else. We have plenty of trained killers; they make up our special forces. Everyone else is trained how to fire a weapon, be it a pistol or a Tomahawk missile. We are soldiers before we are service members.

 

Third, many veterans actually have a shit time finding a job after the military and 30% end up homeless, with 10% being disabled in one form or another. Half the people I worked with on the Stennis who have separated still don't have a job and they have in-demand skills, like electrician and aircraft maintenance. None of them are disabled.

 

As for the disruption, the only reason it would cause any affect is because America tends to stick its nose in some other country's business. Sure, we help SOME countries, but we are far too widespread for it to make any good sense whatsoever.

[Concerned Bystander 2,901]

The military will always be misunderstood.  It's a beast of necessity, extremely expensive, produces nothing, is perceived as being a pointless burden on the public purse in times of peace and will be lauded as heroes in times of war (at least during those wars deemed by the court of public opinion and the media to be justified and legitimate).

 

Better if we didn't need a military all, but that isn't the world we live in.  Good foreign policy has to backed up with action, bad foreign policy has to be backed up with force. C'est la vie.

[EpicEnergy 22,090]

I don't think it is misunderstood by everyone, but I do think that some people misunderstand it. A common misunderstanding is that those who join the military end up in war. This isn't entirely true as there are multiple positions in the military that soldiers are put in that don't involve going into combat.

[Splashee 28,537]

Just like police is required on a civil level, military is required on a national level. You cannot have a society without that kind of protection and also development.