That no one should have to risk their lives for another person’s political war in order to gain knowledge and employability.
Although the concept is still relatively new to human society many of us now exist in a state where things for our children/the next generations should be BETTER than they were for us.
That means putting aside petty notions such as “but, but, I had to enlist! Why should you NOT have to in order to get an education??”
It shouldn’t be about making people do what you did, but making sure they don’t HAVE to. That people have options. If someone wants to sign up to the military, shouldn’t that be a real choice THEY make instead of a desperate decision because they are poor?
I live in Australia, I won’t HAVE to consider the military in order to gain an education. We, sadly, don’t have free education here. But our student loans are given by the Government, there isn’t interest and I don’t start paying it back until I earn over 50k a year, and then the deductions are based on how much I earn. It’s not perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the current US system.
Anybody who cares about the future generations shouldn’t be clinging to archaic institutions for petty reasons, but instead be looking forward to a better future for everyone.
You know, I really thought I would come back from Afghanistan without at least one of my limbs. I’m still kinda shocked I still have all my factory parts.
I turned 19 in basic training and 20 during my first deployment to Afghanistan.
Fun fact: there are two “classes” in the military, as it were. There were people like me, who were enlisted. That almost always means people who are 17-early twenties with no college. Enlisted personnel are disproportionately drawn from low-income and poor families. They’re the people who grow up in gang territory and people whose families have absolutely no way to send them to college, maybe people for whom college seemed out of the question. I had a drill sergeant and a section sergeant who literally told me that they enlisted because it was that or end up in a gang. They actually phrased it as either they would die in war or they would die in prison or in a gang fight. For some SHOCKING AND MYSTERIOUS REASON there are an awful lot of people of color who enlist.
The other class is officers. Mind you, officers hold a lot more power and influence in the military than enlisted do. Hell, a 22-year-old dumbass butterbar (2nd lieutenant) technically holds more power than the 20-years-of-service-in-the-Army first sergeant. To be an officer, you have to go to college first, on your own dime. The Army will pay back your loans, sure, but you have to rack them up yourself first. An officer has power the day he commissions, but an enlisted soldier has to climb the ranks for years to have the same access to power as some fucking butterbar. (Yeah, yeah, there’s the Green to Gold program but it’s hard as hell to get into.)
Isn’t it interesting how even the military, which is one of the only guaranteed ways that someone who lives in crippling poverty can force their way into middle class, privileges people who already have access to money?
But let’s talk about using the military to get into a better economic condition.
There are a lot, and I mean a lot of people who can’t join. I’m not talking about people who are “weak” of spirit or don’t have the intestinal fortitude–and if you think people don’t enlist because they’re weak, you really, really need to spend some time thinking about why you believe that–but people who can’t physically join. Did you know you can’t enlist if you’re colorblind? Red-green colorblindness, the most common type, affects between 7-10% of men, so that’s 11-16 million American men who can’t join. Sorry, fucker, should have had better genes! Most of those people are perfectly physically fit otherwise, except they can’t see two colors that are kinda important to see. I have a friend with spina bifida who would be genuinely perfect for the military. He has the exact disposition that thrives in a military environment, except for the fact that he can’t, you know, walk. Also kinda important. Another friend found out she had pretty severe heart problems in basic training–sorry, pumpkin, no military service for you!
I don’t have time to research every condition that could possibly bar someone from enlistment, but there are a lot. I know people think that the military is something that any dumb asshole can do, but surprisingly, it can be quite difficult to get into!
Even if you’re perfectly physically fit, the military still won’t take you if they don’t need you. See, I signed up in 2006, during the surge. The Army was desperate for bodies, since we were fighting a war on two fronts and the economy hadn’t gone to shit yet, so they were waiving all kinds of things. When my contract was over in 2011, it was hard as fuck to get in; we had pulled out of Iraq and were planning the draw-down in Afghanistan. Even though the economy was shit and a lot of people saw the military as their only option, the Army was incredibly selective about who it took. Ya see, when the more people need to be in the military than the military needs, all of a sudden the entrance requirements get stricter. This meant that the military wasn’t even an option for a lot of people.
But the core problem for me isn’t about any of that. For me, the basic question is this: Why are you okay with a system that forces poor young people to join a job where they risk severe injury, even death, in order to be in a position where they’re on the same economic footing as their middle-class-and-above peers?
I came back with all my limbs but I didn’t come back okay. The Army and my deployments changed me in a lot of ways I don’t like, and I’m going to have the scars for the rest of my life. Some things can’t be fixed. And yet you think that it’s fair for poor people, and let me be clear that this is an especially big problem for poor people of color, to have to go through what I went through to “earn” their right to a stable economic future? That is not an okay thing to think.
ALSO YOU ASSHOLE, THE POST-9/11 GI BILL DOES NOT PAY FOR FOUR YEARS OF SCHOOL IT PAYS FOR 36 MONTHS. 36 MONTHS. I can’t even FINISH MY FUCKING UNDERGRAD ON IT.
also, “I had to do it the hard way so you should too” is a common unproductive attitude.
Right! I don’t want people to have to do it the hard way! I like the idea of living in a world where people don’t have to suffer! So I’m always really confused when people’s logic is like “Well, if I had to suffer then it’s only fair that you have to suffer.”
I mean, if we went by that logic then no one should get vaccines (other people suffered through polio!) or enjoy the benefits of the FDA (if eating sausage full of rat poison was good enough for Grandma, it’s good enough for me!) or water treatment (don’t complain about the lead poisoning, everyone got it!). That’s not the world I want to live in! I want to live in a world where things are better!
People argued with me that the army would take me, that there was no such thing as the military refusing to take people. People are literally that ignorant and that stupid, that determined to refuse basic facts. They will not let go of their hateful little worlds.
The one place in the world where you have to be in perfect physical shape, people will insist that the disabled not only BELONG there, but will be welcomed there. Tells you a lot about how they view us, that they think we can’t do everything else in the world until we’re needed to die instead of someone else.
The military couldn’t hang up fast enough when they were trying to recruit me after I told them I was a celiac–just that, not the rest of it. And people will not believe that that happened. People kept insisting they would take me. Still insist they’d take me.
Though I hesitate to generalize, that last part suggest that most people saying “just join the military” are not themselves veterans, but chickenhawks who like to use vets as a stick to beat anyone they don’t want to help. So it’s not even “I had to suffer, you should too,” it’s “they had to suffer, you should too.”
Mooncustafer 