Not feeling strong enough for it to be a Pit thread, but one annoying notion I’ve seen since returning to the US is this constant one of anyone in uniform past or present being a hero. Some are. Many are not. I’ve known some pretty scumbag servicemen and -women. For example, one here in the news in Hawaii is under indictment for organizing prostitution and I think drug trafficking too. Her husband, a former Death Row inmate in Delaware until a sharp lawyer got him off, is not only under co-indictment but has been implicated in a string of high-profile murders here in Waikiki. I would not say she is hero material.
Not automatically a hero, I agree. But in a general sense, worthy of respect yes. Perhaps until proven otherwise, but automatically worthy of a little gratitude. Signing up for something that has been shown to kill lots of participants is walking-the-walk.
Hear hear. And this just doesn’t apply to “scumbags”. Plenty of people who serve/served in the military are just ordinary Joes doing a job.
I spent 14 years in the Air Force. During my time in I was a communications technician. The vast majority of the time it was basically a 9 to 5, 40 hrs a week type job. The 1st Iraq war happened while I served, but I was in Korea at the time so was never anywhere near a war zone.
I certainly never did anything approaching “heroic”. Hell, I can’t think of anyone I served with who did anything heroic. Most people I know just did their jobs the best they could. I’m glad I served and am proud of the work I did, but that is still no where near heroic.
Sometimes I feel a little guilty about it. Like I’m receiving praise that I didn’t earn.
Your actual job doesn’t matter, any more than a particular part of a clock. The clock won’t work without the whole working together just like the military. The automatic heroism is because you handed the American people a blank check and the payment due could be anything including your own life.
I appreciate respect for the fact that I volunteered, but I’m not a hero for volunteering. I think I was a good Navy officer, and I’m proud of my service, but calling me a hero just for serving is a bit too much, IMO.
I agree. There was an article - wish I could find it now - a few years back where someone pointed out that not only are not people heroes automatically by virtue of joining the military, but also that some people join the military for reasons that are anything but honorable. One example that she cited was someone who joined the military out of a desire to kill people (and being in the military would give him legit opportunities to kill people, whereas doing so in civilian life would mean prison.)
Also, it waters down the meaning of “hero.” If 3+ million people in America are “heroes” because they are or were in uniform, then doesn’t that make “heroism” awfully commonplace and ordinary? Add all the firefighters and cops and EMS other people to the mix and we might be looking at 4 million.
Now that apparently you’re more likely to die in a school shooting than in a combat zone, maybe we should declare those that survive high school heroes too.
Nope, not even worthy of respect. Other than the default respect that you get for being human.
Far too many join for stupid reasons (family problems, poor employment record, attracted to aggression, etc) and have not thought through what they’re doing. For those, the armed forces are nothing but another job. You can’t legitimately walk the walk unless you have a clear idea where the walk is taking you.
I agree that there are truly good and respect-worthy members of the forces, but it’s really an unacceptable stretch to pretend that it’s anywhere close to all of them.
As do I. I think I was a pretty good electronics technician, but repairing aircraft in San Diego is hardly heroic. Nor was printing and sorting messages in the Pentagon or Managing the supply folks in Jacksonville. Please don’t thank me for my service unless you know what I did and you’re easily impressed by it.
Wow what an original and unique OP, I’ve never heard anyone voice such an opinion, this is truly new ground you are treading on, I’ve had my mind blown, I never knew anyone thought this way, I’ve never read or heard such an opinion, and certainly not on this board. The OP is a hero!!! WOooooooo!!!111
Feel free to disagree (or agree) with the sentiment(s) being expressed in the thread. But your post here amounts to nothing more than a threadshit. Don’t do this again.
Retired Army, was the whole of my early life, retired as a full bird Colonel which was essentially the goal I had when I decided to go through the process of getting nominated to West Point. I finished my time as a cadet basically right as Vietnam had ended, morale was low, there wasn’t a ton of glorifying combat veterans going on, even within the service which was at least quasi-insulated from the critiques of the military born out of the 60s combat roles and a long and financially rewarding career weren’t necessarily linked in the minds of most.
I spent the overwhelming majority of my career as a desk jockey, I had a career path and expectations of salary that I felt were best met by working in the Ordnance Corps. Not only was it the perception (and I think reality) this was the best path to getting promoted fast enough to retire at O-6, all my research at the time suggested this career path gave me the most opportunities after retiring to get a good paying civilian job. You have a lot of skills and connections that can get you pretty well paid in the defense industry.
There’s guys I was in the Academy with who have given their lives in service to their country. I won’t pretend that as cold and calculating as I am, even as I’ve been my whole life, that I wasn’t moved at all by all the camaraderie and the esprit de corps that is drilled into you. I definitely respect and was moved by that stuff, but like the simple reality is I wanted to have a good career and retire with a good pension and retire as young as possible and then leverage that into a good civilian salary. I came from a real poor family but had really good grades, good SAT scores, good extracurriculars and felt like this was a way out for me of the cycle of poverty that defined my family for generations and still defines most of them.
There’s a lot of people who join the military out of a genuine fidelity to country and a desire to serve, and some of them pay a high price, some pay the ultimate price, in service of that goal. But there’s also a ton of people who are in it for the same reasons you might pursue any career, and that’s me. I don’t feel comfortable with the worship of guys just because they wear a uniform I wore on my way to an office job for a few decades. I think there are a ton of real heroes in the military and you can read about the type of men they are and were if you ever look through Medal of Honor citations or citations for the lower precedence medals like the Distinguished Service Cross or Silver Star. There’s a lot of people in the military who will never see a battlefield and aren’t in an MOS or AOC that is likely to see combat. That doesn’t besmirch their character but I just don’t feel that dealing with managing the procurement/maintenance/deployment of equipment essentially as an upper level white collar manager is reason to get parades and strangers coming up to you in airports–I don’t dress in my old uniforms for Veteran’s/Memorial day or participate in that stuff.
Also maybe it’s just the old man in me, but I get a little “annoyed” that people don’t differentiate Memorial Day from Veteran’s Day. Memorial Day is actually supposed to be specifically for the military fallen, not for anyone who has ever served, Veteran’s Day is supposed to be for that. It annoys me when I see people on facebook or what have you say “thank a Veteran today!” due to the memorial day holiday.