I saw a link to this on another website, and the poster called the number to see if they were indeed legitimate. They said they are extremely busy right now, as one could imagine. Former or current military members of the Dope, please let me know if I am mistaken about this organization.
One of their duties is helping defend soldiers who may be issued illegal orders.
Kinda sketchy to print out their number. Don’t you imagine they wouldnt need extra people dialing it just see if they’re legit?
For curiositys sake?
Ya’ll don’t dial the number. I’m sure there’s another way to find out their legitimacy.?
ETA. It’s real, I googled it.
I mean, it’s a hotline. People calling their number is literally the reason they exist.
The website has some information on the group.
We are a consortium of nearly twenty non-governmental, non-profit organizations located in eleven states and in Germany. Some of our counselors are veterans, some are lawyers and some have decades of military counseling experience. We are in constant contact with each other to stay up-to-date on the latest military regulations and practices.
They choose to put it up online. What’s sketchy about posting it?
It sounds like the same argument that we can’t post the general number that a public library puts up online.
I don’t get the argument.
It is for people, specifically military personel to get help. Not for curious looky loos.
Not like the library info line which is made to ask for information.
Would you call a suicide hotline to ask if they were legit? Possibly keeping one person from getting help?
All you gotta do is Google it. Info is there for all to see.
Posting the link in different locations online may help someone see it who needs it.
Yeah. Ok.
That’s not calling for curiosity sake.
It’s entirely possible that somebody might read this board who needs it.
Telling people not to call out of curiosity is one thing. Telling people not to post the number of a hotline is something else entirely.
I was going to post just about exactly that last night. IMO, this message needs to spread across social media/imgur/reddit etc. We need people to casually run across it. We need the people that are on the fence about what to do to have a resource. We need people who really are ‘just following orders’ to have someone to call when they start feeling like these orders might be illegal. We need people that are, for any number of reasons, not entirely committed to this MAGA lifestyle that they pretend to embrace, especially now that things are getting real, to be able to drop a dime on their superiors.
But, most importantly, we need to make sure this information is freely available, not just to the people that are looking for it, but for the people that weren’t looking for it, for the people that didn’t know it existed. And that includes civilians like us. If my (hypothetical) National Guard cousin expresses some concerns, I can tell them about this hotline.
Saying this information shouldn’t be posted all over the internet because it might be abused is like telling factory employees to take down posters with their union phone numbers because the higher ups might abuse it. That may very well happen, but I think that’s okay if it means the new kid, that’s uncomfortable reaching into the machine nicknamed ‘The Arm Breaker’ while it’s running, has someone to call and get some advice instead of thinking his only options are getting fired or getting his arm broken.
A member or a guest? I suppose there is an opportunity for a guest to join as a member in order to search the board for number to a hotline. Because once this thread sinks bye bye hotline.
I suggest tptb create a master list of reputable hotlines and sticky it. It could help people access help immediately without wading through the forums looking for a hotline#.
I doubt anybody’s going to be wading through the forums looking for hotlines in general, or for this one in particular. But, as @Joey_P said, somebody who doesn’t even know it exists may trip over it; and may either need it themselves, or may know someone who does.
Will the thread remain obvious eternally, even to people reading the boards in general or this forum in particular? No, of course not. It’s like almost anything else that can be done: a small bit of something which, combined with a lot of other small bits of something, may (but isn’t guaranteed to) add up to a great deal.
And the nice thing is, someone like me (or most of us, probably) doesn’t need to know anything in particular about it. Just knowing that it exists means I can’t tell someone to look up the GI Rights Hotline instead of saying ‘sorry, I don’t know what to tell you’.