I’m told that boot camp is a great way to teach newly-grownups responsibility and respect and all that. That they learn discipline there and in the service. I’ve even considered – more than once – joining the military and working to be a linguist, a translator, working in intel.
I could. My parents met in language school and I seem to have picked up their facility with learning them. I’m bright enough to be in intelligence (I’m humble, too :p) and I know that if I went in I could go far.
I won’t, under any circumstances I could name.
I’m still young enough – they raised the enlistment age to 40 and I’m well under that. I have a college degree so I could go in as an officer. But my parents were both in the military, and while they both have some very fond memories, my father has all but actively forbidden me from joining up.
I can see why – I’ve seen what he had to deal with. I’ve heard what he’s complained about. As awesome as it must have been going to places like Japan and Korea and the UAE and just about everywhere else, he’s had to deal with some pretty crazy stuff. A lot of it could have been minimized or avoided altogether if the people he was working for were brighter, or if they had a clue what was going on, if they bothered to see beyond their own noses. “Mr. Ninja, we’re sending you back to Korea, the people really seem to like you!” “Yes, that’s because I treat them like people, not dogs.”
Someone mentioned that everyone has a boss and that the military is no different. Bullhockey. My boss can tell me where to be and what to do but he can’t shoot me if I disobey. He doesn’t have control over my life. And he doesn’t have control over the lives and wellbeing of other people, generally. If a stupid decision by my boss – a decision I have to carry out – is going to get innocent people killed, I’m in the wrong place.
I have a problem with authority – specifically, with working for someone who won’t listen to reason, who won’t see beyond their own prejudices, and who cannot be questioned. I have a low tolerance for bull and a lower one for ignorance and idiocy and while I can be polite to anyone, even if strainedly so, I would have a moral problem following bad orders even if for a ‘good reason’.
Now hang on, you say. Not everyone in the service is incompetent. Lots of them are fine thoughtful upstanding men and women. Inarguably, I answer. I have the deepest respect for my parents and indeed for anyone who goes into the service. It’s a crazy hard job, and I don’t just mean you have to think fast and lift heavy things. No, I’m willing to bet that the idiot-to-competent level in the military is no higher than anywhere else. Maybe it’s even lower.
But even one dead rat in the pantry can make all the food stink.
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