There are many for whom it is the last option at a real career. Of course, that is no different from any other age or any other army. Some join for altruistic reasons, sure, some for college money. What I can tell you is that the reason one signs up at first is rarely the reason they stay in. Vicious people don’t last long in the US military. Mean people don’t last long. Racists and zealots don’t last long. The Army is a terrifyingly realist world where even small mistakes have enormous consequences.
Right? The day there are no wars and no armies will be the day there is no life on earth.
So then if most join because it’s a last option, or for the college money, do they deserve to be revered to the point that they are? I mean, applause on an airplane? If my husband wears his uniform on a plane or in public, he certainly doesn’t get applause. I don’t think the military is any different then domestic emergency services, but they’re sure treated differently. It’s almost cult-like.
I say that, but it’s really only an American thing. That doesn’t really happen here (in Canada). They all get a similar level of respect.
Nice. Why do you think you deserve more respect than most again? What have you, personally, done to earn it? Please note what I have to say to msmith’s comments below, it’s relevant.
Well, my boss really is a jerk and the woman across from me is annoying, but I sit in a lab, not in a cube. One of those things I do in that lab is work on electronic gizmos for the US military. One reason battlefield maneuvers can be tracked and coordinated is because I do my job. If Predators work it’s because I do my job. Some Enemy Of The State was assassinated recently via UAV. Take that vehicle apart and you will, quite literally unless it was sterilized first, find my fingerprints on certain bits. All I get for my trouble is a sub-standard salary.
Do I deserve less respect than you, Mr. Doc, or more? I haven’t threatened anyone with physical harm for hurting my feelings, I think you should take that into account when giving your answer.
Possibly because of all the wars and armies.
And I’m pretty sure that 100 million years ago there was plenty of life on Earth despite the lack of wars and armies.
It basically comes down to your motivation for constructing the gizmo.
If you think that the assassination was necessary for the protection of your country, then you may well deserve more respect than YoDoc does.
If you were just doing a job, without any care who the target was, then you deserve exactly the same respect that YoDoc does.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but in my own family, various people joined for different reasons:
My grandfathers joined when WWII started. Grandpa was considered too old for regular service, and had a farm and two school-age daughters, so he was shuffled off to the Navy Reserve. Granddaddy was totally blind in one eye, but the Army took him.
My father, stepdad, and father-in-law enlisted (Army, Navy, and Navy, respectively) rather than wait to b drafted during Vietnam. In my stepdad’s case, it was also a viable way to escape life in the coal mines. (As I understand it, most civilian employers wouldn’t hire young men who hadn’t yet finished military service or been deferred for whatever reason. I could be wrong, but that’s what I’m told.)
My stepbrother joined the Navy for the training and education.
My brother joined because that was all he’d ever wanted to do. The way I wanted to be a doctor or teacher or astronaut or gymnast, he wanted to be a soldier. He never wavered from that, to the oath on his seventeenth birthday, and is still in almost 27 years later.
My husband was spinning his wheels in college, and didn’t have a better idea, so he joined the Army. He spent 4 years as an MP, and parlayed his training into a career in law enforcement.
Patriotism, pragmatism, and “can’t think of anything better to do” seem to have played equal parts in their decisions.
It’s my job, and I’m an engineer.
Not my country. I’m not American. Neither is the company making these gizmos.
I’d argue more, on the grounds that I haven’t promised to break every bone in someone’s body for a minor slight. And I do care, I’m personally opposed to our US military contracts. But it’s my job, and I’m an engineer. I wouldn’t have taken the contracts, but they weren’t mine to take or refuse.
I, personally, do not expect any respect at all, mostly because I’m an asshole. What I DO expect, is not to be DISrespected. Tooth, you make UAV stuff, I love you for that. Surveillance from Ravens has saved my ass more than once. Getting a Predator in sector had eased my fear a few times. I LOVE that shit.
I don’t think people should get all clap-happy or that we DESERVE anything more than the shitty pay and good healthcare we get. I also don’t think that we DESERVE to be frowned at and shit on.
The part about breaking bones is just me. They don’t teach us any of that stuff in EMT school.
I see you conveniently left out the part where I mentioned that I would crawl into a burning car to save you.
Of course there was war 100million years ago, they just didn’t use tanks. Ants go to war. Chimps go to war. War is not a human invention.
And of course I threatened people who spit on me. What would you do if I spit on you? Cower? Shoot me? Spit back? Call the cops? All four? I have been trained and conditioned to look at a dangerous situation invoving armed resistance and walk into with a small doctors office on my back. I ain’t gonna take shit, or spit, from anyone. I’d slap my mom if she spit on me.
You said that with a straight face.
I feel somewhat dirty for doing it, as I’m not keen on the goings-on in the Middle East. And there’s no need for any sort of gratitude; if it wasn’t me doing it, it would be someone else, doing it for really shitty pay for this trade and getting a joke of a benefits package.
If it helps, I’m pretty ambivalent about the whole matter. If it wasn’t you, it’d be someone else. I won’t weep when the guy who sent you there is buried, though.
I’ve done similar, because I was there, only it involved copious amounts of broken glass. My uncle received a national commendation for putting himself at grave risk pulling someone out of a burning propane truck some years ago, too. No training involved, just being in the right place at the right time. I think most would do the same.
Call them a dink, maybe. The one time something similar did happen, I just peeled her off me (she was pounding on me and calling me a Nazi because I was a rent-a-cop at an abortion clinic at the time) and pushed her into the arms of the nearest cop. Beating her to a pulp didn’t occur to me.
I guess I’m just a more laid-back sort than you.
I question the idea that choosing to be in an occupation that requires you to risk your life is itself worthy of respect. The only reason I respect soldiers is that they at least believe they are doing something good, even if I disagree. And that respect is rather flimsy–I reserve the right to reevaluate my respect if I find out negative things about you. And sorry, but anyone who would hurt their parents and think it okay will get my disrespect. Being a soldier doesn’t make up for unethical behavior. You do not intentionally hurt the people you love.
You assume things you shouldn’t assume. My mother’s character, for one. That I love my mother more than I love anybody else, for two.
I think part of the problem with culture today, specifically in the US, but probably in most of the world, is that it’s Not okay to stick up for yourself anymore. Why on earth should I tolerate ANYBODY spitting on me as an intentional insult? If you find it okay to spit on me and call me a baby killer or whatever is popular in the stupid hippy soldier hater crowd these days, you should also be okay with me punching you in the face.
The soldier didn’t chose where to go. The soldier didn’t chose the target. The soldier just did it, and as a result, others don’t have to. Calling me, personally, or soldiers, generally, thugs is both ignorant and insulting. Why get surprised when you get an emotional response?
And tooth, if you feel dirty when you do it, AND get low pay, AND shitty benefits, you should probably find a new job. You are just as guilty of those killings as anyone else, by the twisted logic used against soldiers.
First, a lot of people in this thread are having trouble debating this issue without name-calling. Please end that. Debate others’ points without attacking personalities.
Secondly, I am going to move this thread to Great Debates. The moderators there will enforce the standards for that thread, which absolutely prohibits attacking the poster rather than the content. So please mind the rules there.
Ellen Cherry
IMHO Moderator
Just watch some of the videos shot on 9/11, specifically the shots of people coming down the staircases of the towers while firemen and police pass them going up.
Respect.
It can happen to any firefighter at any time. These men didn’t expect to die that day, but they did run into the danger, knowing they could.
My husband has been burned-over in a wild land fire, he’s fallen through floors, he’s seen his comrades killed by boulders that rolled down the hill, dislodged by the fire on the top. He’s crashed in a helicopter that was taking him and others to a drop zone in the middle of the fire.
Yes, he is a hero. He doesn’t think of that when he runs in, while everyone else is running out. He sees it as his job. Yes, he makes a good living. He doesn’t do this job for praise, or even the money. He does it because he loves it.
Do they deserve adulation? More than crab fishermen? Fishermen don’t save your life by doing their job.
Yeah, I’m working on that for the latter two reasons.
I know a fireman. He left his wife of 20 years after knocking up some floozie he met in a bar one night. So, respect?
I don’t think that anyone is seriously disputing that firemen are heroes.
I have to congratulate you for your moral courage.
I’ll salute anyone who argues that he has no respect for the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne who fought during the Battle of the Bulge and thinks there’s no difference between the American forces who stormed Normandy and the Wehrmact invading Russia.
I also salute anyone who has the courage to stand up and complain about all the respect accorded to WWII veterans who fought against the Nazis.
I just hope you do this in the real world to people’s faces rather than just on the internet under a pseudonym with complete strangers where there are no consequences.