CJCS responds to Rep. Gaetz

[nodropinufaka]

When were you in Iraq or Afghanistan

In 2008 during the surge as a line corpsman with a platoon of Iraqis on an Embedded Training Team. I was in country for almost a full year and was only an e-4 at the time. I mean I learned alot and learned to speak arabic fluenty from living with the platoon of Iraqis but I didn't really learn anything other then how to survive.

I was prior enlisted before I went to college and became an 1830.

The GI Bill was great. Took care and got me all the way through a good university with no debt.

But when we came back a good amount of people I knew took their own lives from what they experienced. It made me very much dislike these conflicts and made me think they are wasteful.

Plus all the Iraqis I worked with prob were executed.

I am 100 percent not lying about my service. If a mod needs to verify it- I am happy too.

 

[Treetop Flyer]

Then I made an incorrect assumption based on the still very strange question about whether anyone on a naval aviation site had been to Iraq or Afghanistan. Points about the military “preying” on people stand.

 

[Griz882]

Insulated?

How do you know I didn't deploy?

Give me a second to get this chip on my shoulder and dust off my curmudgeon credentials. There is deployed, there is Deployed, and then there is DELPOYED. I have been all three at one time or another.

 

[nodropinufaka]

Then I made an incorrect assumption based on the still very strange question about whether anyone on a naval aviation site had been to Iraq or Afghanistan. Points about the military “preying” on people stand.

Thats fair. We can agree to disagree on it.

But from a personal standpoint- If I came from an upperclass family with a college fund. Why tf would I enlist? If I could go to college and try for ROTC or OCS

 

[nodropinufaka]

Give me a second to get this chip on my shoulder and dust off my curmudgeon credentials. There is deployed, there is Deployed, and then there is DELPOYED. I have been all three at one time or another.

I only did the third.

The first two I would be open too as a civilian deployment with Expeditionary workforce. They get paid big money.

 

[Treetop Flyer]

Thats fair. We can agree to disagree on it.

But from a personal standpoint- If I came from an upperclass family with a college fund. Why tf would I enlist? If I could go to college and try for ROTC or OCS

What you just described sounds like a personal choice, not predatory behavior.

 

[nodropinufaka]

Here is something we can all get behind

U.S. Senate Democrats roll out draft bill to legalize weed

Three top U.S. Democratic senators on Wednesday unveiled a discussion draft of a bill that aims to legalize cannabis, a move that would allow adult Americans to buy and possess up to 10 ounces of marijuana without facing criminal penalties.

www.reuters.com

 

[RobLyman]

General recruiting and recruiting for combat arms and related specialties isn't exactly the same thing.

FWIW, we lost three KIA over nine months when I was on my IA: a medic, a tanker, and a cavalryman. All three were white boys. I can't remember the breakdown of our wounded though, I don't have their pictures.

(The notion that minorities get killed in battle disproportionately more might have been true fifty years ago, during Vietnam when there was a draft, but when people say it in regards to present day wars I find it kind of uninformed and kind of offensive too.)

I know everyone who took a ride in the back of my helicopter had red blood. As for skin color, most of the time, if I had to glimpse in the back during a mission, they all were pretty much blackened with dirt or soot. I am with you on this. Uniformed and offensive.

 

[Griz882]

But when we came back a good amount of people I knew took their own lives from what they experienced. It made me very much dislike these conflicts and made me think they are wasteful.

So, you just don't like wars in general - that's OK - just say that. I mean it when I say that my favorite pacifists are former combat veterans because they know.

The impact of any war is the same on any number of people across history. Combat veterans of the "Greatest Generation" also used suicide rather than face their demons. I too lost friends from both theaters who took that ride. With the exception of one case (a wounded buddy who intentionally overdosed rather than face his jarringly limited future) I will never know if the war had anything to do with their deaths but it is safe to say that had they fought Nazis or some other "worthy" enemy they might have faced the same demons with the same result. War sucks, of that there is no doubt, so (decent) humans try to find ways to make some good of it...such is life.

 

[taxi1]

No.

I know many of us found value and different perspectives that we find valuable from our military experiences. But all of us and those we served with wanted to be there. Giving everyone a short haircut and teaching them to march for 1yr isn't going to do anything useful for anyone.

It would certainly split the difference between what the Founding Fathers wanted (no standing army at all - just militia) and our professional military of Hessian soldiers of fortune.

Except for the Navy, they understood we need a Navy.

We were able to run a 20 year war because our country really didn't have skin in the game.

I wonder what they would think of our monstrous military now.

 

[Griz882]

I know everyone who took a ride in the back of my helicopter had red blood. As for skin color, most of the time, if I had to glimpse in the back during a mission, they all were pretty much blackened with dirt or soot. I am with you on this. Uniformed and offensive.

Mic drop...earned.

 

[Pags]

Thats fair. We can agree to disagree on it.

But from a personal standpoint- If I came from an upperclass family with a college fund. Why tf would I enlist? If I could go to college and try for ROTC or OCS

One of John McCain's sons was an enlisted Marine. People join the military for A LOT of different reasons. Some is escapism from bad situations (not all due to poverty, some may want out of what looks like a bucolic lifestyle from the outside), some is desire to serve, some is desire for an adventure, some is boredom, etc.

 

[nodropinufaka]

Alright.

I will concede my point. You have all convinced me maybe my point was misguided from my own personal worldview and prob is not really the case. Maybe it was at one time but likely not anymore.

Good points all around and I was incorrect.

 

[Griz882]

Here is something we can all get behind

U.S. Senate Democrats roll out draft bill to legalize weed

Three top U.S. Democratic senators on Wednesday unveiled a discussion draft of a bill that aims to legalize cannabis, a move that would allow adult Americans to buy and possess up to 10 ounces of marijuana without facing criminal penalties.

www.reuters.com

They'll fuck it up. Most of my family lives in Colorado and it is a mess. The "founding farmers" of pot growing were rapidly pushed out my major corporations that are now, quite ironically, pushing for ever more enforcement against "illegal" pot (and winning the push). Taxes didn't work out so well so the state raised them. The state is about to pass (as they should) DUI rules for pot users that match those of heavy duty drunks.

Once it becomes a business, it becomes a business. Business will not tolerate competition so they unicorn of cheap, legal, pot will simply go up in smoke as you read the newest federal warning label on your Phillip Morris produced pack of pre-rolled weed.

 

[taxi1]

Once it becomes a business, it becomes a business. Business will not tolerate competition so they unicorn of cheap, legal, pot will simply go up in smoke as you read the newest federal warning label on your Phillip Morris produced pack of pre-rolled weed.

I expect we'll have the analog of craft breweries, and of course home-grown product.

It's not called 'weed' for nothing.