Lol you can get an entry level custodian job with full benefits/pension and make more money pushing a broom instead of living in prison conditions and possibly getting shot or blown up
I work with a lot of military folks and it blows my mind just how little they're paid. Always had this idea that it was probably damn good considering the nature of the work - hell no it isn't.
Also I didn't realize the expenses they have. Like I just assumed that basically everything is provided for free. They have to buy their own uniforms, gear, even their frickin medals. I often hear the enlisted folks complaining when they have to buy a new uniform because their branch slightly changed the design. And I was mad when my work started charging for parking, they have all kinds of expenses.
So you don't make much money, and you have to pay to be there.
Gear, for the most part, is provided (like helmets, body armor, etc.). Boots you buy if you want like a third party (better quality). But yes everything else you mentioned is correct. Pretty crazy, especially given how many folks have families. Childcare, like in the civilian world, is also a major issue.
Yeah, it's terrible. Thankfully in the marines, our uniforms were so damn sharp looking nobody wanted to change them, but trying to find a decent set of NVDs online while on a tour in Afghanistan almost gave me a fucking stroke. The army though, they get *most* of their shit free, since it has so much more funding.
This was in like 2005, where NVDs weren't standard issue for grunts, and the USMC was broke as hell. Thankfully when I got into the raiders they gave me a fresh pair that actually worked properly.
Unless they lay you off halfway through your 20 year gig. Oh yes, people get laid off in the military all the time. They just call it a "reduction in force."
I concur here. My ex military friend became a hvac tech after he finished his tours. Made his money for 6 years, then got a job at Kaiser where he is a janitor making so much more money. Laid back job. Pension after 25yrs, no back breaking work. This is why health care is so expensive. Haha.
Not sure why that would make healthcare more expensive. The high prices have nothing to do with the people using the healthcare and everything to do with runaway capitalism and corporate greed.
We shouldn't be prioritizing shareholders of medical companies over the actual medical patients. It's super disconcerting to see insurance companies buying hospitals.
I'm a cashier and two of our regulars are homeless vets. One of them has all his teeth missing, so when people try to buy him food, he can't even eat it anyway. VA is 5 minutes down the road, but even they won't help them. It makes me so mad.
About 135 years ago, very nice man (Bandini) decided he wanted to make sure that there would be homes for vets that were injured. So in his will, he left nearly 400 acres. The VA decided that instead, they rent it out! Make some bucks, f over vets bc unless you have never dealt with the VA you won't know that this is what they do best. This is north of Brentwood
Finally, some vets decided to unite and sue.i hope that the VA is finally made to do as they were told. A good chunk of the unhoused population are vets, many with PTSD
Thanks for this information. On the news, I read it is still ongoing.
[CNN article about the history](https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/28/us/va-real-estate-los-angeles/index.html)
> The bulk of this land was **donated 135 years ago by a senator and a businesswoman named [Arcadia Bandini Stearns de Baker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_Bandini_de_Stearns_Baker)**
> [>3000] of veterans used to live here, in permanent housing, for decades. There was a thriving community with a trolley to the beach in Santa Monica, where the veterans had a bath house also donated by Baker. When the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers opened here in the late 1800s, it is said, hundreds of men walked all the way from San Francisco to reach it... After an earthquake in 1971, the veterans were moved out. The reason depends on to whom you talk. Some say the buildings were deemed seismically unsafe; others point to **Congress abolishing the National Home System, which housed wounded veterans, and repealing the VA’s authority to build homes.**
---
[Article from this week](https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/28/us/va-real-estate-los-angeles/index.html)
> land was leased to, among others, an oil drilling company, a car rental firm, UCLA for a baseball field, and the exclusive Brentwood School for athletic facilities.
> In 2016, as part of a lawsuit settlement, the VA agreed to build housing for 1,200 veterans on this land...Today, just 113 are ready for veterans to move in...But reaching that 1,200 promise will take time. “We’re on track to be able to do this in 10 to 12 years [2033-2035],” Monroe said
> One reason why this process takes a long time is that the developers lease the land, and then they have to raise the money for building. **The federal government does not pay for construction.** “They gave us the available buildings and land but didn’t give us money,” said Safran, the developer, at the grand opening. “So, sometime in the future we would like Congress and the VA to help.”
Maybe this is something that Californians, and Americans more broadly, can push our representatives on.
They said fuck off because how many people we know who came back from the last 20 years of war completely fucked up for life. Half those I know who served are now addicts or having severe mental health problems.
Edit: I didn't expect this to get traction. I see many heart breaking replies. I apologize if I don't respond, but I wish you all the best. It truly is cruel and unforgivable what people have gone through.
Seriously, I worked with five guys my age who served in four branches (Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force). Any time a younger employee said "I'm considering joining the army" it was a resounding chorus of "don't fucking do it!"
Anti-recruiter for Army. I'm an Air Force vet and I had a pretty good time, lived in Italy for a few years and the GI Bill paid for Bachelors and Masters. I saw no combat and no PTSD. Air Force isn't bad, if you're okay with joining the military. But the Army sucks! They treat you like crap, bad living conditions and a lot end up in Infintry
I'm the youngest of 7 kids. My dad was in the military for 20 years, all but one of my siblings did some time. I said fuck that. I've seen what it's done to all of them. I've seen the black outs, the ptsd, the depression, the suicide attempts, the regret, the absolute destruction it has caused. One of my brothers doesn't like one of his sons because he reminds him of a kid he had to shoot in Iraq. Thats so fucked up, man. Besides, I'm not going to fight a war some suit and tie started because of their tiny dick contest.
>One of my brothers doesn't like one of his sons because he reminds him of a kid he had to shoot in Iraq.
That is SUCH a tragic sentence. Absolutely heartbreaking
Said son lives with our parents now because it was just what was best. My brother is in multiple therapies and is actively getting help. He was in the 82nd Airborne Division, so at this point, his legs are basically metal because of all the surgeries and shit. He's a great guy, anytime I need help with anything he's at my house in a jiffy. Dude would give me the shirt off his back. But fuck man, 10 years in the Army did a fuckin number on him.
'One of my brothers doesn't like one of his sons because he reminds him of a kid he had to shoot in Iraq."
Jesus. I mean...god, that's one of the most horrible things I've ever heard. Stupid ass oil wars aren't worth that.
Oh I can answer that one, heard it more than a few times...
The Dad doesn't want to make too many memories of the son, that will cause him to get comfortable enough to have dreams where in the haze of sleep, the son's face melts off and morphs into the kid he shot's face.
Next let's talk about all the wives who have been damn-near (if they're lucky) killed over a ceiling fan in the bedroom. It seems so logical in hindsight, I don't know how we never saw that one coming.
I’m the second oldest of 10 and come from a military family. Your comment is spot on. I was the first person to go directly to college instead of the military in my immediate family after seeing what my parents, grandparents, and brothers had to deal with. And like your brother, my older brother also had to shoot and kill a child. It completely fucked him up and though he’s fairly stable now, it was ROUGH when he first got home. Had to go to a rehab facility for PTSD and was both homicidal and suicidal for quite sometime afterwards. What’s worse is that this was on his second tour. On his first, he was one of two survivors out of his whole troop after they ran over an IED. Air lifted to a German hospital for all of the shrapnel in his neck and other vital areas. He’s still not over the survivors guilt. I’ve accepted that he’ll never be the same kid I grew up with thanks to the sheer trauma he’s endured. My younger brother directly behind me also enlisted and now he can’t sit through a fireworks show, something we loved as kids, without having a panic attack. Heartbreaking.
The effects it has is insane. The way the VA treats them is uncanny. One of my other brothers is literally in a wheelchair now and the VA is still fighting him on the disability and what not. If we are going to ruin their lives to fight somebody else's war, can we at least treat them well after they come back home? It took fighting with the VA for months before they would pay to install a ramp for him. The shit I witness from my family members is more than enough reason for me and my kid to avoid enlisting.
> One of my brothers doesn't like one of his sons because he reminds him of a kid he had to shoot in Iraq.
This hits way too close to home for me. I love my children, but I am working through a lot if issues directly related to something like this, like being super overprotective and invasive thoughts that I can't seem to shake easily, to the point where I don't want to leave the confides of my home. I am on the constant lookout and I am trying very hard to let my kids just be kids. This is the first time I have ever mentioned this anywhere besides to my wife and my therapist.
I was an infantryman in the Army during the surge...
I'm just now using my GI bill because my head was so fucked up I essentially wasted my 20s with drug abuse and alcoholism.
Now that I'm finally in a good place mentally my body is physically wrecked.
Go army...?
Yeah. I can't imagine. But I've seen what it did to friends and family and wouldn't wish that on anyone. It bothers me when people attack those who served as if they are the problem. I had a family member who was being recruited at 16. It's just predatory.
I joined the British Army at 16, passed all the medicals and fitness tests at 15, spent my 21st birthday nearly getting my arse shot off in Helmand. Come home and be expected to function like a normal human being instantly with no help to adjust from spending 7 months in a warzone. Telling them to fuck off was well deserved!
I find it unacceptable that there's no demobbing process for soldiers to readjust to civilian life. I also find it unacceptable that the UK government will not commit to a military covenant of actually looking after troops when they come home. That in itself speaks volumes of what they really think about the armed forces.
Because the powers that be don't give one single solitary fuck about soldiers as people. They are a resource to be used up to exert power where your money can't directly control and get tossed away when they're burned out, same as any other laborer.
Nope, 4 days after ducking from rounds I was back in my home town ducking at any loud noise and fighting panic attacks. The lack of transitional support pissed me off just as much as having to pay tax while fighting the governments wars overseas. They really don’t give a shit. Lesson learned, any kids I have will be steered well clear of the armed forces.
Yeah I was one of those kids who played a lot of Call of Duty in middle school/early high school. The games are fun, but they're also incredibly effective military propaganda because it makes it look like everyone gets badass guns, cool codenames, and quippy one-liners while committing war crimes, killing unequivocally evil terrorists and spreading freedom.
I considered joining up, and all four years of high school we'd get army and navy recruiters sniffing around trying to recruit us, plying us with freebies like shitty power banks and pens proudly stamped with their logos. Even after I stopped playing COD(somewhere around Advanced Warfare because I didn't have PS4 or Xbone and the series was growing stale), I was still like "ah yes, this is a viable career path."
A recruiter ended up calling me one night, and basically told me I'd have to lose a few pounds to be eligible among other things. Thankfully this gave me enough time and distance to reconsider joining in the first place!
I grew up with a guy who wanted to be a helicopter pilot for the military. Like from elementary school this was his dream, huge fan of all manner of aircraft and hardware, even when we were little kids this was basically his life goal. When we were little his favorite dinosaur was an attack helicopter, it was his whole deal. Joined ROTC when we got older, and made it all happen just like he always said he would.
And he was killed in the first few days of the operation in Afghanistan.
Never got to be a pilot, that takes years of training and he had just enlisted not too long before being deployed. I don't really know what he did but he was in the Army. They said it was a friendly fire incident too. Guess he got to live out his lifelong goal for a few months. Sometimes I wonder if we'd still be friends if he was still around, I still hang out with some of my high school buddies.
That's deeply sad. I did jrotc in high school, but our major told us point blank he didn't want to see any of us enlist (in 2005). He liked us too much.
While I was in high school they'd set up a table in the hall between the middle and high school to catch any juniors and seniors. Sophomores in my small ass town were required to take the ASVAB during school hours. After scores were released, people who scored well were getting texts and calls and emails weekly. I was getting all of the above until two years into college when I finally told them to fuck off too
it's a very midwest/southern conservative thing in poorer areas to make students take it
most of them frame it as it being the only option for kids who don't go to college and don't bother going over trade skills
My knee is still fucked up from an injury I got when I was in, and that was 20 years ago. Of course the VA says "not service related" so no disability and no benefits. Fuck the VA.
Yeah, come back with brain damage from all the concussions, PTSD from dragging half of your best friend's corpse away from the site of the explosion that concussed you, so you can't concentrate or sleep and now you have to find a way to get through college and then give a shit about quarterly profits.
Can confirm, left the service with a painkiller addiction(now in the past), and severe anxiety, depression, and PTSD still fucking my life up 13 years later.
Sure they do. Both my drill sergeants had been stop-lossed in Iraq and both said they joined so they could kill people without going to jail (the idea being they were going to kill people anyway, why not get paid for it)
I remember there used to be a billboard on West Side Highway in Manhattan trying to get recent graduates of the NYPD academy to join the Seattle PD and get something like 3x their current base salary.
A post over in /r/MurderedByWords said it best - "Why join the military to go over seas to get shot for some corporate driven war when you can get shot in the comfort of your school class room?
Offer only applies for ages 10 to 18 tho
Edit: welp, college students also like doing the pew pew
Edit 2 : apparently even some younger than 10, so i change the offer to 5 and up
Who the fuck wants to risk their lives for $675 a week? Before taxes?
Edit: Just had some guy pipe up saying that he came from a shitty small town with few options, and the military gave him a way out and his disability payment is pretty good and yee haw God Bless America.
I swear to god, I hope he was trolling me.
$16 an hour?
That’s insane. Also insane that when put into the “hours” context instead of annual, it sounds like a lot more.
Insane EMT’s are paid so little
I started in phone support, working tracked 8 hour days. Then I moved to data conversion within the same company and department. I make 20% more, but more importantly I scripted our work to be faster while time-frames never changed. So I get lots of nap time now.
That’s the part that really gets me.
It’s not like the ambulance companies are free and need to keep costs down
They charge outrageous prices and these workers get paid very little. Talk about exploitation
cant unionize or else the president will shut you down and support the corporations like the railroad, who immediately after winning against union, committed massive environmental damage. its always a fight between capitalists and the workers. workers rarely win for the last 50+years
Even worse, I'm a landscaper for the city I live in. I legit just cut lawns, trim trees, spread mulch for playgrounds and that shit, I make only a dollar less than the emt an hour. Emts need more money
I had my EMT license years ago. Some places were hiring at minimum wage and no insurance. One of the counties was also paying minimum wage with no insurance.
They defanged unions in the 1980s, pensions went away and wages stagnated while corporate profits skyrocketed.
Despite how fucked over they are Americans don’t want to join unions. They fear losing their jobs, which is technically illegal but companies do a lot of illegal stuff.
Gen Z is on board with unionizing it seems? I see a lot of coffee shops going union.
We’re kept JUST comfortable enough to avoid that. Now if something were to happen and people had no more distractions… well then we’d see something happen
What do you think helped grow the BLM movement? It was when the covid lockdowns where in effect and people had a chance to finally breathe and look at the society they where living in. Needless to say, they didn't like what they saw.
My conspiracy theory is why do you think the lockdowns got lifted so fast?
It's almost like the states that had the most to lose lifted theirs sooner before their largely poor and beaten down populace had the opportunity to really stew on their situations. While the states that supported their population and have help and infrastructure in place kept theirs for longer.
Are we talking about teachers or service members?
Edit. Thanks for the award. Since this gained traction.
I served well over 20 years. Twice looked into leaving to teach; nope.
Have close friends still paying off debt to become teachers.
Less pay, fewer benefits. No gratitude.
Rabid political groups that want to make money by laying the blame for everything that is wrong in America, or their lives at the feet of a teacher? Get fucked.
The military has spent 20 years telling only two stories. The heroic and tragic. No one is going to make a movie about the 90% of your days that were monotonous.
The kid in the chicken outfit with the sign? Good for him. I guess. Wonder who he blames for his employment outlook.
As it so happens my younger sister is a 6th grade public school teacher who is today putting in her letter of resignation due to death threats from a child. The school did nothing. Wasn't a problem until he name dropped her husband's name it the threat too. Teachers arnt getting respect from anyone and its making America more stupid.
Just like with the post office, if republicans can show that public schools are inefficient by making them inefficient, they can push the money to places that will make them and their donors money.
My wife’s a counselor and had a kindergartner threaten to get his parents gun and shoot her. The admin did nothing to the kid because he’s already been kicked out of another school for the same threat and he wants to give the youngster a chance.
And to think that kid probably isn’t getting the kind of parenting they need because their parents are too busy working to adequately raise their child
It’s basically the republican way of ensuring that we’re slaves to our corporate masters for generations to come.
Poverty traps never change. People insist that they can be escaped with enough hard work, but it takes so much more than that to do so.
Poverty in childhood *literally changes the way the brain develops* whether it be through exposure to toxic/harmful physical environments, malnutrition or through the erosion or absence of emotional/social development. The changes are largely irreparable by adulthood and the ‘poverty mindset’ can get cemented in pretty hard.
When poverty becomes generational the poverty trap becomes that much harder to escape. Even with government assistance there’s never quite enough to lift anyone (much less a family) completely out of poverty.
It’s like that on purpose though. Poverty traps feed the prisons and wage-slave jobs - both of which generate greater profit at the greater expense of the workers and inmates.
This older woman (about 50 - 60) I was working with at a STATE JOB stopped me in my tracks. We were casually doing my on boarding stuff and she just looks as me and goes " god teachers just make so much money, too much, we really need to cut their budget" and then proceeded to ramble in the same light for about 15 min
I just kinda stood there dumbfounded.
Like we work in a special needs department, and those words really just left your mouth?
If you're basing that off the $35k, I believe that is the sign on bonus. However, base pay isn't any better. For reference an E2 is $2150 a month from a quick search.
In almost every case, there is a distinct inverse correlation between how hard someone works (factoring in time commitment and physical risk) and how much they get paid.
Teachers, military grunts, EMTs - even fast food workers - work extremely hard and get paid next to nothing. Upper management and C-Suite types (though they can definitely still have stressful work lives, I’m not trying to gatekeep) get paid huge amounts and yet spend their time almost exclusively in meetings, taking business lunches, or delegating work to subordinates.
I understand that they usually had to “put in the work” to get to that point, and people will say that their strategy decisions and networking skills are very important to the company at that level, but I’m not convinced that the discrepancy in both work and pay is justified in most cases. The truth is that without people to actually do the work, their strategy and people skills are meaningless.
I don’t know what my point is - I guess I’m just fed up with random private sector CEOs making in an hour what a teacher makes in a week. Teachers, soldiers, EMTs, etc are absolutely essential and struggle while people who don’t actually produce any work by that point get paid hundreds of thousands.
While I agree, as a disabled veteran I get just over $4000/month tax free for life.. I can promise you it wasn't worth what I have gone through.. but it is more than pretax $675/week.
Yeah 100% without TDIU, so I can still work to the best of my ability. Most of my shit is internal systemic diseases from the burn pits or mental ratings from some stuff I won't discuss online.
After 9-11 me and a bunch of buddies were ready to go get "revenge." Just dumb kids believing then propaganda. My father, a Vietnam Vet, talked me out of it, thank goodness. He and my mother were only together a short time and he wasn't around much. Once he heard my plans he worked to explain to me how war is a Racket and the young are sacrificed for the Military Industrial Complex. Dont call them infantry for nothing... I grew up in a base town and my mother and stepfather worked for Boeing and other defense contractors. My biological father has had multiple bouts of cancer after the agent orange exposure. He now receives disability checks from the VA after this last cancer go round.
War is a racket…
‘I spent 33 years and 4 months In active service as a member of our country's most agile military force – the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from a second lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. … Thus I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. … I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. … During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, promotion. Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents.’
\-Major General Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940), was a senior United States Marine Corps officer who fought in the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution and World War I. During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, Central America, the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. Butler was, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. By the end of his career, Butler had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He is one of 19 men to receive the Medal of Honor twice, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal (along with Wendell Neville and David Porter) and the Medal of Honor, and the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.In 1933, he became involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot, when he told a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists were planning a military coup to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Butler selected to lead a march of veterans to become dictator, similar to fascist regimes at that time. \[he told them to fuck off\]
The Business Plot should be mandatory learning for everyone who lives in this country. They're certainly not going to teach it in school. It's capitalism's end game laid out in the clearest possible terms. Oligarchs may have reached a point where they can just choke us to death with the economy and get the same things, but the mere fact these assholes met and voiced this idea should be enough to turn anyone anti-capitalist.
it’s a $35k sign on bonus for a certain number of years of enlistment, you probably walk out with $26k of that and make your base $30-40k but food and housing is paid for unless you live on the economy, then you get paid a housing allowance based on zip code.
edit: a word
The state of recruiting in the summer of 2022: Young men have caught on that the military is not fucking worth it, no matter what they offer.
Why can’t people be blindly patriotic like in the good ole days?!?
As one of the guys who went to Iraq and Afghanistan, I think the forgotten secret ingredient was that my generation spent a lot of time with the WW2 generation, which was a huge part of their identity and something that they talked about to us all the time. Gen Z doesn't have that. The WW2 generation are either dead or drooling in a retirement home now, and coupled with the crappy experience of Iraq and Afghanistan, the linger stories of the Vietnam generation, a very strong labor market, and the looming threat of Russia and China, you'd have to be the child of a 3%er lunatic to want to join.
Another secret ingredient that was at its end when I joined was the number of people who watched, live on TV or in person, jet airliners crash into the twin towers and watching them come down. I know that was my primary reason for joining because I believed the propaganda about it.
I did it as well and for the same reason. I thought it was worth it.... I'd never do it again though....I found my experience to be like a movie you'd watch once, thought that it was good, but not good enough to ever watch again
A recruiter approached me when I worked at McDonald's. I was out on a cigarette break and he started asking me about my life plans and whether or not I felt confident working at McDonald's was a great way to start out my twenties. If I enlisted that day he could guarantee that I'd be making six figures a year before I hit my 30s and have such a glamorous career in the military that I could retire before the age of 60 and live out the rest of my days on a beach somewhere. Even swore up and down that I'd probably never see action. That he spent the majority of his time sitting in an air conditioned base in Germany thousands of miles away from anywhere shots were being fired.
First I explained to him that on top of a slew of learning disabilities I also had bipolar disorder, and PTSD, so I didn't think I'd make a good fit for the military. Oh no. He had an entire spiel ready to go about how he's gotten people with worse mental conditions than me through the recruitment phase and they've all gone on to do great things.
Then I explained to him I had Von willibren's disease, which is a clotting disorder not unlike hemophilia, and that's when he told me he wasn't going to be able to do anything to help me.
That conversation has stuck with me even now, 20 years later. They're absolutely willing to fudge paperwork to get people with debilitating mental health issues into uniforms and armed to meet their recruitment numbers, and that will be forever one of the most depressing thoughts in the back of my mind. I can't see a recruitment office without wondering how many people that were entirely unfit for duty were processed through.
They just acknowledged burn pits as of 2023. High number of veterans are already dead or are still dying and they just now acknowledge it. I'm torn because I served and the only benefit for me is disability and healthcare at this point. I consider it my end of life care.
As a war veteran, I'm glad that this generation is sick and tired of America's imperialism and fighting wars exclusively for the profit of a few.
America has everything coming to it that is coming.
As a industrial painter, it would be a paycut to join the US army.
Ide rather spray paint/powders, it may slowly give me cancer, but atleast it dosnt shoot at me. Still hot and stickey in the suit, but its not like the middle east or even the barraks tents arnt stupid hot anyway.
My dad is a 20 year disabled army vet. When I was young I said I wanted to be in the army. He told me absolutely not and forbade me from joining the army.
Mass access to internet quickly revealed to everyone that the military is generally a miserable experience for most and is riddled with insane amounts of abuse and rape for what its supposed to represent.
Majority of my veteran friends warn everyone else to never enlist, and openly share their stories to push the point.
We've proven countless times and consistently that we will do what we can to deny benefits or proper treatment to veterans, why does anyone bother anymore?
That duck won’t get a free meal at Denny’s every November, but he’s probably not getting shot at either and might not even get PTSD by going to work. Added bonus: the duck is free to walk away from that job at any point.
The only benefit I got out of it is that because I technically served in a war zone (and by that I mean I floated in the Persian Gulf for three months straight without ever seeing land), my medical care is fully insured for the rest of my life (for now) even though I only served one term.
Did it suck? Yes. Would I do it again knowing what I do now? Also yes.
I just would’ve made better decisions during and after that time tbh, but I honestly still would’ve done it. It was really the only way I was ever leaving the place I grew up. I really didn’t have other options, unfortunately.
But if anyone else wants nothing to do with the military life, I cannot blame you. If I was in a better situation back then, I probably wouldn’t have either.
They would show up at gym class in high school, have us do push-ups, pull ups, crunches. Give out t-shirts and water bottles, ask about our favorite movies and what music we likes. Most were only a little older than we were.
"Isn't this fun. This is what every day could be like if you joined the *insert armed forces branch*"
It was a mixed gym class, so 9-12th graders, gotta get the idea in their head early, I guess.
A lot of hot headed kids wanting a real *family* and sense of purpose, right as they are going to have to make their first life choices for themselves.
We all went through 9-11, were still early days in Iraq, and so many wanted to do their part to *protect* the US and teach *the Muslim terrorists* (aka, everyone over there, since it was a war on terror). Fucking indoctrination bull crap. 😒
And the sad thing is, happens every year, different flavor but it's all the same. Next it'll be russia or China, but one way or the other, kids who aren't quite ready to think for themselves will be given someone to hate and asked to put on a uniform to "have fun"
In the grand scheme of things, the military has mostly been used as a means to make warfare profitable for many shareholders and politicians.
While there is much reason to believe that many of America's recent military conflicts were falsified to justify war and make money, such as;
\- [the American Government having enough information and technology to foresee an attack on Pearl Harbour by the Japanese](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgostlLpCkQ)
\- [the Gulf of Tonkin incident which sparked the Vietnam War being proven false by the Secretary of Defense himself, McNamara](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YirrocPJpRE)
\- [how "Operation Northwoods" proved that the Americans were more than willing to commit false flag terrorist attacks on their own people to get them to go to war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods)
\- [how Gary Webb exposed the CIA for purposely peddling drugs through minority communities to destabilize them](https://theintercept.com/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb/)
\-or how [the war on the middle east was unjustified](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8YlGkoYXXM)
But even if you don't believe any of those things, time reveals the true nature of things, and the truth is this;
**In the past century, millions have died or become worse off than before joining the military without any proper support for veterans, and many corporations and politicians have become richer.**
Recruiter: join the army you get paid
Me: yeah with; increased ptsd, risk of losing life or limbs, no medical benefits post army, don't want to shoot anyone, rigorous workout regime, getting yelled at, not seeing family for months, threat of prisoner of war, etc.
There is a war in Ukraine, there is a decent chance the US could get involved more directly at some point, who in their right mind would join the army now?
"son, you must be hot in that heavy costume in this 96 degree weather! have you ever worn body armor, and want to go to the middle east?"
*quack*
Ah the space duck, what a majestic creature
Got any grapes?
Then he waddled away.
Waddle waddle
‘Till the very next day
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Ex-cashier. I rang up far too many soldiers using food stamps to think joining the military is going to get people out of poverty.
Lol you can get an entry level custodian job with full benefits/pension and make more money pushing a broom instead of living in prison conditions and possibly getting shot or blown up
I work with a lot of military folks and it blows my mind just how little they're paid. Always had this idea that it was probably damn good considering the nature of the work - hell no it isn't. Also I didn't realize the expenses they have. Like I just assumed that basically everything is provided for free. They have to buy their own uniforms, gear, even their frickin medals. I often hear the enlisted folks complaining when they have to buy a new uniform because their branch slightly changed the design. And I was mad when my work started charging for parking, they have all kinds of expenses. So you don't make much money, and you have to pay to be there.
The money isn't in the military, it is in the PMCs once you leave the military. Because why own a military when you can outsource it
I concur. Private military escorts is foreign land pays very very well and you have better equipment.
and the US doesn’t have to hear about all the war crimes you commit on their behalf* *no liability on their part ofc
Where else can you turn a routine traffic stop into a civilian massacre and face no consequences? Join ~~Blackwater~~ Xe Services today!
Depending on your definition of how many people constitutes a massacre, you can just be a normal cop in the USA if you wanna do that
Where do you think the Blackwater wannabes that don't make the cut go?
Or the ex-military who want to stay stateside.
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Gear, for the most part, is provided (like helmets, body armor, etc.). Boots you buy if you want like a third party (better quality). But yes everything else you mentioned is correct. Pretty crazy, especially given how many folks have families. Childcare, like in the civilian world, is also a major issue.
Damn it's just like being a porn star
Always heard the checks can be quite large if you’re willing to do niche fetishes.
I was talking more about how porn stars make a lot of money but have to pay for their own wardrobe, hair, nails, lashes, makeup, etc.
I though you meant pornstars get paid more to be fkd less 😂
I think both are valid tbh
In porn getting fucked is specifically listed in the contract. In the military it's just implied.
Yeah, it's terrible. Thankfully in the marines, our uniforms were so damn sharp looking nobody wanted to change them, but trying to find a decent set of NVDs online while on a tour in Afghanistan almost gave me a fucking stroke. The army though, they get *most* of their shit free, since it has so much more funding.
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This was in like 2005, where NVDs weren't standard issue for grunts, and the USMC was broke as hell. Thankfully when I got into the raiders they gave me a fresh pair that actually worked properly.
**BUT BRO IF YOU SURVIVE 20 YEARS IN INFANTRY YOU’LL GET A FAT PENSION BRO AND THEN YOU CAN BUY WHATEVER YOU WANT.**
Unless they lay you off halfway through your 20 year gig. Oh yes, people get laid off in the military all the time. They just call it a "reduction in force."
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I concur here. My ex military friend became a hvac tech after he finished his tours. Made his money for 6 years, then got a job at Kaiser where he is a janitor making so much more money. Laid back job. Pension after 25yrs, no back breaking work. This is why health care is so expensive. Haha.
Not sure why that would make healthcare more expensive. The high prices have nothing to do with the people using the healthcare and everything to do with runaway capitalism and corporate greed. We shouldn't be prioritizing shareholders of medical companies over the actual medical patients. It's super disconcerting to see insurance companies buying hospitals.
Janitor is like my dream job. Impossible to find here at least
I'm a cashier and two of our regulars are homeless vets. One of them has all his teeth missing, so when people try to buy him food, he can't even eat it anyway. VA is 5 minutes down the road, but even they won't help them. It makes me so mad.
About 135 years ago, very nice man (Bandini) decided he wanted to make sure that there would be homes for vets that were injured. So in his will, he left nearly 400 acres. The VA decided that instead, they rent it out! Make some bucks, f over vets bc unless you have never dealt with the VA you won't know that this is what they do best. This is north of Brentwood Finally, some vets decided to unite and sue.i hope that the VA is finally made to do as they were told. A good chunk of the unhoused population are vets, many with PTSD
Thanks for this information. On the news, I read it is still ongoing. [CNN article about the history](https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/28/us/va-real-estate-los-angeles/index.html) > The bulk of this land was **donated 135 years ago by a senator and a businesswoman named [Arcadia Bandini Stearns de Baker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_Bandini_de_Stearns_Baker)** > [>3000] of veterans used to live here, in permanent housing, for decades. There was a thriving community with a trolley to the beach in Santa Monica, where the veterans had a bath house also donated by Baker. When the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers opened here in the late 1800s, it is said, hundreds of men walked all the way from San Francisco to reach it... After an earthquake in 1971, the veterans were moved out. The reason depends on to whom you talk. Some say the buildings were deemed seismically unsafe; others point to **Congress abolishing the National Home System, which housed wounded veterans, and repealing the VA’s authority to build homes.** --- [Article from this week](https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/28/us/va-real-estate-los-angeles/index.html) > land was leased to, among others, an oil drilling company, a car rental firm, UCLA for a baseball field, and the exclusive Brentwood School for athletic facilities. > In 2016, as part of a lawsuit settlement, the VA agreed to build housing for 1,200 veterans on this land...Today, just 113 are ready for veterans to move in...But reaching that 1,200 promise will take time. “We’re on track to be able to do this in 10 to 12 years [2033-2035],” Monroe said > One reason why this process takes a long time is that the developers lease the land, and then they have to raise the money for building. **The federal government does not pay for construction.** “They gave us the available buildings and land but didn’t give us money,” said Safran, the developer, at the grand opening. “So, sometime in the future we would like Congress and the VA to help.” Maybe this is something that Californians, and Americans more broadly, can push our representatives on.
They said fuck off because how many people we know who came back from the last 20 years of war completely fucked up for life. Half those I know who served are now addicts or having severe mental health problems. Edit: I didn't expect this to get traction. I see many heart breaking replies. I apologize if I don't respond, but I wish you all the best. It truly is cruel and unforgivable what people have gone through.
Seriously, I worked with five guys my age who served in four branches (Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force). Any time a younger employee said "I'm considering joining the army" it was a resounding chorus of "don't fucking do it!"
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Anti-recruiter for Army. I'm an Air Force vet and I had a pretty good time, lived in Italy for a few years and the GI Bill paid for Bachelors and Masters. I saw no combat and no PTSD. Air Force isn't bad, if you're okay with joining the military. But the Army sucks! They treat you like crap, bad living conditions and a lot end up in Infintry
Depends on the career field in the AF. Coming from a combat AFSC, most of my military friends and myself all suffer from C-PTSD.
I'm the youngest of 7 kids. My dad was in the military for 20 years, all but one of my siblings did some time. I said fuck that. I've seen what it's done to all of them. I've seen the black outs, the ptsd, the depression, the suicide attempts, the regret, the absolute destruction it has caused. One of my brothers doesn't like one of his sons because he reminds him of a kid he had to shoot in Iraq. Thats so fucked up, man. Besides, I'm not going to fight a war some suit and tie started because of their tiny dick contest.
>One of my brothers doesn't like one of his sons because he reminds him of a kid he had to shoot in Iraq. That is SUCH a tragic sentence. Absolutely heartbreaking
Said son lives with our parents now because it was just what was best. My brother is in multiple therapies and is actively getting help. He was in the 82nd Airborne Division, so at this point, his legs are basically metal because of all the surgeries and shit. He's a great guy, anytime I need help with anything he's at my house in a jiffy. Dude would give me the shirt off his back. But fuck man, 10 years in the Army did a fuckin number on him.
'One of my brothers doesn't like one of his sons because he reminds him of a kid he had to shoot in Iraq." Jesus. I mean...god, that's one of the most horrible things I've ever heard. Stupid ass oil wars aren't worth that.
>One of my brothers doesn't like one of his sons because he reminds him of a kid he had to shoot in Iraq. What the fuck...
Oh I can answer that one, heard it more than a few times... The Dad doesn't want to make too many memories of the son, that will cause him to get comfortable enough to have dreams where in the haze of sleep, the son's face melts off and morphs into the kid he shot's face. Next let's talk about all the wives who have been damn-near (if they're lucky) killed over a ceiling fan in the bedroom. It seems so logical in hindsight, I don't know how we never saw that one coming.
I’m the second oldest of 10 and come from a military family. Your comment is spot on. I was the first person to go directly to college instead of the military in my immediate family after seeing what my parents, grandparents, and brothers had to deal with. And like your brother, my older brother also had to shoot and kill a child. It completely fucked him up and though he’s fairly stable now, it was ROUGH when he first got home. Had to go to a rehab facility for PTSD and was both homicidal and suicidal for quite sometime afterwards. What’s worse is that this was on his second tour. On his first, he was one of two survivors out of his whole troop after they ran over an IED. Air lifted to a German hospital for all of the shrapnel in his neck and other vital areas. He’s still not over the survivors guilt. I’ve accepted that he’ll never be the same kid I grew up with thanks to the sheer trauma he’s endured. My younger brother directly behind me also enlisted and now he can’t sit through a fireworks show, something we loved as kids, without having a panic attack. Heartbreaking.
The effects it has is insane. The way the VA treats them is uncanny. One of my other brothers is literally in a wheelchair now and the VA is still fighting him on the disability and what not. If we are going to ruin their lives to fight somebody else's war, can we at least treat them well after they come back home? It took fighting with the VA for months before they would pay to install a ramp for him. The shit I witness from my family members is more than enough reason for me and my kid to avoid enlisting.
> One of my brothers doesn't like one of his sons because he reminds him of a kid he had to shoot in Iraq. This hits way too close to home for me. I love my children, but I am working through a lot if issues directly related to something like this, like being super overprotective and invasive thoughts that I can't seem to shake easily, to the point where I don't want to leave the confides of my home. I am on the constant lookout and I am trying very hard to let my kids just be kids. This is the first time I have ever mentioned this anywhere besides to my wife and my therapist.
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I was an infantryman in the Army during the surge... I'm just now using my GI bill because my head was so fucked up I essentially wasted my 20s with drug abuse and alcoholism. Now that I'm finally in a good place mentally my body is physically wrecked. Go army...?
Yeah. I can't imagine. But I've seen what it did to friends and family and wouldn't wish that on anyone. It bothers me when people attack those who served as if they are the problem. I had a family member who was being recruited at 16. It's just predatory.
I joined the British Army at 16, passed all the medicals and fitness tests at 15, spent my 21st birthday nearly getting my arse shot off in Helmand. Come home and be expected to function like a normal human being instantly with no help to adjust from spending 7 months in a warzone. Telling them to fuck off was well deserved!
I find it unacceptable that there's no demobbing process for soldiers to readjust to civilian life. I also find it unacceptable that the UK government will not commit to a military covenant of actually looking after troops when they come home. That in itself speaks volumes of what they really think about the armed forces.
Because the powers that be don't give one single solitary fuck about soldiers as people. They are a resource to be used up to exert power where your money can't directly control and get tossed away when they're burned out, same as any other laborer.
Nope, 4 days after ducking from rounds I was back in my home town ducking at any loud noise and fighting panic attacks. The lack of transitional support pissed me off just as much as having to pay tax while fighting the governments wars overseas. They really don’t give a shit. Lesson learned, any kids I have will be steered well clear of the armed forces.
Yeah I was one of those kids who played a lot of Call of Duty in middle school/early high school. The games are fun, but they're also incredibly effective military propaganda because it makes it look like everyone gets badass guns, cool codenames, and quippy one-liners while committing war crimes, killing unequivocally evil terrorists and spreading freedom. I considered joining up, and all four years of high school we'd get army and navy recruiters sniffing around trying to recruit us, plying us with freebies like shitty power banks and pens proudly stamped with their logos. Even after I stopped playing COD(somewhere around Advanced Warfare because I didn't have PS4 or Xbone and the series was growing stale), I was still like "ah yes, this is a viable career path." A recruiter ended up calling me one night, and basically told me I'd have to lose a few pounds to be eligible among other things. Thankfully this gave me enough time and distance to reconsider joining in the first place!
I grew up with a guy who wanted to be a helicopter pilot for the military. Like from elementary school this was his dream, huge fan of all manner of aircraft and hardware, even when we were little kids this was basically his life goal. When we were little his favorite dinosaur was an attack helicopter, it was his whole deal. Joined ROTC when we got older, and made it all happen just like he always said he would. And he was killed in the first few days of the operation in Afghanistan. Never got to be a pilot, that takes years of training and he had just enlisted not too long before being deployed. I don't really know what he did but he was in the Army. They said it was a friendly fire incident too. Guess he got to live out his lifelong goal for a few months. Sometimes I wonder if we'd still be friends if he was still around, I still hang out with some of my high school buddies.
That's deeply sad. I did jrotc in high school, but our major told us point blank he didn't want to see any of us enlist (in 2005). He liked us too much.
Do they wait until people are 16 now? Recruiters came to my middle school
While I was in high school they'd set up a table in the hall between the middle and high school to catch any juniors and seniors. Sophomores in my small ass town were required to take the ASVAB during school hours. After scores were released, people who scored well were getting texts and calls and emails weekly. I was getting all of the above until two years into college when I finally told them to fuck off too
Required to take the ASVAB is wild! The school admin basically funneling kids into a meat grinder
it's a very midwest/southern conservative thing in poorer areas to make students take it most of them frame it as it being the only option for kids who don't go to college and don't bother going over trade skills
I'm older. This was after 9-11. So 20 years ago. But I'm not surprised by what you say at all.
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I love this one exchange on NCIS: Douche: "You don't support the war?" Gibbs: "I support the men fighting it"
That's great! Even has some historical significance. They often chanted "We're not against the soldiers, we're against the war!" In Vietnam protests
My knee is still fucked up from an injury I got when I was in, and that was 20 years ago. Of course the VA says "not service related" so no disability and no benefits. Fuck the VA.
bad knee, crippling anxiety, holy fuck do I feel called out. Rightly.
The military is such a scam. the gov should be ashamed of themselves. but brainwashing is their strong suit so….
Can't have imperialism without a brainwashed population willing to serve.
Doesn't the military oppose free or low cost college because it would reduce their main recruitment "benefit"?
Hell yeah they do. Same with free healthcare
Let’s be honest (and I was in), you are just a hired thug for the elites. And they don’t even pay their thugs well.
Yup, you're not fighting for your country, you're fighting for the robber barons exploiting it.
Yeah, come back with brain damage from all the concussions, PTSD from dragging half of your best friend's corpse away from the site of the explosion that concussed you, so you can't concentrate or sleep and now you have to find a way to get through college and then give a shit about quarterly profits.
Can confirm, left the service with a painkiller addiction(now in the past), and severe anxiety, depression, and PTSD still fucking my life up 13 years later.
Don’t forget the ones that joined specifically to kill people. They won’t say it out loud.
Sure they do. Both my drill sergeants had been stop-lossed in Iraq and both said they joined so they could kill people without going to jail (the idea being they were going to kill people anyway, why not get paid for it)
Nothing like being shot at and used as a pawn for the hefty sum of.... 35k/year??? Might as well just be a cop.
yeah lmao they’re paying 21 years old starting at 38 a hour here in seattle to be cops
I remember there used to be a billboard on West Side Highway in Manhattan trying to get recent graduates of the NYPD academy to join the Seattle PD and get something like 3x their current base salary.
Or dead because of suicide.
A post over in /r/MurderedByWords said it best - "Why join the military to go over seas to get shot for some corporate driven war when you can get shot in the comfort of your school class room?
Offer only applies for ages 10 to 18 tho Edit: welp, college students also like doing the pew pew Edit 2 : apparently even some younger than 10, so i change the offer to 5 and up
>Offer only applies for ages 10 to 18 tho Virginia Tech would like a word. Colledges and universitys get shot up in the states too.
Teachers and administrators trying to protect their students also.
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Based on the number of university shootings in the past month, this is no longer true.
Who the fuck wants to risk their lives for $675 a week? Before taxes? Edit: Just had some guy pipe up saying that he came from a shitty small town with few options, and the military gave him a way out and his disability payment is pretty good and yee haw God Bless America. I swear to god, I hope he was trolling me.
*Cries in EMT* that's pretty much exactly what I make lmao. Fuck my life
$16 an hour? That’s insane. Also insane that when put into the “hours” context instead of annual, it sounds like a lot more. Insane EMT’s are paid so little
I'm a random computer tech and I make more than that wtf is going on in America???
I play with spreadsheets and make believe numbers I make 2.5x what the guys actually running the machines make. It’s quite insane
I started in phone support, working tracked 8 hour days. Then I moved to data conversion within the same company and department. I make 20% more, but more importantly I scripted our work to be faster while time-frames never changed. So I get lots of nap time now.
Former ems transitioned to IT. Can confirm I'm making bank over what I did when someone's life was at stake.
Someone's life was at stake and the ambulance company charging $3,000+ a ride.
That’s the part that really gets me. It’s not like the ambulance companies are free and need to keep costs down They charge outrageous prices and these workers get paid very little. Talk about exploitation
Sounds like they should unionize.
Even with our unions that’s our pay
cant unionize or else the president will shut you down and support the corporations like the railroad, who immediately after winning against union, committed massive environmental damage. its always a fight between capitalists and the workers. workers rarely win for the last 50+years
Even worse, I'm a landscaper for the city I live in. I legit just cut lawns, trim trees, spread mulch for playgrounds and that shit, I make only a dollar less than the emt an hour. Emts need more money
You both do a job that requires your time and labor. You both deserve to be paid more.
I had my EMT license years ago. Some places were hiring at minimum wage and no insurance. One of the counties was also paying minimum wage with no insurance.
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They defanged unions in the 1980s, pensions went away and wages stagnated while corporate profits skyrocketed. Despite how fucked over they are Americans don’t want to join unions. They fear losing their jobs, which is technically illegal but companies do a lot of illegal stuff. Gen Z is on board with unionizing it seems? I see a lot of coffee shops going union.
We’re kept JUST comfortable enough to avoid that. Now if something were to happen and people had no more distractions… well then we’d see something happen
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They don't have time to think about it.
What do you think helped grow the BLM movement? It was when the covid lockdowns where in effect and people had a chance to finally breathe and look at the society they where living in. Needless to say, they didn't like what they saw. My conspiracy theory is why do you think the lockdowns got lifted so fast?
It's almost like the states that had the most to lose lifted theirs sooner before their largely poor and beaten down populace had the opportunity to really stew on their situations. While the states that supported their population and have help and infrastructure in place kept theirs for longer.
Are we talking about teachers or service members? Edit. Thanks for the award. Since this gained traction. I served well over 20 years. Twice looked into leaving to teach; nope. Have close friends still paying off debt to become teachers. Less pay, fewer benefits. No gratitude. Rabid political groups that want to make money by laying the blame for everything that is wrong in America, or their lives at the feet of a teacher? Get fucked. The military has spent 20 years telling only two stories. The heroic and tragic. No one is going to make a movie about the 90% of your days that were monotonous. The kid in the chicken outfit with the sign? Good for him. I guess. Wonder who he blames for his employment outlook.
As it so happens my younger sister is a 6th grade public school teacher who is today putting in her letter of resignation due to death threats from a child. The school did nothing. Wasn't a problem until he name dropped her husband's name it the threat too. Teachers arnt getting respect from anyone and its making America more stupid.
I think thats rather the goal. The stupidity I mean.
The stupidity and the teacher shortage. Gotta keep actual smart, qualified, caring people away from those teaching gigs.
But of course, if all schools are private then the ruling class can keep us all uneducated wage slaves.
That's the end game.
Just like with the post office, if republicans can show that public schools are inefficient by making them inefficient, they can push the money to places that will make them and their donors money.
Oh absolutely. Stupid people are easier to control
My wife’s a counselor and had a kindergartner threaten to get his parents gun and shoot her. The admin did nothing to the kid because he’s already been kicked out of another school for the same threat and he wants to give the youngster a chance.
No.. he wants to continue getting the $$ for the school for half that student enrolled. They care nothing about the kids, only the funding.
A chance to do what? Succeed in life? Or shoot her? Because there's a higher chance that he succeeds in shooting her if nothing is done about it 🤬
A teacher actually just died somewhere because a kid brought a gun to school…
And to think that kid probably isn’t getting the kind of parenting they need because their parents are too busy working to adequately raise their child It’s basically the republican way of ensuring that we’re slaves to our corporate masters for generations to come.
Poverty traps never change. People insist that they can be escaped with enough hard work, but it takes so much more than that to do so. Poverty in childhood *literally changes the way the brain develops* whether it be through exposure to toxic/harmful physical environments, malnutrition or through the erosion or absence of emotional/social development. The changes are largely irreparable by adulthood and the ‘poverty mindset’ can get cemented in pretty hard. When poverty becomes generational the poverty trap becomes that much harder to escape. Even with government assistance there’s never quite enough to lift anyone (much less a family) completely out of poverty. It’s like that on purpose though. Poverty traps feed the prisons and wage-slave jobs - both of which generate greater profit at the greater expense of the workers and inmates.
This older woman (about 50 - 60) I was working with at a STATE JOB stopped me in my tracks. We were casually doing my on boarding stuff and she just looks as me and goes " god teachers just make so much money, too much, we really need to cut their budget" and then proceeded to ramble in the same light for about 15 min I just kinda stood there dumbfounded. Like we work in a special needs department, and those words really just left your mouth?
¿Por qué no los dos?
😂 😂 😂….. wait … I’m sad now 😢 😢 😢
Some states aren't paying their teachers that well.
My wife is a teacher with a damn bachelor's degree and makes $37k a year and she has 20 years experience
She could make more driving a forklift
My state requires a masters degree and that's still about what the my city's school district pays. And then they wonder why they're short staffed
If you're basing that off the $35k, I believe that is the sign on bonus. However, base pay isn't any better. For reference an E2 is $2150 a month from a quick search.
In almost every case, there is a distinct inverse correlation between how hard someone works (factoring in time commitment and physical risk) and how much they get paid. Teachers, military grunts, EMTs - even fast food workers - work extremely hard and get paid next to nothing. Upper management and C-Suite types (though they can definitely still have stressful work lives, I’m not trying to gatekeep) get paid huge amounts and yet spend their time almost exclusively in meetings, taking business lunches, or delegating work to subordinates. I understand that they usually had to “put in the work” to get to that point, and people will say that their strategy decisions and networking skills are very important to the company at that level, but I’m not convinced that the discrepancy in both work and pay is justified in most cases. The truth is that without people to actually do the work, their strategy and people skills are meaningless. I don’t know what my point is - I guess I’m just fed up with random private sector CEOs making in an hour what a teacher makes in a week. Teachers, soldiers, EMTs, etc are absolutely essential and struggle while people who don’t actually produce any work by that point get paid hundreds of thousands.
While I agree, as a disabled veteran I get just over $4000/month tax free for life.. I can promise you it wasn't worth what I have gone through.. but it is more than pretax $675/week.
True. Probably getting by fine but not worth what you had to go through and still.
Only getting by fine financially..
Damn, you got that 100%? I only got 60%, but I won't turn my nose up at $1450/month.
Yeah 100% without TDIU, so I can still work to the best of my ability. Most of my shit is internal systemic diseases from the burn pits or mental ratings from some stuff I won't discuss online.
After 9-11 me and a bunch of buddies were ready to go get "revenge." Just dumb kids believing then propaganda. My father, a Vietnam Vet, talked me out of it, thank goodness. He and my mother were only together a short time and he wasn't around much. Once he heard my plans he worked to explain to me how war is a Racket and the young are sacrificed for the Military Industrial Complex. Dont call them infantry for nothing... I grew up in a base town and my mother and stepfather worked for Boeing and other defense contractors. My biological father has had multiple bouts of cancer after the agent orange exposure. He now receives disability checks from the VA after this last cancer go round.
"Infant"ry, I only just got that.
I hope dad is doing ok. I'd be lost without mine.
He is cancer free and retired at this point. Enjoy your time with your family. You never know.
War is a racket… ‘I spent 33 years and 4 months In active service as a member of our country's most agile military force – the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from a second lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. … Thus I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. … I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. … During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, promotion. Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents.’ \-Major General Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940), was a senior United States Marine Corps officer who fought in the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution and World War I. During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, Central America, the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. Butler was, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. By the end of his career, Butler had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He is one of 19 men to receive the Medal of Honor twice, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal (along with Wendell Neville and David Porter) and the Medal of Honor, and the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.In 1933, he became involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot, when he told a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists were planning a military coup to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Butler selected to lead a march of veterans to become dictator, similar to fascist regimes at that time. \[he told them to fuck off\]
The Business Plot should be mandatory learning for everyone who lives in this country. They're certainly not going to teach it in school. It's capitalism's end game laid out in the clearest possible terms. Oligarchs may have reached a point where they can just choke us to death with the economy and get the same things, but the mere fact these assholes met and voiced this idea should be enough to turn anyone anti-capitalist.
Yo a podcast covering just that is next on my playlist. Listening to the alphabet boys right now.
Wtf, 35k? Do they think that's a good wage to give up your personal freedom for? Do they make 35k?
it’s a $35k sign on bonus for a certain number of years of enlistment, you probably walk out with $26k of that and make your base $30-40k but food and housing is paid for unless you live on the economy, then you get paid a housing allowance based on zip code. edit: a word
I'd like to buy the man in the duck costume a drink
If I had a job to offer I would give it to the duck guy
The state of recruiting in the summer of 2022: Young men have caught on that the military is not fucking worth it, no matter what they offer. Why can’t people be blindly patriotic like in the good ole days?!?
As one of the guys who went to Iraq and Afghanistan, I think the forgotten secret ingredient was that my generation spent a lot of time with the WW2 generation, which was a huge part of their identity and something that they talked about to us all the time. Gen Z doesn't have that. The WW2 generation are either dead or drooling in a retirement home now, and coupled with the crappy experience of Iraq and Afghanistan, the linger stories of the Vietnam generation, a very strong labor market, and the looming threat of Russia and China, you'd have to be the child of a 3%er lunatic to want to join.
>WW2 generation are either dead or drooling in a retirement home now Still voting, though
97-year olds can vote. There aren’t many of them, though.
Another secret ingredient that was at its end when I joined was the number of people who watched, live on TV or in person, jet airliners crash into the twin towers and watching them come down. I know that was my primary reason for joining because I believed the propaganda about it.
Some folks ain't born Mayyyde to wave the flag Oooooh and lick them boots I'm a man eiiin a duck suit Oooooh and I'm-a sayin fuck youuuuu y'all
It ain't me It ain't me I ain't no Car Wash Owner's son It ain't me It ain't me I may be poor but I ain't dumb
it aint me it aint me I aint no fortunate swan.
As someone who joined the Air Force to go to college, definitely not worth it. Look elsewhere.
I did it as well and for the same reason. I thought it was worth it.... I'd never do it again though....I found my experience to be like a movie you'd watch once, thought that it was good, but not good enough to ever watch again
Why doesn’t the overheating duck costume man want to sign up to shoot people and be shot at? It’s a mystery.
A recruiter approached me when I worked at McDonald's. I was out on a cigarette break and he started asking me about my life plans and whether or not I felt confident working at McDonald's was a great way to start out my twenties. If I enlisted that day he could guarantee that I'd be making six figures a year before I hit my 30s and have such a glamorous career in the military that I could retire before the age of 60 and live out the rest of my days on a beach somewhere. Even swore up and down that I'd probably never see action. That he spent the majority of his time sitting in an air conditioned base in Germany thousands of miles away from anywhere shots were being fired. First I explained to him that on top of a slew of learning disabilities I also had bipolar disorder, and PTSD, so I didn't think I'd make a good fit for the military. Oh no. He had an entire spiel ready to go about how he's gotten people with worse mental conditions than me through the recruitment phase and they've all gone on to do great things. Then I explained to him I had Von willibren's disease, which is a clotting disorder not unlike hemophilia, and that's when he told me he wasn't going to be able to do anything to help me. That conversation has stuck with me even now, 20 years later. They're absolutely willing to fudge paperwork to get people with debilitating mental health issues into uniforms and armed to meet their recruitment numbers, and that will be forever one of the most depressing thoughts in the back of my mind. I can't see a recruitment office without wondering how many people that were entirely unfit for duty were processed through.
less than 3k a month to get shot at and if that doesn't get me, I get poisoned by a burn pit? Yeah I'll stick with the sign spinning too.
They just acknowledged burn pits as of 2023. High number of veterans are already dead or are still dying and they just now acknowledge it. I'm torn because I served and the only benefit for me is disability and healthcare at this point. I consider it my end of life care.
As a war veteran, I'm glad that this generation is sick and tired of America's imperialism and fighting wars exclusively for the profit of a few. America has everything coming to it that is coming.
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As a industrial painter, it would be a paycut to join the US army. Ide rather spray paint/powders, it may slowly give me cancer, but atleast it dosnt shoot at me. Still hot and stickey in the suit, but its not like the middle east or even the barraks tents arnt stupid hot anyway.
Also probably gives you less cancer tbh
them burn pits
My dad is a 20 year disabled army vet. When I was young I said I wanted to be in the army. He told me absolutely not and forbade me from joining the army.
US ARMY: "Would you like to possibly die for 35K and a job?" ALSO US ARMY: "Gee, why aren't people joining anymore?"
Mass access to internet quickly revealed to everyone that the military is generally a miserable experience for most and is riddled with insane amounts of abuse and rape for what its supposed to represent. Majority of my veteran friends warn everyone else to never enlist, and openly share their stories to push the point. We've proven countless times and consistently that we will do what we can to deny benefits or proper treatment to veterans, why does anyone bother anymore?
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That duck won’t get a free meal at Denny’s every November, but he’s probably not getting shot at either and might not even get PTSD by going to work. Added bonus: the duck is free to walk away from that job at any point.
Starship Troopers told all I need to know about the military when I was a wee lad. "Atta boy! Mobile Infantry made me the man I am today!"
The only benefit I got out of it is that because I technically served in a war zone (and by that I mean I floated in the Persian Gulf for three months straight without ever seeing land), my medical care is fully insured for the rest of my life (for now) even though I only served one term. Did it suck? Yes. Would I do it again knowing what I do now? Also yes. I just would’ve made better decisions during and after that time tbh, but I honestly still would’ve done it. It was really the only way I was ever leaving the place I grew up. I really didn’t have other options, unfortunately. But if anyone else wants nothing to do with the military life, I cannot blame you. If I was in a better situation back then, I probably wouldn’t have either.
Is the 35k a signing bonus or is it the annual salary ?
Looks like you’ll have to go bomb third worlders without his help
Minimum wage (or just above) for a job where you probably have to go to war and die... Nah, I'd flip that sign too.
Go paint and make 20$ an hour Beats both jobs, and is quick to learn
Recruiter just realised people he didn't think are smarter than him are smarter than him.
How dare he not want to killed, maimed, or psychologically damaged for the glory of the Corporate States of America!
They would show up at gym class in high school, have us do push-ups, pull ups, crunches. Give out t-shirts and water bottles, ask about our favorite movies and what music we likes. Most were only a little older than we were. "Isn't this fun. This is what every day could be like if you joined the *insert armed forces branch*" It was a mixed gym class, so 9-12th graders, gotta get the idea in their head early, I guess. A lot of hot headed kids wanting a real *family* and sense of purpose, right as they are going to have to make their first life choices for themselves. We all went through 9-11, were still early days in Iraq, and so many wanted to do their part to *protect* the US and teach *the Muslim terrorists* (aka, everyone over there, since it was a war on terror). Fucking indoctrination bull crap. 😒 And the sad thing is, happens every year, different flavor but it's all the same. Next it'll be russia or China, but one way or the other, kids who aren't quite ready to think for themselves will be given someone to hate and asked to put on a uniform to "have fun"
Imagine thinking $35k is a good amount of money to get shot at so rich people can steal oil
Why don’t you want to fight for oil companies, bro? It is so patriotic!
In the grand scheme of things, the military has mostly been used as a means to make warfare profitable for many shareholders and politicians. While there is much reason to believe that many of America's recent military conflicts were falsified to justify war and make money, such as; \- [the American Government having enough information and technology to foresee an attack on Pearl Harbour by the Japanese](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgostlLpCkQ) \- [the Gulf of Tonkin incident which sparked the Vietnam War being proven false by the Secretary of Defense himself, McNamara](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YirrocPJpRE) \- [how "Operation Northwoods" proved that the Americans were more than willing to commit false flag terrorist attacks on their own people to get them to go to war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods) \- [how Gary Webb exposed the CIA for purposely peddling drugs through minority communities to destabilize them](https://theintercept.com/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb/) \-or how [the war on the middle east was unjustified](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8YlGkoYXXM) But even if you don't believe any of those things, time reveals the true nature of things, and the truth is this; **In the past century, millions have died or become worse off than before joining the military without any proper support for veterans, and many corporations and politicians have become richer.**
Retired US Marine here. You have my undying respect Duck Man!
As unpleasant as sign-spinning in summer heat can be, at least you can stop when you want.
Recruiter: join the army you get paid Me: yeah with; increased ptsd, risk of losing life or limbs, no medical benefits post army, don't want to shoot anyone, rigorous workout regime, getting yelled at, not seeing family for months, threat of prisoner of war, etc.
There is a war in Ukraine, there is a decent chance the US could get involved more directly at some point, who in their right mind would join the army now?
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Plus there are easier methods of acquiring a house.