I was an Army medic. Fort Sam grad '86. I’m still working EMS. I have Vet plates on my car and it’s listed on my driver’s license. That’s it. I don’t wear any gear, I don’t hang flags at home. I don’t say a peep when I’m at an event and they mention Vets or even “first responders”. I do my job because I love it. I don’t need recognition for the work I’ve done.

Agreed that it is weird.

I hate getting thanked. I didn’t serve because I loved my country or wanted to do some sacred duty, I did it because I was trapped and scared about what came after high school because no one in my family had even graduated that much. I heard free college and a paying job and took the bait.

My recruiter lied to me too, likely to improve his own numbers, but I did at least get a job I wanted with weather forecasting. Very cool job, and honesty? I miss it every day. But I hated the military itself. The institution built on being holier than thou in an egotistical sense and yet just gorging itself on nonsense. Every part of the culture was gross to me, and every thing I could see happening behind closed doors was disgusting.

I got out after my first contract and went straight to college with the GI Bill. I like not being in debt, but I’m not sure the whole thing was worth it.

But then again, I have so many skills because of everything I had to do, and a much greater appreciation for socialism and safety nets and not wearing a uniform.

Iʻll pop in because I served. And Iʻve also done a lot of organizing with other left wing veterans. But weʻ aint got a waffle house around here and Iʻm working while responding so only can go for so long.

My service, US Navy, Submarines, Sonar. Did most of my time, then tried to take my own life. Boat kept getting into “incidents” underway. Was pretty confident we weren’t going to make it back if we went out again. Ended up with my honorable discharge, all that. A few weeks/ months later this happened. Really fucked with my head. Was homeless/ insecure for about 5 years after the navy.

Why I joined? Iʻve been thinking about that a lot lately. I didnʻt have the words for it, but yeah, in retrospect, it was that I wanted access to the basic aspects of socialism. I had an irregular path in that I had been doing community college in HS because school would pay for it. I ended up graduating early, and coming from a family where dad didnʻt graduate highschool, no on in family or even extended family had ever been to anything higher than HS, I didnʻt like, I didnʻt know how things worked. It never occurred to me I could just apply to college and get in. All my family had ever done was labor. Like it was considered an accomplishment that I had never had any issues with the police (which was really just me being more clever and not getting caught).

So Iʻm 16, in San Diego, walking down the streets a friend, and literally, two sailors in dress whites rolled up in a car and said “Hey hop in, weʻll buy you tacos”. And so we just did. And they made good in that they bought us both taco plates, and then dropped us off at the ASVAB testing center with our tacos. Recruiter had me take the exam, and offered me a 10 grand signing bonus on the spot after seeing my scores. Gave me two options. Sonar tech or crypto tech.

Thinking back on it, my calculus. There was no place for me at home once I had my HS diploma. That had been well established. We were a 7 person family in a 2 bedroom house. Navy offered me 3 hots and a cot. It offered me a pay check. It offered me a cash bonus that was like, life changing money for a 16/17 yo kid in the year 2001. If I served, Iʻd have guaranteed access to school, medicine, subsidized loans for housing. I donʻt fault the calculus 16 yo me did to arrive at the conclusion they landed at. It made sense, in that the choice was basically to abandon any real hope of college, which, was actually my dream to be a scientist, or go do this thing for a few years, go get paid to do some training, gather some skills, etc, and college will be there when you waiting. The kids math checks out.

We limit access to socialism to force people into military service in the form of a poverty draft. There was no place for me at home once I had my HS diploma. That had been well established. We were a 7 person family in a 2 bedroom house. The US keeps its social safety system in tatters because if not, it would not be able to feed its military industrial complex with fresh blood. This is where the real opposition to social democracy comes from.

I really put aside my veterans identity for a long time. In my time in the streets I rolled with black block, gutter punks, FnBʻs, many many punk houses. Did drugs, helped people, participated in direct action, helped build earth ships. It gave me a chance to re-assess my identify and reconfigure. And when my father finally ended up having a complete mental break down in 2008/2009 (sure fucking sucked to be self-employed in labor back then), I was put back together enough to actually help my sisters get through that. I had reconstituted enough to be there for them. I ended up moving back to my home town, and helped build the anarchist scene that might have helped steer me when I was a kid. Built a FNBʻs chapter, community spaces for punk bands/ reggae bands, DIY. Eventually even got my benefits activated and went back to college. Iʻm even a scientist now.

I think the benefits of entering the military should be available to everyone, as part of the basic function of a society. The things you get access to through services are the things everyone should have access to as a basic form of socialism. The US Military and the US veterans experience is a proof that socialism works in the US and that actually, Americans love socialism. However, I also think service is important. And Iʻve had conversations with people from European social democracies on this (Norway, Sweden, Switzerland). And I think that its important, especially when weʻre young, to put in time serving “something”, because it builds a sense of pride and ownership in that thing. And also, you genuinely donʻt know shit when you are young. Its good to have some time to figure things out. We shouldn’t be pressuring kids at 17 to make hard, committed decisions to career paths.

Iʻve speculated on the idea of like a 2 year service requirement, available once you hit 16, and to be completed before the age of 26. However that is 👉 NOT 👈 military service. Americore should count, and we need to revive/ re-institute the work corp systems we had in the 1920ʻs. Two years of trail building, teaching in low income communities, habitat restoration, teaching ESL, building houses, I mean the list of things kids in that age group could be doing is endless. Two years of service, you get paid (poorly) and housed and fed the whole time. And after that you have full access to ALL of the benefits we currently offer veterans. Now I only say speculating, because I actually donʻt like this idea. I think all of these programs should be FREE and UNIVERSAL, regardless. But I think that we have an issue where we treat the government and the work necessary to keep the country going as something “someone else” does, and not something we as citizens do. I think not enough people think of the state of the government and think, “this is something I have ownership of and that Iʻm responsible for”. And I think if people had the sense that the parks, the government, the things we all depend on were more materially theirs, weʻd take better care of them and therefore each other.

This took to long to write and will probably end up getting buried. But there it is.

And yet, I can’t really vent. Weirdly, as abusive as the Army is it will give you everything you want. I got IT certs for free, I got a degree for free, I always had a place to sleep, I always had food, I always had a paycheck, and I always had work to do.

Military service is like this weird authoritarian bubble where we let people have a little socialism if they further the goals of empire.

Can you imagine if we ran the rest of society like this? Not the part where if you disobey orders you go to prison, but just assessing and solving problems (like homelessness, joblessness, hunger, illness, etc) and not worrying about where the money comes from—just connecting people with the labour and resources to accomplish tasks that further the aims of human flourishing.

As I see it: You made, at the time, a necessary choice with good intentions, with an unfortunately sleazy and predatory salesman. I know others who were in a similar/the same situation back in the early 2000’s, and we all know how THAT turned out. For the most part (but not exclusively), I appreciate that ex-military people I’ve met over the years emerged fairly progressive from the experience and made the most of the college education that got dangled in front of them years before. I’m glad to hear you seem to have your stuff together (minus the job search — it’s a complete shitshow right now and I hope you land something soon). Thanks for being open about your experience and sharing your thoughts.

Didn’t serve. I was too rebellious at 18 to even consider being told what to do. Got my fill at home.

Worked at Lowe’s, and while they’re very good about hiring and helping vets, it was bizarre listening to our GM talk on Memorial Day about how important it is and yet we had to work. If the company were truly serious, Memorial Day would be closed and PTO for everyone.

Fwiw ALL of IT hiring is beyond fucked up, and has been since they decided to have AI filter everybody into buckets. Experience is a liability, craven manipulation is encouraged. It’s insane at every level but big tech want mo money. And people are just too expensive.

Back in the day I started with a bunch of vets and they talked about their experiences pretty much exactly as you have (although there was no idiotic war for oil for them to go through). Mostly cool people, as far as I knew them. Not sure how they feel about it now, but a relative who saw some shit never got into it until he was much older. Then it was a kind of built-in community he appreciated. Fwiw.

I fucking hate the veteran worship in this country. It’s a job that people choose that has a ton of fucking life long perks, and you can be as dumb as a box of rocks and do it. Yeah, you may die, but that’s pretty much every job in America. Shit, my kids risk that by going to school

I was never in the military and that’s led to me feeling ill-equipped to really say anything about it good or bad. I just try to listen. Serving in the navy seemed to work out well for my cousin because now he’s out of the trailer park and making California contractor money. My other cousin saw combat in the marines and I get the sense that messed him up more than he lets on to most. My college buddy in the reserves or national guard seems to treat it as just another job.

The impression I get from all that is that the military is kind of like any other career path in that it can work out well or poorly, but it’s maybe “heightened” in the sense that the good can be more good but the bad can be more bad? I really don’t know where on that spectrum someone I meet falls when I learn they were in the military, so all I can say is “neat” and maybe ask what their thoughts are on their experience if they want to share.

It sounds like you had kind of just got through it. Thanks for sharing your vent.

" I got lied to be a recruiter when I was 17"

Good job admitting your stupidity. As if every other person here hasn’t been 17… Yet we didn’t agree to go fight in an oil corporation mercenary army.

Screw you, ya pitiful whiny little shit.

“But I didn’t know!”

The US hasn’t fought a just war since WWII, maybe Korea. That’s 75 years of history you ignored. You knew. You defintely knew. Your lies are just that. Lying for sympathy.