this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2026
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Mildly Infuriating
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pro tip: stop fucking joining this shitshow.
For many, joining the US military is the only way out of poverty, a path to citizenship, or a way to a higher education. Some others just are victims of propaganda, or just genuinely sadistic, but unfortunately most of the people joining the military are victims of a failed education and social security system designed to bring more troops into the meat grinder.
EDIT: Holy moly. I do not condone US imperialism at all. I am not saying that people who fall into the poverty draft get a free pass either. What I AM saying is that the US war machine is a fucked system that results in endless atrocities abroad but unfortunately will only to continue unless we dismantle the institutions that blindly draw people to the machine so that these people who would otherwise be vulnerable can wake the fuck up and turn away from it. These systems include capitalism, propaganda, imperialism, jingoism, a failed education system, etc.. Chill out friends.
Would it be okay, then, for me to rob, torture, and kill your family if it was the only way for me to get higher education (i.e. something that is not necessary to live)?
What about the families these monsters kill that won't be able to receive higher education on account of being dead or kidnapped?
Strawman but good
not a strawman. literally every role in the military is involved in the murder of children. every. single. role.
And what about roles outside of the military? When was the last time you contributed to slavery or child exploitation with your purchases? How about your employer?
You are equating purchasing things with directly participating in the most vile military on the planet.
two things can be true at once.
Just wanted to make sure since people in this thread seem to be taking a holier-than-thou stance. As above:
If we're talking about more than just service members who directly engage in combat and are including non-combat roles (cook, mail clerk), then the answer has to be yes.
the cook is just as guilty as the sniper, yes. i agree.
Which makes you also as guilty as the cook. Unless, of course, you live off the grid, homestead, and are entirely self-sufficient.
There is a massive difference between cooking meals for schoolchildren and making sure that military personnel can function to achieve their objectives of subjugating non-white people.
my industry - firefighting and software engineering for healthcare is, particularly quite different than being a part of an organization that has a monopoly on violence. additionally, that same org has me living under capitalism, from birth. so try again with your reductio.
the adults who volunteer to join that violent organization are certainly much more guilty than others who choose not to join.
your attempt at this false equivalency is just trollish and serves to show exactly how much you enjoy the taste of uncle sam’s boot.
And what of the firefighters and software engineers (and healthcare professionals) who just so happen to be doing those things in the military? You doing them in the civilian sector is somehow a morally superior choice? You as a firefighter are quite literally in the business of protecting the property of capitalists. You are just as much a protector of capitalism and the capitalist class as any person in the military. I'm not going to assume you're an American, but needless to say your involvement in the healthcare industry is arguably just as problematic as military service if you are.
That doesn't even get into your consumption habits. Do you consume animals products? How about products that are constructed with exploited labor, even slaves? Child labor? How about the products you consume that are irresponsibly produced from an environmental perspective?
But, hey, I'm glad you're able to live with the choices you've made. We all must. It's just a shame that you've deluded yourself into thinking you're somehow more innocent than others based on those same flawed choices.
They are contributing to military tasks the goal of which is subjugation of non-white people. Programming avionics so that planes can bomb Iran, fighting fires on carriers, etc. is unambiguously evil.
If we exclude doing such things for NATO military and espionage organisations, then it almost always is, yes.
Lol no. If you can't see the difference between stopping fires from killing civilians or destroying buildings/non-military equipment, and directly contributing to things like subjugating Iran or defending invaders of Iraq and Iran from retaliation, you need to go to primary school or something.
How so?
This is probably the closest you have made to a compelling point. However, in this case you would have to attack the people involved in meat production first, rather than people who merely consume those products.
Same goes for the other points in that paragraph.
Also, you do have to contend with the fact that those people were enslaved because of NATO's military.
Why "strawman"? They are literally saying that that is perfectly okay to do for USians against people elsewhere. Why can't you also say how it would be so good if you were on the receiving end of this poverty-alleviating programme?
Also, again, what about the poverty and education of the families these soldiers kidnap, torture, and kill?
would you say the same for ICE? they also recruit from poor migrant communities because they're most desperate and the pay and perks are good - would you say they're justified in joining and terrorising the ones that didn't?
and while I 100% agree that propaganda and the system failing them is the main reason driving that - we don't counter the propaganda by normalising the poor-to-terrorist pipeline as "well the system sucks but you gotta do what you gotta do" - there are red lines and if we could collectively resist them - we starve the system from being able to force people into the meat grinder
Joining the US military means killing innocent men women and children all over the world.
Is "wanting to escape poverty" a valid excuse to murder children? Bank robbery is a more noble profession than US militant.
Is surviving a reason for doing something bad?
I'd say yes and anybody that disagrees has probably never been in that situation.
There is a reason the military recruits the poor.
there are lots of ways to 'survive.'
let me ask you question: what's worse from a moral standpoint: stealing an old ladies purse or killing someone? what about pitching a tent on land that someone else owns? what about parking your RV in a wal-mart parking lot overnight?
some of those things are crimes and you'll be looked down upon even if you don't get caught.
so, why do we say 'thank for your service' and then turn around and see the thief as less than human?
i'd rather have someone poach on my land than bust into my house and shoot me in the face. i'd think anyone would feel that way.
That whole thank you for your service thing is also distinctly American. No where else does that.
I don't thank people for their service. I understand that some people needed to to survive. You're legally allowed to park in wall mart overnight with an RV at a majority of locations as well.
You either agree that the people your empire has been invading have a right to defend themselves by eliminating your ss troops, or you think that your ss troops deserve to survive and get higher education.
Which is it?
Surviving is when you go work for or McDonalds or Uber not kill brown children. Such a pathetic excuse for mass murder. As if these people had no other option. In reality becoming a mercenary mass-murderer is just a bit more lucrative than flipping burgers.
You have no fucking clue what you are talking about
You are saying that it is okay to torture and murder foreigners for money (and college)
Spoken like someone who's never truly known desperation or genuine hunger. ie. One of the bourgeoisie who'd be first against the wall.
Putting the fed in feddit. Loser.
What are you talking about the average US militant isn't poor at all and even the poor ones could easily work somewhere else. You're just doing mental gymnastics to excuse doing child murder for money
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCJxf9bq1IU
No, I'm pointing out the hypocrisy in you pretending to know what it is to be desperate, that you can judge others in such a position.
I ain't justifying diddly squat.
Edit: For clarification, watching the fall of the American empire in real time is both amusing and enlightening. Hopefully, it happens fast enough that I get to see the end result.
I had the option to join the military and chose homelessness. It's actually really easy to do the right thing even when you're desperate.
Now that's worth a salute, comrade 🫡
I hope you're in a better spot now.
Financially a bit better, mentally much better, but it really was an easy choice. It was uncomfortable and cold and mentally and physically exhausting and I survived without having to sacrifice a single person. I really don't want to do it again, but if I was forced to make the same choice now I'd still make the same one.
Would that choice have been as easy if you had your own children to consider? Would it have been so easy to make your own children and spouse homeless too?
The point is everyone is susceptible given the right circumstances. The system is literally designed to create desperation, and to keep ratcheting that up until people relent.
By all means try and convince people not to give in. Support them and help them, try to ensure they don't reach their breaking point. But don't try and pretend that desperation to escape their given shitshow isn't what drives a lot of recruitment.
Edit: I do deeply respect your strength of conviction in your own choices though, and I want to make that clear. You are an exceptional example, and one to be lauded. 💛
No, spouses and children don't change the equation, especially as I'd never marry someone who wouldn't divorce their spouse if they joined the kill foreigners society. Safety bought with the lives of others isn't safety, it makes you an acceptable target.
Based
What level of desperation allows murdering children as a career?
I would say none, but the closest to desperation I've personally been was scrounging for coal that fell off the train to the docks when we as a family couldn't afford to buy it. (No coal, no heat, no hot water, etc.)
I can imagine though, that watching my own children cry from the cold and hunger. Watching my own flesh and blood get thinner and weaker and being otherwise powerless to help them might make me consider rather strongly the paycheck offered by anyone at all.
That you apparently can't imagine any scenario that would give you personally (and therefore by extension anyone else), cause to consider doing heinous things for money is bizarre.
Great. Awesome. Now how many of these fictional scenario's apply to actual US soldiers? You're imagining all kinds of fictional scenario's in your head to excuse these people which are actually mostly just middle-class people for becoming career child-murderers because becoming a paid child murderer means you're actually oppressed somehow.
I bet you can imagine Russian soldiers in that position. Why not Americans?
There are plenty of places in the US where abject poverty reigns supreme, same as Russia. Factor in the ever present propaganda, and their fate was never their own, sadly.
What you think I'm gonna cry for Wagner mercenaries robbing Africa or something?
Not the person you were asking, but pretending as if the USian/NATO military isn't the most vile on the planet is silly.
Notably, the USian "poverty draft" is a myth.
You are excusing grown-ass monsters' atrocities because they bought the propaganda as if they had no mind of their own to think that killing foreigners for oil is bad.
If you can join the most expensive military in the world, you are not nearly as desperate as, for example, people who survive in NATO without that.
Also nowhere near as desperate as the people whose countries NATO keeps invading.
lol. seems like you know what bourgeois is huh? careful with all that edge.
the reason is capitalism. but it doesn’t excuse those who voluntarily join.