Ivan Seeking said:
This has nothing to do with misleading young people into making bad decisions.
You say, "Nothing," and I say, "Everything."
Impasse.
How about measuring "degree of misdirection" in terms of "due diligence" on the part of the "buyer" and actual contract performance on the part of the seller?
The question was so obvious as to be rhetorical.
Obvious to whom? The membership of the cult of brainwashed liberals? If you make the simple statement that boot camp is like cult brainwashing
in your opinion,
then people are free to agree or disagree. As an opinion, the point is irrelevant to discussion of your original question in this thread.
If you ask people to compare boot camp and cult brainwashing, you should expect to get comparisons. Such comparisons are still irrelevant to the discussion of your original question, but you really do need to address them since you brought them up.
You then announce that you are equating boot camp and cult brainwashing rhetorically --- are you "immorally" attempting to "mislead" forum members into accepting opinion as fact?
I stated the purpose of boot camp - survival and success in battle. This happens by making people killing machines that take orders like robots.
You have stated that you have no experience of basic training.
Training doctrines evolve over time, "natural selection" favoring the doctrines employed by successful military organizations. The identification and characterization of "successful organizations," and of the training doctrines they employ is a major topic of military science, a contentious topic, and a topic lacking consensus. There is a further complication of the problem in that training doctrines are seldom synchronous with tactical and strategic doctrines, and tactical and strategic doctrines are seldom reflections of tactical and strategic realities.
The only military organization arguably applying a training doctrine that abandons cultural mores would be the FFL --- and, even it has not abandoned the mores of the culture it serves, only those of some of the cultures from which personnel are recruited.
"The only good injun is a dead injun," and "The Japanese language will be spoken only in hell" reflect "Manifest Destiny" and Roosevelt's insistence on unconditional surrender. Your "robot killing machines" got not only cultural approval, but acclamation. What your "robot killing machines" thought of the acclamation and the culture might surprise you.
Instead of the military or the moonies, how about school and a job? I would wager that I learned much more on the job working on CAT scanners and MRI's, and learning about the medical industry - the real world - than I would have in the bowels of a carrier.
?
Its called objectivity. I never implied that we don't need a military.
This is all about recognizing what the military is really designed to do.
Break things and kill people. AND, as an incentive to enlistment and personnel retention, education and self-improvement are offered. Do they deliver on their contractual obligations? Yes. Do they hold peoples' feet to the fire if they (the individuals) choose to welsh on the contract? Depends on the circumstances.
It is not a place for education or self improvement.
You're willing to have people do the dirty jobs that have to be done, and you're going to deny them the benefits the military is offering them for doing what you won't dirty your hands doing?
What is the point of hedging? Can't you say, "The military exists for the defense of the nation?" If you think it's misused at times, say "but, it is misused at times." It's another irrelevant tangent to your original "question." All I wanted to know was whether you really understood the necessity.
it is for the defense of the nation. So if people want to join out of patriotism or duty, sadly, we need people who are willing to do this.
What do you mean "we need," white man? You're the one who needs "robot killing machines" to defend him.
The question in the thread title has now become a "point." Can't you just title the thread "I think recruiting ads are immoral?"
Don't take the chance of throwing away your life for a song and dance.
"War to end all war?" Or, "Make the world safe for democracy?" Maybe, "Ask not...?"
Great big boldface underlined
AMEN
to that. Damned democrats are forever confusing things by spouting this kind of nonsense rather than understanding what national interests are actually at stake, stating those interests, and taking appropriate actions.
The military is not just a college with uniforms. And parents know all about the military. There is nothing new about the lure for education. The reason the Army tries so hard to make parents seem ignorant is that parents know what I'm saying is true: The military is a good place to ruin your life.
Now the ads are immoral for undermining parent-child relationships. Maybe 5-10 minutes a day of recruiting ads if the kid spends the entire day glued to the TV set? Compare this to 12-13 years, 8-9 mos. of 5 day wks. a year, 6-7 hrs. a day in the public schools: "It's a parent problem. Parents just won't get involved. Tell your parents to vote for ______, or we won't be able to teach you how to put condoms on bananas next year." Who's undermining parent-child relationships?
We are discussing legally defined adults. They have voting rights. They are not obligated to obtain parental consent. They are big boys and girls now, and they can make their own decisions. They really do not need Ivan to protect them.
You completely missed the point.
He didn't re-up to return to Kuwait for his comrads. In fact he had never been there.
I did not say "return." I referred to a sense of loyalty (assumed by me) to the people he knew who were still "in," and going.
He just wanted to see some action. Those were his words.
I've been known to yank liberals' chains with similar remarks. My interpretation of the anecdote differs from yours, but I wasn't there.
If you call the desire to kill, character, then thank you for demonstrating my point.
To what "demonstration" do you refer? Have I expressed "desire to kill" at any time in this thread?
Ivan Seeking said:
The character that you speak of so fondly is usually found through the experiences of war; say when your best buddy's head explodes in your face.
Paraphrasing G. C. Scott's "Patton?" Or, is this an Alda knock-off of "Patton?" Character is knowing, or finding out, what has to be done and doing it before someone's head gets blown off. It's too late after the fact, "they" got the drop on you, and you lost.
This is the point in a hot contact where your "robot killing machines" wind up dead. This is the point in a hot contact where people with character enough to get through basic depend on that character to gain control of themselves, and then the situation.
Such situations do not develop character --- they test it --- to and beyond destruction.
No. You don't get any details. I did my year. I got out. I know fifteen people who didn't.