Considering the ongoing incompetence of Seal Team 6, I have wondered if they were supposed to bring back Osama Bin Laden alive, but completely botched the operation.
Its just the reality of a modern standing military. The people who are going to sign up are a mixture of:
Just looking for an excuse to kill, generally brown, people
Rabidly patriotic
I am trying to find a polite and non-ableist way to say this but… not good at learning?
And “real” special forces (so not Rangers which are mostly just a badge they give anyone dumb enough to volunteer for an infantry combat role) kinda inherently have to be long term contracts/lifers. So not even the “I am gonna shoot a brown kid to get my college paid for” crowd.
One of my guilty pleasures are the Insider “military expert rates BLAH” videos. And most are complete and utter bullshit from what is obviously a larper who had a desk job. But the more legit people consistently say insane shit like “Full Metal Jacket made me want to join the marines” or “The moment I watched that shower scene in The Rock, I knew I had to be a Navy Seal”.
Pilots were one of the last holdouts where it genuinely made sense for the best and brightest to do a tour or two to get the hours they need to get licensed. But even that is long gone as people realize the good jobs are still going to go to nepotism and the best they can hope for is to haul cargo to places nobody wants to actually go.
But the military still insists on doing these high risk super low night flights with pilots who are inadequate and maintenance crews who “learn by doing” and so forth. Like, you know that mechanic who forgot to put the cap back on your buddy’s oil filter? These are the people who didn’t even think they could get a job doing that.
No I didn’t. Because I don’t think that has been a significant source of recruits for… probably closer to two decades than not now. Kids know the military is a joke. They know they are going to be deployed to fight Wars For Oil ™. NOBODY believes we did any meaningful good in Iraq/Afghanistan (which is actually a much more complicated discussion but…).
So the kids who genuinely think they can change their lives with a college degree? They aren’t the kids spending years of their lives killing other kids for a chance. If they are “smart” enough to think that then they are “smart” enough to realize all the consequences and how likely it is that the recruiter is going to lie to them.
“I joined the military to go to college” is very much a Desert Storm and MAYBE early 2000s “trope”. As we continued what was closer to a two decade forever war than not, the vast majority of people who would have come down on that thought process realized why it was a bad one.
Which gets back to “I joined the military so I can learn to be a mechanic” and all the implications of that. Or “the army made my father the man he is today” and so forth.
That said: I have worked with a few “skilled workers” who went the military route. And one or two of them are genuinely geniuses. They are also fucking terrifying the moment topics get even slightly “political” and it is very clear they fell into category 1 and 2 if you catch my drift.
I joined to get out of a shit living situation, about 1/3 of the people i served with did the same. Everything from parents disowning them to wanting to get out of gang territory.
I don’t think he’s right. Personally, his comments rub me the wrong way. They remind me of the annoying, confidently incorrect comments I’ve see on Reddit so many times.
Granted, I’m also fairly biased because I used to be in the army, and don’t appreciate the kind of assumptions/generalizations people make about people in the US military. I bash the military all the time personally in my private life, but it’s different when I see people who clearly don’t know shit do it.
I respect you for admitting there are things you might not know though.
I see no reason not to believe the official story in this case. Bringing him back alive would have served no useful purpose, and would have led to him getting a ton of publicity that would have only inspired his followers. Most Americans were likely happy to see him die the way he did given the 9/11 attacks.
Considering the ongoing incompetence of Seal Team 6, I have wondered if they were supposed to bring back Osama Bin Laden alive, but completely botched the operation.
Its just the reality of a modern standing military. The people who are going to sign up are a mixture of:
And “real” special forces (so not Rangers which are mostly just a badge they give anyone dumb enough to volunteer for an infantry combat role) kinda inherently have to be long term contracts/lifers. So not even the “I am gonna shoot a brown kid to get my college paid for” crowd.
One of my guilty pleasures are the Insider “military expert rates BLAH” videos. And most are complete and utter bullshit from what is obviously a larper who had a desk job. But the more legit people consistently say insane shit like “Full Metal Jacket made me want to join the marines” or “The moment I watched that shower scene in The Rock, I knew I had to be a Navy Seal”.
Pilots were one of the last holdouts where it genuinely made sense for the best and brightest to do a tour or two to get the hours they need to get licensed. But even that is long gone as people realize the good jobs are still going to go to nepotism and the best they can hope for is to haul cargo to places nobody wants to actually go.
But the military still insists on doing these high risk super low night flights with pilots who are inadequate and maintenance crews who “learn by doing” and so forth. Like, you know that mechanic who forgot to put the cap back on your buddy’s oil filter? These are the people who didn’t even think they could get a job doing that.
You forgot poorer people who can’t otherwise afford higher education.
No I didn’t. Because I don’t think that has been a significant source of recruits for… probably closer to two decades than not now. Kids know the military is a joke. They know they are going to be deployed to fight Wars For Oil ™. NOBODY believes we did any meaningful good in Iraq/Afghanistan (which is actually a much more complicated discussion but…).
So the kids who genuinely think they can change their lives with a college degree? They aren’t the kids spending years of their lives killing other kids for a chance. If they are “smart” enough to think that then they are “smart” enough to realize all the consequences and how likely it is that the recruiter is going to lie to them.
“I joined the military to go to college” is very much a Desert Storm and MAYBE early 2000s “trope”. As we continued what was closer to a two decade forever war than not, the vast majority of people who would have come down on that thought process realized why it was a bad one.
Which gets back to “I joined the military so I can learn to be a mechanic” and all the implications of that. Or “the army made my father the man he is today” and so forth.
That said: I have worked with a few “skilled workers” who went the military route. And one or two of them are genuinely geniuses. They are also fucking terrifying the moment topics get even slightly “political” and it is very clear they fell into category 1 and 2 if you catch my drift.
I joined to get out of a shit living situation, about 1/3 of the people i served with did the same. Everything from parents disowning them to wanting to get out of gang territory.
Yeah, you might be right. I don’t have enough detailed knowledge and your argument makes sense.
I don’t think he’s right. Personally, his comments rub me the wrong way. They remind me of the annoying, confidently incorrect comments I’ve see on Reddit so many times.
Granted, I’m also fairly biased because I used to be in the army, and don’t appreciate the kind of assumptions/generalizations people make about people in the US military. I bash the military all the time personally in my private life, but it’s different when I see people who clearly don’t know shit do it.
I respect you for admitting there are things you might not know though.
the ex military guy I watch is pretty upfront about having been a desk jokey. talks about it or that most jobs are x and its not like y.
Well yeah, didn’t they wreck their helicopter and have to blow it up?
I see no reason not to believe the official story in this case. Bringing him back alive would have served no useful purpose, and would have led to him getting a ton of publicity that would have only inspired his followers. Most Americans were likely happy to see him die the way he did given the 9/11 attacks.