• PizzaMan
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    941 year ago

    They sent a recruiter to my place of employment back when I was in retail. They asked me if I ever thought of joining the armed forces, and I gave them a polite but firm no.

    So then they asked “are you happy with where your life is going?”, trying to take advantage of me being a teenager stuck in retail.

    Even if they werent asking you to throw your life away in some oil war to protect corporate interests, even if they weren’t asking you to sell your morals away, they’re aggressive assholes. So fuck them they’re getting the treatment they deserve.

    • @stoly@lemmy.world
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      91 year ago

      I VERY NEARLY joined the Army when in my early 20s. What stopped me were two things:

      1. You sign a contract that says you will do the job for a period but that they don’t guarantee that the job is available and they can put you in any job they want. I realized I could be peeling potatoes for years.
      2. I couldn’t believe what complete assholes the people in the recruiting center were. You want me to join you? How about being nice?

      I ran the hell away from there having done everything except take an oath.

    • @mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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      51 year ago

      so for most enlisted folks, you have a choice of career paths: recruiting, or drill instructor. both are exceptionally stressful in different ways, but recruiting in this age has got to be the harder one. I’m not going to apologize for dickhead behavior and shitty recruiters, they are certainly out there, but for the most part I just feel bad because they will never meet their numbers in this economy and it often hurts their careers.

      • Rob T Firefly
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        1 year ago

        I don’t feel bad if my local crack dealers don’t sell as much crack as they wanted to, I don’t feel bad if my local kidnappers fail to steal as many children as they’d hoped, and I don’t feel bad for the local military recruiters not making their recruitment numbers.

        • @mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          you do you man. most everyone I knew in the mil was there for school and vet benefits, not because we wanted to murder innocent people in far-off lands. looking at the hellscape out there, it’s not an incomprehensible choice for people with very limited options, aka, lack of trust funds.

      • @zaph@sh.itjust.works
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        161 year ago

        Seen many good marines not make it back from recruiting duty. Most people don’t sleep well at night after lying to a child.

        • @mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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          101 year ago

          yeah it fucks people up; and so does drill instructing - being on post at 3a to see make sure the recruits get to ranges by sunup, long long long hours that don’t give two fucks about your kid’s recital or timmy’s ball game… honestly rough work.

          • @zaph@sh.itjust.works
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            61 year ago

            I always found it extremely fucked up that you’re allowed to do di duty with dependents. I don’t really mean the volunteers, they can do what they want. The voluntold with dependents are the ones I felt bad for.