Why do people hate the army?

[Texas Joker 52]

Now, I have never, and possibly will never understand that kind of view of the military. Though, to be fair, part of my own views on the matter are biased due to the fact that both of my parents were in the military: My mom was an Army Nurse, while my dad was a Paratrooper, LRRP (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol, think of the more stealthy counterpart to the Army Rangers. Both equally dangerous, but for different reasons.), and helped with R&D for UAVs. I practically grew up on the funny Army stories dad would tell me, though he would avoid actual war stories.

For me, the military is something to be respected, if only for the reason that they put their lives on the line to serve our country, and protect our freedom and ideals. That's regardless if you happen to be in combat arms, or in a support role. Now, that won't give people an automatic free-ticket from me, but I definitely give someone who is in the military more respect that any other random stranger, simply because of the duty they have.

Of course, from the stories I've heard from my dad, the Army has plenty of idiots running rampant for the hell of it, unfortunately.

The thing is, those who serve in the military do something that many ordinary people can't, whether that's due to a lack of mental fortitude, physical capability, or simple lack of skills. That's nothing to be ashamed of, but the fact that they do that, and voluntarily, is something to be lauded.

So no, I see no reason why one shouldn't respect the Army and its men and women, at least not in our case.

 

[Sexy Devil]

Im only a reservist, so i can't speak for frontline soldiers.

I nearly got in a fistfight tonight with someone who cheapened what the Irish army does, and belittled their contribution to UN peace keeping mission by labeling them mercenaries.

They broadened their vague assertions to all western armies and then had the gall to lecture me on patriotism, whilst at the same time belittling what little bit i have contributed when they have done nothing. This wasn't someone trolling me for fun, but a genuine arsehole who hates the army but is more manly than them..... how is christ's name do you deal/educate a person like that and not willingly murder them?

He called me a cheerleader, and you know what... fine.... I'll happily laud to everyone the contributions the defence forces make, ill readily admit im only a reservist sandbag scumbag.... A civilian can only contribute so much, but what i can do, i bloody well do. Why should i be ashamed of that, and why should i be ashamed of the Irish army? Why should anyone be ashamed of their army?

The minority of dumb-asses who do stupid crap overseas paint the entire defense force in a bad name just because people see what they want to see. Though a good indicator that the guy who argued with you is a dumb-ass who is to be ignored is that he appears to actually take the UN seriously.

 

[teebeeohh]

it's a huge waste of money and if you keep pumping money and SCIENCE into weapons someone will want to use those weapons at some point.
the military tends to to attract a certain group of people who feel like i owe them something because they decided to to join the army because they lacked the qualification to do anything else. of course that doesn't apply to everyone but i know a lot of people who act like this and the one decent soldier i know joined the army because in return for signing up for 15 years they let him study medicine.

i get that soldiers want to believe that they are doing good work, especially since they put their life on the line but that there seem to be so few capable of reflecting on what they are doing bugs me.

 

[TheAmazingHobo]

See, and the thing is- I do have reasons I despise the UN.

And to clarify...I guess what I dislike is that the UN, instead of being what it should be, gets used for a lot of petty national grudge matches.

It´s true, there is a lot of pointless grand-standing and, as you said, petty national grudge matches, especially in the visible and higher-up parts of the UN (the General Assembly and even more so the Security Council, dear god, the Security Council). But there is also UNICEF and other, smaller sub-organizations, like the UNV. Which, sure, have problems of their own, but there are many good people there, doing good work.

I guess in the end, I don´t like it when any Organization trying to do good, gets judged in a very generalized manner, especially the military and people working in/with foreign aid (there are people I love working in either field).

And to be fair, not all foreign aid is bad, I have to retract some of that. But, when you go down the lists...so much of it gets given and never gets to the actual suffering people, that either we put some kind of overwatch on it or we might as well stop.

That´s.... sadly true enough, I suppose.
I could disagree in quantitiy (I think the amount of money that goes to dicators and regimes is not as much as people make it out to be and certainly not the majority, as some would argue),
not in quality (there IS money that goes to dictators and regimes, and that should be abhorrent to every human being), so I can only agree that we need better overwatch.

 

[Yopaz]

Soldiers don't go to war. Soldiers are sent to war. People seem to think that if we didn't have soldiers we wouldn't have wars. I am a strong opponent of war and I am a pacifist, but I still respect soldiers for the duty they are doing.

You. You, I think I will like. We may disagree about the necessity of war, but at least you and I agree that blaming soldiers only is silly. Kudos.

Well, I don't think war is a necessity unless all other options have failed. Diplomacy is always a better solution because that opens for progress. After the first world war Germany was beaten and felt humiliated over getting the blame for there ever being a war. They fell into an economical despair and created a broken nation. Germany's pride was hurt and that created the country that Hitler could lead into another war. When the next war ended they focused more energy on creating a reason not to go to war rather than creating a nation too weak to go to war. Both UN and EU are results of this and I think that at least EU is important to avoid another European war since there's more worth in keeping peace rather than going to war. In a perfect world we wouldn't need war, but this world is far from perfect.

 

[orangeban]

I'm a pacifist, and it seems to me that a bunch of the wars the West keeps getting involved in are pointless, expensive and ultimately damaging. I'm not gonna hate on the individual soldiers, but I'm not a fan of the army in general. Plus, I really, really despise military propaganda, at my school we have a CCF which is clearly just an attempt to glorify the army and encourage kids to sign up. I really hate the CCF.

Edit: Note that while I don't hate individual soldiers, I don't really respect them either. Sure they're brave, but so is someone who kicks a rottweiler, you shouldn't necessarily respect them for that.

 

[rigabear]

Say you hate the amount of resources that are directed towards the military (and therefore not healthcare, poverty, etc), and the wars that the military carries out and the way their personnel carry themselves while on these wars.

If you hate these things then by extension you have excellent reasons to dislike the people who sign up to be part of that and perpetuate the system.

And this would apply even if every soldier who was part of this was a paragon of humanity. But this is evidently not the case; the negative stereotypes of soldiers that exist are not entirely baseless.

Also, the military is not the Government's lap-dog (by extension making the Government the actual 'evil'). It is a very close relationship - you've all heard the term 'military-industrial complex'; two sides of the same coin.

 

[chiefohara]

Im only a reservist, so i can't speak for frontline soldiers.

I nearly got in a fistfight tonight with someone who cheapened what the Irish army does, and belittled their contribution to UN peace keeping mission by labeling them mercenaries.

They broadened their vague assertions to all western armies and then had the gall to lecture me on patriotism, whilst at the same time belittling what little bit i have contributed when they have done nothing. This wasn't someone trolling me for fun, but a genuine arsehole who hates the army but is more manly than them..... how is christ's name do you deal/educate a person like that and not willingly murder them?

He called me a cheerleader, and you know what... fine.... I'll happily laud to everyone the contributions the defence forces make, ill readily admit im only a reservist sandbag scumbag.... A civilian can only contribute so much, but what i can do, i bloody well do. Why should i be ashamed of that, and why should i be ashamed of the Irish army? Why should anyone be ashamed of their army?

Did he happen to be an American? or French even?


If so its less about the Army or any military in general, its because you are a reservist.

Here in America, Reservists are essentially cheerleaders, I mean, really, if you are fit to be in the reserves, you are fit to be active duty.

however, there is a difference between the weekend warrior reservist and one who is proactive in the Military. Yet again, not knowing how it is with the Irish army, but reservist in the U.S. army can volunteer for assignments that Active Duty needs done, its given in order of seniority and skills needed/have, so most people skip over it if they are not an E-4 reservist.


But I digress, how do you solve the problem of someone's opinion? water-boarding seems to work. But honestly you cant really stop people from having opinions over something, getting into a fistfight over such trivial matters is even worse, befitting of a professional soldier, even if he only gets four full weeks of service a year.

Suck it up, hang out with fellow reservists, or stop drinking/going to that particular bar.


Personally, I have a cousin that wanted to join the Army, got turned down for some reason, so instead of working to fix that problem he became a massive anti-military person, so I just stopped talking to him, last I heard he was still working on getting a college degree for a job field that is not even hiring.

Ignoring people, while impolite, often does work.

Straight and to the point.

good advice.

thanks.

P.S. the guy was a fellow irishman

 

[crazyarms33]

That's a terrible example. moving money COULD be legitimate, you don't know. Your boss is not necessarily known for being unethical. If he is then I'm going to at least assign you some blame.

And being legally obligated is irrelevant. Why are they legally obligated? Because they gave away their autonomy. And they should take responsibility for that decision. And responsibility includes blame for every order you follow.

Sure those in charge should be blamed too. It's generally not so obvious who that was to the general public though, and blame isn't a commodity you can run out of anyway.

I think I misconstrued my point, and for that I apologize. I wasn't trying to argue that moving money was the ethical equivalent of what soldiers do, I was trying to point out that there is a chain of command that ultimately makes the call somewhere up the line, other than the soldiers/employee in my example. Yet the bottom level(the soldiers) get cast as the ultimate villain virtually 99% of the time. You used the word accountability which I really like, but where is the line between ITS ALL SOLDIERS and ITS NOT SOLDIERS, ITS ALL THE POLITICIANS! Obviously its not just one or the other, its pretty obvious we agree on that. So what percentage would you say? 50/50? 75/25? 1/99? I just ask out of curiosity.

I think that legal obligation DOES matter, because they surrender their "autonomy" as you say, to someone who is expected to make the correct decision. Much like in any white collar job where you sign a contract. There are certain things expected of you that you may personally disagree with. Once you sign it though, you're in until you quit or are fired. Unfortunately, soldiers don't have the option to quit without ruining their lives(a dishonorable discharge is no bueno) Don't get me wrong, I think they should damned well better know what they are signing up for before they even think about putting ink to paper. That being said, an army can't work where everyone has input, it would be a disaster. You have to have the guys who just do what they are told in order to be successful. And at least in America, the army can't just go "Whelp. It's Tuesday. Let's go start a war" (Officially anyway haha). It requires an Act of Congress AND Presidential approval. So I guess my ultimate question is, why is it we hear so much about the soldiers screw ups, but not the people who put them there?

 

[loc978]

when it comes down to UN troops, well...

That pretty much says what needs to be said.

However, the ineffectiveness of the UN's overarching strategy doesn't negate the personal sacrifices people make on their behalf. I know that better than most, since I carry lifelong crippling wounds from training, yet the injuries I received in combat (in Iraq, which ranks pretty high among the most ridiculously immoral wars in recent history) have healed quite completely. Not for the UN, mind you... but I understand the sacrifice.

 

[Roggen Bread]

every time I say I respect soldiers people rag on me and tell me that I'm a terrible person that should die in a hole.

you! you respect soldiers!! go die in a hole!!

I denied service in the army to do something more meaningful with my time (read: work in an ER for 9 months).
As I am German we used to HAVE to chose between going to the army or doing alternative civilian service (AVS). I chose the latter, because being trained for the first three months and sitting around doing frickin' nothing for the following 6 sounded like a waste of time.
A buddy of mine worked in the office for the commander in chief at his casern. He said there the whole day, refilling the printer every 1,5 hours (I admit, that was worst case).
In AVS I got the chance to actually do something. To help people in need. Also I learned a ton of stuff about the real world outside, a great deal about medicine and finally learned what I would want to study.

I think the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are a giant pile of turd.
A waste of time, money and most important lifes of human beings. THis also is pretty much the public opion here in Germany. Please keep in mind we have to be all super pacifistic and social and shit since the 1940's.
This doesn't change, that I respect soldiers who really do something. Wo have to fight in overseas and get funny STDs.

So I guess, I'm going to join ToTaL LoLiGe in that hole now.

But I actually can't resent people who hate the military. Because, seriously. Who asked them to go in another country and mess everything up, "in order to bring democracy". Especially if it won't last 20 days after they leave the country?

 

[crazyarms33]

Well, I don't think war is a necessity unless all other options have failed. Diplomacy is always a better solution because that opens for progress. After the first world war Germany was beaten and felt humiliated over getting the blame for there ever being a war. They fell into an economical despair and created a broken nation. Germany's pride was hurt and that created the country that Hitler could lead into another war. When the next war ended they focused more energy on creating a reason not to go to war rather than creating a nation too weak to go to war. Both UN and EU are results of this and I think that at least EU is important to avoid another European war since there's more worth in keeping peace rather than going to war. In a perfect world we wouldn't need war, but this world is far from perfect.

I prefer to think along the lines of Theodore Roosevelt, who said "Walk softly and carry a big stick." I am all for diplomacy, assuming the two sides are up front with each other about what they want. Hey, I can dream, even if it is unrealistic. But it never hurts to be prepared, because historically speaking, there have been times when negotiation was not an option. Obviously I don't mean being ready for the next world war at all times, but I do believe a standing army that is good at what it does is a valuable asset for any nation, even at the negotiating table. As far as Germany post WWI I think the Allies got too caught up in blaming one party for the war, but to the victors go the spoils as the saying goes. And we all know how that turned out. Spoiler: Badly. I hope we could see an end to war, but I don't have that much faith in the nature of humanity.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

I don't really mind the army, as I know next to nothing about military shit lol

 

[chiefohara]

when it comes down to UN troops, well...

That pretty much says what needs to be said.

However, the ineffectiveness of the UN's overarching strategy doesn't negate the personal sacrifices people make on their behalf. I know that better than most, since I carry lifelong crippling wounds from training, yet the injuries I received in combat (in Iraq, which ranks pretty high among the most ridiculously immoral wars in recent history) have healed quite completely. Not for the UN, mind you... but I understand the sacrifice.

That's a powerful image .... but why is there a lion eating a carcass in front of cattle in the left bottom corner of the photo?

 

[Sarge034]

I hate the military.

Listen here. Your government doesn't like you. In fact, chances are your government is comprised of a bunch of fucking assholes. When you join the military, you are agreeing to take orders from a bunch of assholes. You are expressing willingness to go to another country and kill people on behalf of this group of assholes, simply because you were told to. I don't find that admirable. I find it extremely disturbing that many people believe those in military positions deserve extra respect by virtue of having a diminished capacity to empathise and think for themselves.

Yes, they risk their lives, but then so do people who drive while they're drunk. You don't call them heroes, even though they achieve about as much as anyone in the army- killing some civilians.

At least in the US they are agreeing to uphold the constitution, be faithful to the constitution, defend the US, and follow any orders that do not violate the UCMJ. So any orders that violate the UCMJ can be legally disobeyed.

"I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/joiningthemilitary/a/oathofenlist.htm

As for killing civilians... It is an unfortunate fact of life that there will be unintended casualties. However, not everyone who appears to be a civilian when the cameras get there were actually civilians. Not to mention the unthinkable tactics our enemies use against us. Did you know that during the first gulf war women and children were made to stand in front of convoys to get them to stop? An IED would then be set off to destroy the first and last vehicle to create a kill box. Most times the front IED would kill the woman and children if they could not run fast enough. To combat this drivers were order to not stop for anything. This order can still be seen today on the footage early in the Iraq campaign when an IED would hit a vehicle and the convoy would just keep on going.

But who am I kidding? You have made up your mind and nothing I can say will get you to reconsider.

 

[Zhukov]

The army, eh?

Isn't that the organisation comprised entirely of people who volunteered for a job that involves either killing people or facilitating the killing of people at the behest of politicians?

Oh yeah.

 

[Liham]

Because they kill people for money?

 

[JoesshittyOs]

I hate the wars that they're forced into, but I respect the troops. Cliche, I know, but it's how I feel.

I've had a brother in the army, and I've considered joining the military as a pilot or a medic myself.

As for why people say they hate it? I assume that some people have trouble separating the war from the military, and assume they both go hand in hand.