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I didn't read one quote from a military person down on the border complaining in the linked NYT article, only the author waxing poetic. They know what they are supposed to do and do it well. I am sure my son would rather be on the border than in Afghanistan next year.
I didn't read one quote from a military person down on the border complaining in the linked NYT article, only the author waxing poetic. They know what they are supposed to do and do it well. I am sure my son would rather be on the border than in Afghanistan next year.
I don't know.
At times we thought going to sea was a lot better than being in port because in port often had so much "politics"..............like stopping ship's work to clean up the ship so the Commodore could come aboard to have a hair cut.
At times we thought going to sea was a lot better than being in port because in port often had so much "politics"..............like stopping ship's work to clean up the ship so the Commodore could come aboard to have a hair cut.
This is true and there are reasons for complaints for sure. My son's ship had to work for weeks for Hillary's 10 minute visit. They all wish dignitaries would stay ashore.
What branch? what unit, and where and when did he serve? maybe we met...…...stranger things have happened. you can message me if you wish...……….
Marines. I'll have to ask my aunt about the unit. I know it was in the late 60s, about 68ish.
I didn't read one quote from a military person down on the border complaining in the linked NYT article, only the author waxing poetic. They know what they are supposed to do and do it well. I am sure my son would rather be on the border than in Afghanistan next year.
Yeah, this military exercise is called "Hump for Trump".
No Turkey for you.
This is true and there are reasons for complaints for sure. My son's ship had to work for weeks for Hillary's 10 minute visit. They all wish dignitaries would stay ashore.
OTOH....
When I was stationed at Hickam AFB, Honolulu, in the late 70s, the junior enlisted housing at neighboring Pearl Harbor was an absolute slum. It was the pits. It was flat-out nasty.
When I was assigned to Pearl Harbor myself in the mid 90s, the Pearl Harbor junior enlisted housing had never been refurbished. The houses hadn't even been painted in 20 years. It was a total dump...and that's where sailors and their wives and children were living.
Then...the wife of the Secretary of the Navy came to visit Pearl Harbor.
And somebody in the Pearl Public Works Center made a decision to fall upon his sword. Instead of showing the SECNAV's wife the lovely areas of the base...he took her through the junior enlisted housing.
The woman broke into tears.
Then she stormed the Capitol. She called out her husband, she called out the Senators from Hawaii, she called out the Armed Services chairman. She went on a general rampage.
That was the fastest military housing development I had ever seen.
When I was stationed at Hickam AFB, Honolulu, in the late 70s, the junior enlisted housing at neighboring Pearl Harbor was an absolute slum. It was the pits. It was flat-out nasty.
When I was assigned to Pearl Harbor myself in the mid 90s, the Pearl Harbor junior enlisted housing had never been refurbished. The houses hadn't even been painted in 20 years. It was a total dump...and that's where sailors and their wives and children were living.
Then...the wife of the Secretary of the Navy came to visit Pearl Harbor.
And somebody in the Pearl Public Works Center made a decision to fall upon his sword. Instead of showing the SECNAV's wife the lovely areas of the base...he took her through the junior enlisted housing.
The woman broke into tears.
Then she stormed the Capitol. She called out her husband, she called out the Senators from Hawaii, she called out the Armed Services chairman. She went on a general rampage.
That was the fastest military housing development I had ever seen.
Well that took some cajones to do that. Good on 'em.
Nobody who hasn't been in the military -- or in a military family -- can possibly understand what it is like to have ZERO control over your own life, and be removed from your family (for months, years, or forever) with no consideration whatsoever, with no civil, Constitutional, or human rights at all. Funny how the nation is so obsessed with the descendants of slaves, when we have so many modern-day slaves that sign their lives over to the military without understanding that the Government doesn't keep ANY of their promises to you, but they OWN you and you'll be lucky to get out alive.
This is what happened to me, starting out life just out of college:
--A husband who gets paid virtually nothing (don't even talk about per hour), with deductions from that for housing (no matter how awful it is), your husband's food, etc. Prepare to try to get a job in a place where 1,000 military wives are desperate for any job at any pay (forget minimum wage).
--Wives don't exist to the military, so when your military ID expires, or they fail to process your husband's pay, you'd better hope he's not on an extended tour.
--The health insurance they provide requires you to get on the phone at 8 a.m. on the 2nd Monday of the month, and wait in the phone line for 2 - 6 hours to make an appointment--which is usually after your move to the next base. In other words, you pay FULL price in the private market as if you had no insurance, and you can't avoid the bill because all the doctors know they can contact the base and your husband's pay is simply debited directly.
--The 4-month long (twice a year) tours allow no communication whatsoever between the military man and his family; when we could make a short phone call (two periods of about 3 days, twice a year), the cost was $10 per minute.
--Begin married life by moving 6 or 7 times (for 3 - 6 months each time), as your husband is goes from one military school to another, and paying all those security deposits again & again, as well as covering all the costs (other than the moving company itself). None of the places you go have a single redeeming factor.
--You live where the military decides you will live, with NO consideration to the form you filled out requesting where you wanted to be (from the bases appropriate to your husband's qualifications).
--The military pretends to be your family, advertising all the support they falsely promise, when you deal with trying to live with no money, in a place where you have no family, where you hope they don't have strict gun laws since crime rates will be astronomical where you can afford to live. Plus, the military will do anything to make your life a nightmare while your spouse is risking his life halfway around the world just to enrich some Defense Contractor.
--Prepare to spend EVERY holiday and anniversary WITHOUT YOUR SPOUSE, until your 5 or 7 year commitment is up.
--After you've completed your years of hell on earth, your spouse joins the employment market as if he had done nothing at all for those years (begin at the very bottom, with no money saved, and not a penny put toward any 401K or your retirement), but you're so glad to be OUT OF SLAVERY that you don't think of those things until later. That's if you're not divorced, which most couples are by this time, due to the insane stress and inhuman psychological torture.
--Then, about 30 years later, just when the constant nightmares have stopped (the wife of not being able to find her husband when she desperately needs to; the husband of being back "on tour" working 24/7/52 and not being to sleep at all), the increasingly bad pain and disability your military spouse is experiencing finally gets a name: CANCER, one of the the incurable ones--a blood cancer caused by exposure to ionizing radiation.
Even at the time they knew that ionizing radiation caused blood cancer, but your spouse was exposed constantly because the military couldn't care less about human life (especially American ones), and EVEN TODAY THE GOVERNMENT WON'T APPROVE YOU for the programs they set up for those who got blood cancer as a result of exposure to ionizing radiation --because those programs are only for the people that our military STOPPED exposing to ionizing radiation.
Unlike your uncle in Vietnam, today’s soldiers volunteer. One of the research verified outcomes of that switch is higher satisfaction levels in all types of military assignments, to include deployments and combat, along with better response and outcomes with PSTD, and less lasting resentment. The choice to serve changes the balance of the locus of control in these situations and that does amazing things to improving outlook in negative situations.
While it is true that the attitudes of the husband of the poster you were responding to will not represent all vets, it is more likely to be an accurate reflection of post-1973 vets than what you espouse. Of the vets I know, and I think it’s safe to say I know FAR more than you, with the exception of the profoundly disabled, they will tell you their military service did not overall negatively impact them - and most will go so far as to say it possitively impacted them.
As far as the border, it’s just another deployment they have been sent on by some elected official. The all voluntary military has ingrained in it that it is not their job to question why they are sent somewhere, but to do their mission. They follow orders without question unless it is unlawful. Is everyone happy down there? No. But, for them, it is no different than being sent to Fort Irwin for an extended training session.
And, I will repeat again, what you are complaining about are factors decided by military leaders, primarily the ones also down there living under those same rules, not elected officials.
re the bold, I'd venture to say that the conditions in which they live and work at the border right now, are probably better than those on most of their routine training.
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