VOLUNTEER ARMY SUCKER, ENTHUSIASTIC LOSER

At nineteen I told my dad I was joining the service, that I was looking at the Army or Navy because they had two year enlistments.

My feeling was I’d know all I needed to know after two years, like any nineteen year old know it all since I already knew everything. Nineteen year olds are like that.

My dad didn’t call me a loser or a sucker, but he did give me some advice: “Not the Navy.” What else would a resting Marine say? So Army it was, and such an Army.

The American Army was reeling in 1974. With the Vietnam War coming to a close, career Army people had a big decision.

They either stayed in to remake the Army, or the called it a day. For people with ten years of service, it was hard.

It was even harder on career soldiers when the last group of draftees didn’t toe the line like they were supposed to. They had good questions and got bad answers. Career service guys don’t like questions from transients in for the short haul.

An NPR article from 2018 outlines the challenges of joining.

. . . most Americans, 71 percent, don’t even qualify to enlist in part because so many are obese.

This is not my fat shaming moment, just an observation from a spokeswoman for the Army Recruiting Command. 

A Platoon Of Losers And Suckers

That my platoon was a ragtag bunch of guys is an understatement. They were all there, the high school kid whose life goal was becoming an Airborne Ranger, the dropout whose mom signed for him, the Golden Glove boxer who wasn’t looking for his next fight but found one anyway.

They were the suckers Mr. Trump referenced in a Presidential opinion, the youngsters who didn’t know any better.

The next group were the losers, the college grads who joined the Army based on a recruiter’s promises. (If you’re laughing at this, you’re probably one of them.)

One of the guys liked talking about the Air Traffic Controller he signed up to become while the rest of us would be polishing brass. He was a smart guy, capable, but more than a little gullible. Because he was smart and capable, he turned angry and bitter when he didn’t get into his school of choice.

GoArmy.com describes the job in deceptively simple terms, saying that controllers “[c]ontrol airborne and ground traffic” and “[p]rocess flight plan data and maintain logs, records, files and tape recordings of voice communications.” The more technical job descriptions in official Army literature are . . . well, so technical that I can’t even figure out a satisfactory digest version for you, dear reader.

Another college guy was set to go to Chaplin’s School.

He got a theme song. It was kind of mean, but Army mean.

After the other suckers and losers learned about their brothers in arms ambitions, the teasing started and never stopped. For the uninitiated, Army boot camp is a bully school. The top dogs are Drill Sergeants, not college guys who got it from every side after they impressed everyone with their plans.

The next tier of recruit were the older men who decided to do something with their lives before they turned too old at thirty five. One was a former bus driver, another a cook, guys who were settled into jobs for life. Then they changed their minds. They were pretty quiet about their future life plans.

Along with the older guys were prior service. They were quiet, too. One of them got chewed out one day, and said something to the Drill. After checking the guy’s record, the tone changed the next day, and he was advanced out of boot camp. There was no back-talking the Drill, unless they were afraid of you.

Some of the braver trainees talked to him and learned his story. For me it stopped with ‘Silver Star’ and ‘Marines.’ My dad was a Silver Star Marine and that guy was in the club.

Military Service Creates Military Veterans

Sounds pretty basic, right? Like working out one plus one with a math major. But it has been, and still is, a difficult problem.

It ought to work like this: When our guys get their shit blown up, they advance to the forefront of medical science, medical technology, and education. Collect all the necessary forms, testimonials, and records that pertain to the injury and proceed forward. Skip the part about pleading a case, begging for disability status, and doing it over and over, year after year.

Families living on base are not living at the Ritz. Their kids don’t attend a Betsy DeVoss charter school. Wouldn’t a deployed soldier have more peace of mind knowing their families aren’t at risk?

From USAToday:

An example is the canceled child care development center at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, home to Air Force One and the cornerstone of military security in our nation’s capital. The current child care center was constructed during World War II and now is too small to serve the number on children on base. It suffers from sewage backups, mold and rodent infestation, a leaking roof, and failing heating and AC systems.

With budgets carrying more zeroes than stars in the sky, small chips off the edges shouldn’t matter much. The big guys do their best to balance the books, right? But, when those tiny slivers leave poor living conditions for an E-5’s family, the decisions made play them for suckers and losers.

Don’t do that, and vote to help them make better decisions.