Ian Divertie PERMALINK
March 19, 2016
I’ve worked for DOD and related agencies for over 33 years, ten of them constantly in the Middle East, no rotation, no rest, I’m physically disabled now in nursing/retirement home with no real support of any kind. I agree and have said before to people in the comfortable upper middle class what happens when people like us get tired of your condescension we own all the guns? The particular instance was a very conservative person, a physician, my brother actually. His response was as long as there are pick-up trucks and six packs of beer his class could just buy us off. Which by the way is a hugely condescending response in the first place. Anyway, I worked with conservative white warriors as I’ve said for along time, and I ended referring to them as “kill ’em all cowboys.” Those are my brother and people like him allies, but I just don’t see how it ends well for either side. I know a lot of people like me who entered into service during the mid Cold War period in the 1970’s and by the time I left disabled in 2009, I felt betrayed by my country by lies and that I was a murderer, not feelings I ever wanted to feel about myself. We killed thousands and thousands of innocent harmless people for no reason whatsoever. Please if you’re sane at all don’t ever thank me for my service. I know other former DOD/agency employees who won’t even return to the US, and they spent around 30 years serving the US like me, and I’m seriously thinking of immigrating to Germany or the like, I can’t stand it anymore. Good luck, I wish you well, and I don’t feel like I owe my country anything after 33 years and ending up a murderer that you won’t even acknowledge publicly and that I feel ashamed to be. So pulling the Patriot string doesn’t work with me or my friends either. Hillary or Trump, eh? I don’t see it ending well, just leave the rest of the world alone, they deserve it but I doubt that’s what will happen.
http://www.ianwelsh.net/why-poor-white-males-are-the-core-of-trumps-support/#comments
atcooper PERMALINK
March 20, 2016
Ian Diverte,
I’m younger, and only did one contract, Navy, and my own experience sounds a faint echo of your own. I have a hard time hearing the thanks for service bit too – in my more cynical days I tell them it was a job I was paid to do, more mercenary than they realize, no need to thank me. Thank the teachers, etc. When I’m in a better mood, I tell them they can thank me by making fewer future vets. Vote for folks who will keep the vet services funded, etc.
Anyways, good luck in your future.
I often wonder how many vets out there have similar experiences.
VietnamVet PERMALINK
March 20, 2016
This post hit the nail on the head. The closest analogy to America today is Russia in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union due to the exact same cause; predatory capitalism. Oligarchs running wild.
I served in a different army almost half a century ago. It was a people’s army that refused to fight an unwinnable colonial war. Today the privatized western military is composed of volunteers and contractors who have been at war for a quarter century in the Middle East. The forever wars will end only in bankruptcy, overthrow of the war parties or a nuclear winter.
The only way to avoid the revolution is to make the rule of law applicable to all. This will only happen if the global aristocracy is convinced that their heads will roll if they don’t serve time for their crimes. This election will be interesting but it likely will not be enough.