this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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chapotraphouse
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I'm a US military veteran, I approve of this message. I fucking hate the hero worship crap that rando people throw at me. I'll occasionally ask them what they think I did for them and they answer "muh freedoms". I tell them I was a stupid kid that got suckered into participating in a war crime, and we ruined people's lives who never threatened the peace and liberties you enjoy.
I'll wipe my ass with the flag.
you are the only good US veteran in the universe
What about Mike Prysner tho?
Mike is better than I.
I still struggle with this. Yes I was lied to and suckered in as a child, but the military shaped so much about who I am now. It’s difficult to try to separate myself from it, even if I’ve been out for several years now. It’s a weird dichotomy between the morons who praise me for being in and “serving” and my own personal knowledge of how evil and stupid the military is.
Just venting is all
Yeah, it's shaped mine immensely as well, I've experienced all sorts of material and intangible benefits from it; there were many times I enjoyed and it helped me to grow, and a lot of problems that it's caused for me too. I can't completely separate myself from it either. But the question I always ask is why it takes me risking my life and participating in what resulted in a genocide to be able to get an education and some damn healthcare in what is supposed to be the "greatest nation on earth". I think that was the question that really radicalized me.
If it weren't for me getting introduced to dialectal materialist and Marxist analysis, I wouldn't have been able to live with what I participated in. I wonder if that's a big reason for so many turning to substances and suicide, something in their soul tells them it was wrong. I was able to recognize I'm not the main character (great man of history) and the whole thing didn't hinge on me. Also, that this larger system is going to do these things with or without me, and I was suckered into it because I didn't know better. Now I know better so I do better, and my testimony to the evils of the US government carries more weight than the typical burger amerikan - I am become burger deluxe.
At any rate, have you been able to process this with anyone?
In some ways I have, I’ve been in and out of the VA every so often for mental health, I have some friends I can confide in, but a dialectical and materialist analysis really broke me and helped me realize the nature of what it is and why we do the things we do in the military. I can’t help that I was suckered into a system so vast and evil that I can’t do a thing about, but I try to take the good from it that helped me personally grow as a human. I have a lot of PTSD from it, I still get triggered by smells and sounds, and anger issues stemming from it, but I’ve matured more so than old friends from high school (when I left for the army) due to the responsibility placed on my shoulders.
It does carry more weight when people talk about the military or politics in general because I can say things as a communist about my experiences and what things are actually like. I do use it to my advantage though, the military persona/style. People are more likely to give me an easier time, less likely to fuck with me, and for some reason the freedom loving muricans give me respect they otherwise wouldn’t, simply because I “served.” It’s selfish in a way, but at least I recognize it I guess.
I think a lot of the young ones struggle with this. The question you see all the time is "What was it all for?" and the only thing that can answer that is marxism.
I was raised by a shit-tier neonazi. I can't relate to being shaped by the military and being unable to separate oneself from being a veteran but, at least in some ways, I think my experience parallels yours.
In my (armchair expert) opinion, you don't separate yourself from growing up indoctrinated. That's going to be a part of you because we are all products of our history. And it's not about freeing yourself from it either. It's taking what your upbringing gave you and turning that into something positive.
You would have a unique insight into the armed forces and, I'm assuming, an ability to connect with servicepeople and veterans in a way that I will never have access to. When you have the capacity to do it (and not one minute before), you'd be able to peel people away from their military indoctrination and make their own deprogramming journey easier than you had it yourself because you are familiar with the terrain and its hazards. Of course you won't be able to do this instantaneously or with everyone you encounter but there's gotta be those malcontents who are/were in the forces that you'd quickly be able to identify and connect with.
Maybe it will only ever be one or two people. But that doesn't matter. That's still an entire life or two which you could be a role model for and a positive influence on, so that cannot be overstated.
CW for suicide ahead
I have a strong suspicion that a significant proportion of the veterans who end up taking their own lives do so because they cannot reconcile the narrative they got fed about glamorous notions serving in the armed forces with the reality of what they actually participated in and that cognitive dissonance, in a self-aware veteran, must eat away at their souls. And it must be a brutally isolating experience too. If my hunch is correct, these are the people who we need to reach out to because they are in the process of deprogramming themselves from their indoctrination and they are probably the best candidates for turning out similar to the way that you have. To lose them would be a tragedy on multiple fronts.I'm rambling here but I guess I wanted to make sure that you aren't chasing after a mirage. You can unpick all the ways that you have been indoctrinated over time and you can grow beyond that indoctrination, but ultimately I don't think that you ever truly separate yourself from it. You just come to terms with it in time and you find ways to be something of an alchemist, on occasion, by turning that bullshit into gold.
When I was in the VA for a while I talked to a Vietnam vet and he was genuinely curious about why I was a communist. He asked questions and got the basic gist about why we were really there, not to stop communism but military industrial complex shit. I also got about everyone else there (15 or so) to march into the leader of the programs office to stop a trans veteran from getting kicked out for defending themselves from someone who started a fight with them (zero tolerance policy).
CW for past suicide experiences:
I had my own issues, tried several times to shoot myself because I was so depressed and loaded with guilt having been a willing part of the military and evil, however indirect my part was in both deployments. I still struggle a lot with the guilt I carry having knowledge of how the sausage of empire is made.
I’ve gotten better in the last year or two. Turned my experience into something I can build on and learn from. I try to help people now through a career in fire fighting, building my family, and trying to be a good person as much as I can.
It's really weird how there's this holdover reverence for veterans that you see in people on the radical left where they still proudly proclaim their veteran status and it's really bizarre to me. (Not referring to you here.)
I just don't understand how people can uphold internationalist and pro-worker values yet at the same time still have pride for participating in imperialism.
I can't square that circle.
They hold the veteran's status as a victim of abuse in higher regard than their status as an abuser