Current US Military

[Speaker to Animals]

I suspect a lot of the problem is the fact that people already have to work long hours. The guy on the flight line, working 60-80 hours per week is just fixing jets all that time. He doesn't even have the ability to go eat a decent meal. He has to eat at the flight line cantina, which serves really only fried food like burgers and fries. He's got his family to spend the remaining 3-4 hours of his day with, responsibilities to pick up the kids, take them to their activities, etc.

I really don't know what the infantry is like, but I can tell you from experience that the USAF was almost designed to make people fat because of the long hours, shitty food, and really no time to take of yourself.

The people making the schedules don't give a shit about the health of the servicemen that have to live that life. All they care about is improving metrics just a little more to get their promotion points. All the squadron commander would care about is whether his aircrew were getting all the training they in they needed. He probably didn't ever devote a moments thought to how all of this was affecting the enlisted guys that kept those planes flying all day every day.

With force reductions this got ridiculous. Towards the end of my enlistment, I had weekend duty every other weekend scheduled, but even on the weekends I wasn't scheduled for it there was a good chance I would have to come in. This means that I could go a month straight working with *maybe* one day off. Hours were at least 12 per day and could go to about 18 hours.

I watched young guys come in from tech school fit as fuck and just balloon up in a matter of months. Honestly, what did anybody think would happen with working conditions like that??

We weren't even allowed to have cooking surfaces in our barracks rooms. The chow hall was awful food. Always unhealthy. Every day we had to eat one meal at the cantina. Every single day there was one meal of a hamburger and fries or you didn't eat. You could opt for the fried chicken burger option too. But that's it.


If they actually gave a shit about this stuff, they'd incorporate fitness into the fucking job -- since it really is part of the job. Everybody thinks in terms of infantry where pretty much all they do is physical fitness-related activities, but most of the military is not like that at all. It's a fucking job day in and day out. If you took those people and made fitness something like 1-2 hours out of their day every 3-4 days, and you actually gave a shit about their food options while on duty (especially the guys in the barracks), then you wouldn't have these problems. To civilians that sounds crazy, because normally that's your own time, but civilians have to understand that, in the military, your entire life schedule becomes the liberty of some jackass sergeant looking to get promotion points. Once that happens, you don't really have much of your own time to do this shit. Really, it needs to be scheduled in there so that NCOs can't fuck with it to get ahead. USAF is literally a backstabbing operation that makes Game of Thrones look like the fucking Teletubbies.

Instead you have brass at the Pentagon getting pissed at the victims of their own fucked up policies for the most part. Shitty fitness metrics. Shitty work hours. Shitty food forced on people.

Most people's health improves after they separate for a good reason.

[Smitty-48]

And the idea that there is going to be a Collapse wherein America sees the light and then ceases its evangelical war to save the world from itself, is delusional, America has had collapses before, it just picks itself up, dusts itself off, and after a moment or two to catch its breath, goes right back to fighting the good fight to free the slaves everywhere, it's in the DNA, it cannot but do what it was born to do.

In order for it to cease, it would have to cease being America forevermore.

Look at war casualties compared to 50 and 100 years. The world is doing a neat job of saving itself.

Ah, but it's not death which America is out to save the world from, but rather tyranny. America is in fact willing to inflict mass death, in order to fight tyranny.

Live free or die, as it were.

[Viktorthepirate]

And the idea that there is going to be a Collapse wherein America sees the light and then ceases its evangelical war to save the world from itself, is delusional, America has had collapses before, it just picks itself up, dusts itself off, and after a moment or two to catch its breath, goes right back to fighting the good fight to free the slaves everywhere, it's in the DNA, it cannot but do what it was born to do.

In order for it to cease, it would have to cease being America forevermore.

Look at war casualties compared to 50 and 100 years. The world is doing a neat job of saving itself.

Ah, but it's not death which America is out to save the world from, but rather tyranny.

Spain was the same way for different reasons. And it changed. So can we.

Though I'd say your right about it taking a catastrophe.

[Smitty-48]

Look at war casualties compared to 50 and 100 years. The world is doing a neat job of saving itself.

Ah, but it's not death which America is out to save the world from, but rather tyranny.

Spain was the same way for different reasons. And it changed. So can we.

Though I'd say your right about it taking a catastrophe.

No, Spain didn't fight for liberty, no empire in history has ever fought for liberty, that is what American exceptionalism is all about.

[Smitty-48]

And if America changed, that would be the catastrophe in of itself.

[Martin Hash]

And if America changed, that would be the catastrophe in of itself.

I would miss liberty but my generation will be gone in 20 years. The one behind me, GenY, you guys, has some gas in the tank, but the one after that, it's gone as far as I can tell: Collectivism all the way. I'm more hopeful now that Trump has been elected; not because of Trump per se, but because the silent majority came out of hiding.

[Hwen Hoshino]

And the idea that there is going to be a Collapse wherein America sees the light and then ceases its evangelical war to save the world from itself, is delusional, America has had collapses before, it just picks itself up, dusts itself off, and after a moment or two to catch its breath, goes right back to fighting the good fight to free the slaves everywhere, it's in the DNA, it cannot but do what it was born to do.

In order for it to cease, it would have to cease being America forevermore.

Look at war casualties compared to 50 and 100 years. The world is doing a neat job of saving itself.

Ah, but it's not death which America is out to save the world from, but rather tyranny. America is in fact willing to inflict mass death, in order to fight tyranny.

Live free or die, as it were.

GTFO, There are horrible characters the US supported who were tyrants.

[Smitty-48]

Look at war casualties compared to 50 and 100 years. The world is doing a neat job of saving itself.

Ah, but it's not death which America is out to save the world from, but rather tyranny. America is in fact willing to inflict mass death, in order to fight tyranny.

Live free or die, as it were.

GTFO, There are horrible characters the US supported who were tyrants.

Merely as a means to an end, petty local tyrants the lesser evil, in the face of much more threatening and expansive tyranny.

America can't save the world at once all in one go, the war has to be fought, and wars are never squeaky clean affairs.

[Smitty-48]

Case in point, the Republic of Korea, was in fact a military dictatorship under war measures for decades, and only really stabilized in the 1990's.

Under war measures, there will be some intrigues of course.

[Smitty-48]

Another case in point, Turkey, yes, there was military dictatorship, but that was in contravention of a much more tyrannical Islamic State.