Mortai Gravesend:

Funny, dude who dislikes America encounters other dude who dislikes America, and assumes the the other must be an American due to stereotypes. Why don't you can that ignorant stereotype crap? You just look worse when you make such blatant mistakes.

I did that on purpose to make you yankees show how smart you are ;D Absente reo as the Latins used to say

Axyun:
Case in point: the F-22 Raptor. It is conservatively estimated to cost $137 million per plane (other estimates put it at 3 times the price) and they've never been deployed outside of training excercises. The U.S. owns over 140 of these over-priced pieces of junk costing tax payers like me billions upon billions of dollars and they've yet to be used. Not even in the post 9/11 conflicts.

You might get a kick out of this then... http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/15/11718911-panetta-restricts-f-22-flights-due-to-oxygen-system-complaints?lite

GenericAmerican:
I hate the escapist community sometimes.

But I have to wonder if this same shitty argument was going on thousands of years ago. Does anyone know what public opinion was on the Roman Legions back in that age?

That depends, what part of the Empire are you in and are any Roman Legionnaires in earshot?

mostly misplace hate for the leadership, but the end of the day, any one who joins up with the military is sighing up to be murderer, the only difference is its ok cause the state gives you permission. i once saw a comic of a lady saying i hate the war but support the troops in the back ground were a bunch of nazi troops marching. even if you sign up for a non combat role, the reality is if you have to you must fight and kill. if your a mechanic in the green zone and your base is suddenly under siege your expected to pick up a gun and fight.

also America is fucked up, we spend 52 % of our budget on military(last time i checked), no peaceful nation spends that much on military. were cutting health care, education and all sorts of good things, but we wont touche the bloated military, even china doesn't spend nearly that much. we need to pull our heads out of the cold war.

in closing, join the military in any way or form, you agreeing that your willing to be a murderer, there no if or buts about it. and a lot of people don't like that.

So I only read the first page because I'm not going through the whole damn thing haha. I just thought I'd throw an idea out there.

I really don't know how I feel about the army. I always see video and hear about terrible crimes committed by soldiers such as the one who had a mental break down and killed 16 people in their sleep (mostly women and children), or when a group of them decided that the smart thing to do would be to burn a bunch of Qurans (more stupid then terrible). Over 66 000 civilian deaths have occurred between January 2004 and December 2009 (http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/warlogs/). The icing on the cake is that fantastic time some of them shot children from the air (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ojw5MnsqkJQ&feature=related) WATCH THIS.

On the other hand,

all soldiers can't be total pieces of garbage right? I mean if you watched the video at 11:24 there are soldiers running with the injured children. We probably just hear and remember the negative quite a lot more. So I really doubt that all soldiers all shit.

So why is there hate on the army? I think it's the same reason many people don't like police or even freaking priests. They are held to be on a much higher moral ground then other due to their status in society and because they carry weapons (priests don't.... unless Diablo is more then just a game). The moment someone is supposed to protect the weak or is given power in any form (could be a gun) we hold them to higher standards because they must be. A police officer, a soldier, and a priest are meant to be cause good feelings in people and yet whenever I see them I get a nasty in my gut and my emotions tell me that I view these people as shit. However my brain tells me that they can't all be bad. Sadly, one or two bad apple will completely ruin the whole batch.

So I don't know where I stand on soldiers, I haven't decided yet.

also, being in the military doesn't make you manly, in reality its the most submissive role in the world, if your superior told you to clean the bathroom with a tooth brush, you got to do it, hows that manly? being a violent person doesn't make you manly, its makes you a violent person, there more to man hood imo than killing and beating people up.

the most violent people i met in my life also tend to be the most immature dumb and ignorant people ive met.

I don't hate the military, but the justification for much of it is horrible and outright delusional. For example the old "they fight for our rights" bullshit, no they don't, simple as that. They fight for well security in other nations to which we interpret as our own.

Then there's the whole "shit happens" response anytime military personnel are caught committing crimes. Really? "Shit happens" I guess that's the excuse for Columbine then too huh? So instead of just going to the most logical outcome and coming up with ways to mend the problem and apologize they just say shit happens and it goes on to happen again.

It is a good question you ask and while I see many posts here, I prefer to answer the original post. While the person you describe was definitely a tosser, I think most people's problems with the army come from the fact that a soldier has to do what he or she is ordered to do. In essence this means that the army might become their own peoples enemy rather than their protector. And this is no fiction, this is a harsh reality in many parts of the world (and could be the case in any country if one is not careful). Take that together with a couple of recent wars which have been (for most people) a complete waist of human lives and money and it is easy to see why people loathe the army.
Take the Netherlands for example. Due to history and economic ties we have no choice but to help the Americans in everything they attack. The last couple of wars, we did not agree on, our people were very much against it, yet we still are in for instance Afghanistan. This has nothing to do with protecting our country in any way and it never had. I understand fully well why people, in such a case, do not see the army as necessary.
Nevertheless do not get me wrong, I do see the use of the army, but I would rather see it used more within the country itself. But there is no doubt in my mind that we should respect those that put their life on line, whether we agree to their use or not.

With people like that, the best option sounds like it would be to "not feed the trolls"

You can't sway the opinions of someone like that- nor do you have to explain yourself to anyone with a broad simplification of what your job is. This really goes for anyone and what they do for a living. You don't have to.

When it comes down to it, its easy to criticize something that you are in no way a part of, yourself. Easy for a lot of people that will never, or possibly never could do something like be apart of military life (even reserves like yourself.) Same people that lambaste the entire concept of a Police Force after watching 5 minutes of one brutality incident on YouTube.

Any arguments they might have, or points they might make aren't simply wrong or stupid, necessarily. However, their sudden shift in opinion makes it far too emotional or irrationally motivated. There have always been good and bad stories in the histories of any Military or Police- but an argument, let alone a somewhat civilized discussion goes nowhere if one party simply thinks the entire concept is wrong and that every single person involved is a terrible person.

Way I see it, you either tell the guy to fuck off, and don't think about it anymore- or be the bigger person and calmly stand by your views and listen to the cunt while he gets angrier and angrier. More and more unprofessional as time goes on.

Any number of reasons. I wasn't aware one had to love one's nation or army. In fact, one of the greatest things about living in a (relatively) free, democratic nation with a (relatively) free press, is that it's quite acceptable to criticise and/or resent one's nation, monarch, government or military and do so without fear.

I hold nothing against the military, patriots, individual soldiers or what have you, but frankly I don't give a damn either. Soldiers sign up of their own free will here and are paid, trained and armed to do a job, it's not as though they're choosing to do a risky job for no reward. I give them credit for doing what I wouldn't want to do but they don't "serve the country" any more than someone working for the DVLA, tax office, state funded school or hospital.

The American flag/anthem/hand-on-heart/patriot thing works for our American cousins, good for them. I think it's nonsense quite frankly, pledging alleigance to a flag. I have respect for anyone who deserves it because of their actions, not some propaganda/idealism. I do have utmost sympathy for soldiers/firemen injured on-the-job and/or their bereaved families, make no mistake. But they can't complain that they have to serve another tour and how hard it'll be, etc when they knew what they were signing up for.

reasons to dislike the military

1. They accomplish no worthy goal. Its harsh but its also pretty much true. theres a use for a few squads of highly trained units for small scale conflicts such as the SaS in the london embassy siege of that airport thing , But the standard idea of war is basically gone.

theres a good reason WW3 didnt happen though Merica and USSR spent best part of 5 decades wanting it.

No 2 modern countries can go to war , neither can win , neither can afford it , we dont need a standing army as a defense deterrent , all we need is a few dozen techs , chemists and biologists. Add that to the interlinking world trade and there basically cant be a real war anymore.

so all the Military is getting used for now , is Illegal wars of resource collection , see iraq and whoever Merica invades next, and they will.

2. The only time any civilian tends to meet a soldier is when they are on leave paralytic and destroying whatever town/country they are claiming to be giving their lives to protect in a drug and alcohol fuelled rampage. These guys i know are the minority but they are so damn visible and by nature they tend to be retarded patriotic racist red necks "Out to shoot some sand niggers , HOO RAH!" (actual quote from the last soldier i met)

3. If we spent one years world Military budget on making this a better place to be rather than fighting over who owns which line we could get rid of hunger permanently , most diseases and poverty.

Personally I look at the military quite a lot like the majour churches. on an individual basis odds are the person is a good moral individual whose just trying to make the world a better place. Unfortunately they also happen to be members of a huge archaic organisation that does no good and a lot of harm.

I dont hate them i feel sorry for them they going to risk their lives for a politicians lies or an oil companies profit margin.

Well, both my father and mother were in the army (though now retired), so I'm a bit biased.

I think the main reason that people hate on the military is because they see them in generalizations. They usually have this image of a gung-ho gun-nut that wants to blow stuff up and screw the consequences. It's not really their fault, that's the way that media constantly portrays the military.

What most people fail to realize is that soldiers are just people, like you and me. Nobody wants to be sent to some hell-hole to get shot at and make life-or-death decisions. Soldiers don't get to choose what wars we fight. If they disagree with a war, they either suck it up and fight or get court-martialed and thrown in prison.

There's definitely better ways to make a living, but these people believe that they're fighting for their country, and they're willing to give up luxeries that we take for granted, just to protect our sorry asses.

I think they deserve everyone's respect, they definitely have mine.

DevilWithaHalo:

Axyun:
Case in point: the F-22 Raptor. It is conservatively estimated to cost $137 million per plane (other estimates put it at 3 times the price) and they've never been deployed outside of training excercises. The U.S. owns over 140 of these over-priced pieces of junk costing tax payers like me billions upon billions of dollars and they've yet to be used. Not even in the post 9/11 conflicts.

You might get a kick out of this then... http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/15/11718911-panetta-restricts-f-22-flights-due-to-oxygen-system-complaints?lite

Fan-f$#@ing-tastic!

It pains me that I get robbed of $36,000 a year to pay for this shit.

Hmmmm delicious delicious controvesy
I do find it funny that everyone countered my arguments by presenting exceptions. Guys, the fact some army men are benign public servicemen, doesnt change the main role of the institution.
All of these nice jobs could be done outside of the army, they are just a secondary function that the military gets when there are no foreigners they have to kill.

Guilherme Zoldan:
Hmmmm delicious delicious controvesy
I do find it funny that everyone countered my arguments by presenting exceptions. Guys, the fact some army men are benign public servicemen, doesnt change the main role of the institution.
All of these nice jobs could be done outside of the army, they are just a secondary function that the military gets when there are no foreigners they have to kill.

The problem i've always had with this argument is:
1) the fact that the main role of the military is to fight OTHER MILITARIES, whereas the overriding argument appears to be that it is to slaughter innocents for fun and profit.
2) the only reason to say that the military is terrible is to argue for getting rid of it, and getting rid of one military will not change that other nations have one, nor will it change the need for one.
3) your argument requires the assumption that the 'benign public servicemen' are the exception and that 'mass-murdering psycho' is the rule. Isn't the whole point of realistic war stories like, say 'All quiet on the western front', to show that even soldiers that kill are still people? IE, the actions they commit in the name of survival still can break them?
4) the biggest crime committed in a war is never anything the soldiers do. The worst atrocity in every war is that the war was started in the first place by greedy old men who would never fire a single shot. Yeah, I'm putting blame on politicians that don't give a crap, just like a psychotic doesn't give a crap about his victims. So sue me =P

sextus the crazy:

Military seems to attract macho assholes, but not all of them are. In terms of military capabilities, we can kick any country's ass, hands down.

Except in countries with rough terrain. Afghanistan and Vietnam speak for themselves as hostile environment.

HalfTangible:

Guilherme Zoldan:
Hmmmm delicious delicious controvesy
I do find it funny that everyone countered my arguments by presenting exceptions. Guys, the fact some army men are benign public servicemen, doesnt change the main role of the institution.
All of these nice jobs could be done outside of the army, they are just a secondary function that the military gets when there are no foreigners they have to kill.

The problem i've always had with this argument is:
1) the fact that the main role of the military is to fight OTHER MILITARIES, whereas the overriding argument appears to be that it is to slaughter innocents for fun and profit.
2) the only reason to say that the military is terrible is to argue for getting rid of it, and getting rid of one military will not change that other nations have one, nor will it change the need for one.
3) your argument requires the assumption that the 'benign public servicemen' are the exception and that 'mass-murdering psycho' is the rule. Isn't the whole point of realistic war stories like, say 'All quiet on the western front', to show that even soldiers that kill are still people? IE, the actions they commit in the name of survival still can break them?
4) the biggest crime committed in a war is never anything the soldiers do. The worst atrocity in every war is that the war was started in the first place by greedy old men who would never fire a single shot. Yeah, I'm putting blame on politicians that don't give a crap, just like a psychotic doesn't give a crap about his victims. So sue me =P

Personaly I see the military as a nescessary evil. Its function is still killing and destroying, so of course it attracts plenty of dislike and I think it should. Maybe if we didnt glorify it so much we wouldnt put so much money into it for no good reason XD

I dont really think all soldiers are morality-free psychos, I never said that...well maybe I have implied it but that was mostly to get under people's skin. I know plenty of military guys, theyre nice people, its just the institution that is kinda evil.

Guilherme Zoldan:

HalfTangible:

Guilherme Zoldan:
Hmmmm delicious delicious controvesy
I do find it funny that everyone countered my arguments by presenting exceptions. Guys, the fact some army men are benign public servicemen, doesnt change the main role of the institution.
All of these nice jobs could be done outside of the army, they are just a secondary function that the military gets when there are no foreigners they have to kill.

The problem i've always had with this argument is:
1) the fact that the main role of the military is to fight OTHER MILITARIES, whereas the overriding argument appears to be that it is to slaughter innocents for fun and profit.
2) the only reason to say that the military is terrible is to argue for getting rid of it, and getting rid of one military will not change that other nations have one, nor will it change the need for one.
3) your argument requires the assumption that the 'benign public servicemen' are the exception and that 'mass-murdering psycho' is the rule. Isn't the whole point of realistic war stories like, say 'All quiet on the western front', to show that even soldiers that kill are still people? IE, the actions they commit in the name of survival still can break them?
4) the biggest crime committed in a war is never anything the soldiers do. The worst atrocity in every war is that the war was started in the first place by greedy old men who would never fire a single shot. Yeah, I'm putting blame on politicians that don't give a crap, just like a psychotic doesn't give a crap about his victims. So sue me =P

Personaly I see the military as a nescessary evil. Its function is still killing and destroying, so of course it attracts plenty of dislike and I think it should. Maybe if we didnt glorify it so much we wouldnt put so much money into it for no good reason XD

I dont really think all soldiers are morality-free psychos, I never said that...well maybe I have implied it but that was mostly to get under people's skin. I know plenty of military guys, theyre nice people, its just the institution that is kinda evil.

Yes, but I have seen this argument posed many times, and the majority of people who pose it seem to act under the assumption that soldiers are psychopaths, or at least criminals.

I stand by #4 and blame the idiots who start wars for everything to do with them.
...
Well, everything EXPECTED from a war - trenches, bombs, etc. I still blame the soldier who killed a civilian in cold blood and kept the finger for aforementioned killing.

i have incredible respect for every man and women serving i the british armed forces they do incredible jobs
people say respect isn't given it is earned and i think the vast majority of the army has proven they deserve it

Because people don't realise that without army's the world will be in utter chaos, sure they kill people but if someone else is trying to do the same too you what do you expect? but yes countries should stop spending so much on them and that some people don't deserve to be soldiers due to how they commit atrocious acts such as killing unarmed civilians.

I don't hate my country's army, I hate the US army. They recently killed 24 Pakistani soldiers(your allies) in Salalah and the US has still not apologized, yet it apologised to India for detaining Saharukh Khan at the airport for a few hours.
Other than that, they forced Pakistan into a war that was not our own (Musharraff claims that he was told that Pakistan would be "bombed back to the stone age" if we did not join) and forced refugees and terrorists towards our country from Afghanistan. Even the Pakistani Taliban leaders operate from Afghanistan, yet the US always shouts to us "do more, do more", while we do the most among all countries in this entire war.

As an Israeli who rides buses with soldiers equipped with M-16 guns, daily, on my way to school, I believe the people who hate the army are just not engaged enough with what's going on with their countries. They either don't care or they don't know someone who's in the army (or both).
That's my theory, anyway.

mxfox408:
As a former Ranger, I usually ignore those shit for brains when it comes to the opinions, but when I do respond ill respond with, a big "Thank you for sharing your extreme wisdom" then I moved on with what I was doing, I don't even validate their existence with an irritated response, fuck those pussies.

Thank you for your non confrontational response that helps both sides of the discussion reach reasonable discourse. This no doubt will elevate the discussion to new horizons for us all. If only all former soldiers could be as polite and respectable of other peoples opinions as you are. You are a shinning example of the integrity and virtue of our armed forces. Kudos to you good sir... kudos...

tehroc:

sextus the crazy:

Military seems to attract macho assholes, but not all of them are. In terms of military capabilities, we can kick any country's ass, hands down.

Except in countries with rough terrain. Afghanistan and Vietnam speak for themselves as hostile environment.

We Beat Afghanistan; we've bomb it to shit. We just can't occupy.

Vietnam we could have won if we really wanted to, but we eventually realized that it was a waste of money. Also, both wars were much worse for Afghanistan and Vietnam.

aba1:
Realistically you shouldn't need a army to begin with.

You really believe that? Let share with you a snippet from Yahtzee's review of the PC game Spore.

"Will Wright is clearly no stranger to the odd cheeseburger because playing as a friendly celery-munching hippie race is a lot harder than being a bunch of aggressive, warlike megalomaniacs who communicate by biting each others faces off. Once you've moved on to the real-time strategy tribal phase, if you reject the savage, meat-eating, weapon stockpiling lifestyle, you will quickly find that there are several tribes within convenient walking distance who didn't and who will make you their little whimpering bitches before you can even break out the tambourines. A stark and accurate portrayal of the development of human society, perhaps, but probably not the intended experience that only gets more one-sided with the Civilization stage during which you either pay all of the other cities to not kill you, or rampage around the world blowing up computer players who don't have the luxury of being able to pause the game and build 50 gun turrets."

Something to consider, isn't it?

Basically my stance is, I'd hate any soldier that thinks that what they do, as important as it is, should result in me worshiping the ground they walk on every day without question. I also hate people that goes to the opposite extreme and says what they do is not only unimportant, but a determent to society as a whole. Because you're both the same exact breed of pompous asshole.

So I give them respect for what they do, but not that much more than the average civilian. That still has to be earned.

I don't hate the army, I hate the American army because I hate America because of the indefensible foreign policy of the past 65 years fucking up parts of the world and the deregulated banks that basically broke the world economy.

Input good people
Output not so good people who are trained to kill and have a sense of when its right to kill governed by rules that don't have the best of all of creation in mind. Unless creation only extends as far as the borders of [insert country here]. I mean, Hitler was going to solve world hunger, he just thought it would be a good idea to reduce the world's population to a more manageable number.