Why DIDN'T you join the military?

What has prevented you from joining the military? Curious about what people's reasons are. Mine: it does not pay enough given the risks.

to 1) move as often as military families tend to do, 2) turn over control of my life to them, and 3) risk putting myself in scary position.

I grew up with my dad as career military, during Vietnam. It made a HUGE impression on me.

besides the military didn't want me because a limping soldier messed up their formation drills.

Other than my feelings against war and the military in general, the fact that I had the opportunity to go to a university kept me out.

I dropped out of highschool and took a GED. It kept me out of the Navy when I tried to join. Ironically, it didn't keep my out of college at all, because my test scores were all good.

What year did you try to join? In 1991, a GED was acceptable, and still is today. I know the Air Force did not / does not accept them. I don't think the Marines do either.

Welcome to DU! :hi:

I took placement tests at the navy office, and the recruiting officer wanted to rush me through some kind of special highschool that they had. So maybe it was related to the particular position he wanted me in??? I dunno. This was in Boulder CO.

edit: I looked this up beacuse I was curious about what you said. All the armed forces have maximums for percentage of GED holders allowed in, 5%-10% for Navy. So presumable they had filled their quota.

had the good sense to pass me by back in 1971.

Nor do I care to be lied to by the "second in command" Dick 'Five Deferments' Chickenhawk Cheney.

I will not violate the First Commandment in order to increase obscenely high Republican chickenhawk oil-crony profits.

It's that simple.

I would step up immediately if the USA were ever threatened, but will not sign up for Nation Building and Oil Profits for Rich Republicans, the only reasons for this war. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11

Bush's kissing buddies -- the Saudis -- were the ones who hijacked the planes and used them as weapons against America.

Why does George AWOL Bush get all kissy face with the people who attacked us on 9/11, and wage war against the human beings of Iraq who had NOTHING whatsoever to do with it?

had been called, but it wasn't.

BTW - the fact that the neighbor kid who lived over our back fence was blown up by
a mortar shell in Nam only two months after arriving there and ON HIS BIRTHDAY, no less,
gave everyone in our small town pause. It didn't help that we had all seen him at church
about 3 weeks before he headed off to Nam. He was scared to death and had written home almost non-stop
about how bad it was.

His dad was an empty shell after that happened. He couldn't control his tears, even
when I saw him 10 years after the incident.

On edit: fixed a typo.

I actively worked to stop the war. At that time, there is no way I would have joined the military, as it would have meant supporting an illegal and immoral war. I did support the troops, though, via letters and packages to my brother, and assuring a very confused campus recruiter that though I was opposed to war, I supported the warriors (I guess this stance was unusual back then). My brother did a second tour in 1972, and came back telling me the generals were drunk most of the time and the thing was a mess. He was very glad his oath was to the Constitution and not to the generals, or he would have broken it. BTW, he's VERY anti-war now, and has advised his kids, who are all "of age" to stay out of the military, even though it was his career.

Edited to add: I am a woman, and we weren't part of the draft back then. So I didn't have to worry about my number coming up. My husband said he was ready to go to jail when he was called if they wouldn't take his CO letter-but it turned out his conjenital heart defect kept him out of service.

with authority and people telling me what do. It really never entered my mind as an option.

... my German teacher in HS (this was +20 years ago) pushed me HARD to join and get into the Language Institute, but the thought of 5 AM calisthenics and being under the thumb of authority gave me hives.

teacher there but I saw the shot schedules and heard you had to climb a rope. I changed my lifelong dream. (seriously)

my gun would go off accidentally while I checked out the cute soldiers standing next to me in the canteen ... or is that the latrine? Anyway, don't ask and I won't tell. :eyes:

Our military is not there to protect us against foreign attack, it is there to secure American interests overseas, primarily oil. America could be self-sufficient in every way if we just changed our economic system and switched to renewable energy. But the business model our country has adopted allows for the wealthy few to exploit the rest of us and the Middle East for their continued profits.

We have abundant natural resources and a geographically isolated position with two non-hostile neighbors on our borders. The odds that anyone would try and invade us are virtually non-existent, especially with our nuclear arsenal. And even if they ever tried, the natural landscape of America, with abundant forests, mountains, huge cities, a technologically advanced and fiercely nationalistic citizenry where almost everybody has a car and a gun, that would make such an undertaking so difficult that it would most likely be doomed to failure. I would fight in any war that in which I thought my country's survival was at stake. In my lifetime I have never seen such a war and don't think that I ever will. And I have no desire to prop up an economic system that is bad for people and bad for the environment.

Big mistake - I kept getting calls for about 5 years. I had decided not to join and go to college instead. I didn't finish, but I'm also still alive, which counts for a lot. Serving under Clinton was a pretty good bet, though.

got stoned solid for three years

I choose to survive.

family was Air Force and I thought I was supposed to do it too.

didn't want to cut my hair, mostly

joining the military is subject to.

There are other reasons (I grew up during the Vietnam war); read Myra MacPherson's LONG TIME PASSING.

http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=21207

It has been updated since I bought the original edition in the eighties. MacPherson gave all sides a chance to tell their stories and their viewpoints.

and having a great time. Viet Nam just ended and if I didnt have to go, I wouldnt.
Plus I have problems with authority. It would have never worked out.

...literally, since I was a conscientious objector back at the time of Vietnam.

it in NYC, Feb 15, 2003 when "The World Says NO To War!"..the World was smarter than cheney and his little stupid puppet bush(who really isn't the decider).

Don't want to kill people, don't want people trying to kill me.

When I was a struggling college student in the 80's, one of my friends tried to sell me on the National Guard - money for college, etc., and it's just one weekend a month! I asked him, "What if there's a war?" He pretty much thought there wasn't much chance of that happening. This was before Gulf War I.

War is evil. Sometimes it may be a necessary evil, but not nearly as often as some would have us believe.

too scared to go to jail,otherwise........:evilgrin:

At one of my sister's commencements from grade school, the long time history teacher had taught the students to sing war songs, and my father got up and yelled bullshit in the middle of the song. I was supposed to yell with him at the count of 3, but I froze up. I grew up thinking Vietnam was an atrocity. Iraq didn't threaten us, we shouldn't be there. Hussein was a bad dude, but we have made things worse.

.....in my family but because of a couple of disabilities they wouldn't take me. There has always been at least one member of our family in each generation who has served in the military since long before WW I and to this day I regret I wasn't one of them from my generation.

but there was no draft for women at the time. I was a college student bent on competing my degree, was also stridently against the Vietnam war as wrong and immoral. Had I been a man imminently about to be drafted into that confounded conflict, would probably have fled to Canada as so many young men did back then.

and other pacificts. This is what I've been teaching to my own kids and I hope none of them are ever tempted by the military either.

...medicaled out of a chance to go to New London (USCG Academy) -- vision. (You could quibble, and not call this military. At the time the Coasties were under the Department of Transportation.)

Tried again, in the early nineties -- Navy Reserve was especially hot for radio operators, and my ham license and experience was attractive to them. This time I was ok, eye-wise -- good enough to read the dials -- , but failed on weight/height and BP issues. It seems they couldn't get a P-3 Orion off the ground with a.) a full fuel load and b.) me on board at the same time. ;-)

I have no objection to the citizen-soldier model of defense staffing. I recommend Gary Hart's bookand articles on the idea.

Back then if you weren't twenty-one you had to get parental consent. Daddy refused to sign the papers, sort of an "over my dead body will my daughter join the military" kind of thing. He was a WWI vet. After that, there was college and then a job and I sort of forgot about it. It was peace time though.

All during my high school years we had Vietnam hanging over our heads. I'd seen guys come back from Vietnam completely changed. Jocks and whitebread farm boys JOINED to go fight and came back paranoid, doing drugs and absolutely wouldn't say one thing about Vietnam. It was not a nice war. I'm from a small town in Oklahoma and not very many of my classmates had rich enough parents to buy our way out. Not a nice way to spend your high school days.

Luckily Nixon stopped the draft about 2 weeks before I had to make the trip. Only good thing he ever did but didn't stop me from voting against him with my very first vote.

Nixon announced in June 1972 no more draftee will be sent to Vietnam.That sounded pretty good to this dumb draftee that was on thirty days leave with orders in hand for South-East Asia (read Vietnam), but I still voted for McGovern in November (my first presidential election thanks to the twenty-sixth amendment).

When I heard the draft ended in 1973 I went back to my billet and packed my bag expecting to be sent home. Top Brown interceded and informed me I wasn't going anywhere soon and that I should get my butt back to work. Damn.

But I had nothing against the military per se (and I've NEVER put down anyone who did join). Marching around, getting yelled at, and shooting people just didn't appeal to me--but neither did trying to control an overcrowded classroom, crunching numbers, or making the same phone call all day.

After college (were Marine recruiters showed up annually), I embarked on a career as an advertising copywriter, and ended up on Army's "Be All You Can Be" campaign. But I never felt any conflict about it--I believed that the military as a whole was a good fit for many (but not all) young people who needed a jump start on life. And besides, America had a sane commander-in-chief at the time.

:headbang:
rocknation

i didnt really want to be sent to the other side of the world to shoot people in order to make a few quid for someone in a suit. although i had the chance to go to university, lots of people dont and i certainly dont condemn anyone for joining up - for a lot of people (some of my friends included) it was the only option available.

Poor and wanting an education, I almost applied to the air force academy. problem was, my (at that time) 87 year old grandfather (100% Lakota --- sioux if you wanna insult me) threatened to disown me if I joined custer's army. Since I respect him and his feelings, I never mentioned it again. I think it would have killed him to have his grandaughter be part of the US military.

He didn't have a problem when my mother married a white man and he didn't have a problem when I married a white woman, but he literally threatened any one of his extended offspring who even mentioned joining the military with permanent shunning. Since he felt so strongly about it, I did as well. And I can see his point. We're not talking about genocide that happened a few hundred or a thousand years ago. His grandfather lived during the time where "The only good indian is a dead indian" was official national policy.

OK, and I also hate blind obedience to authority. They probably woulda kicked me out for being gay, too. (G) And I ended up getting my masters at harvard, so I guess I didn't need the military for my education.

at, told when to eat, sleep and take a pee.

I don't believe in being owned and when you join the military you are owned.

And even if I were to skip my physical and not show up to fly the plane I was trained to, it wouldn't matter because Katherine Harris and my brother would still make me president some day. Oh wait, my daddy isn't Michael Hayden, nevermind.

:patriot:

Plus, I'm a bookworm, and would make a lousy soldier.

And my parents wouldn't hear anything other than that. Not that I would have joined anyway. I don't take orders well. :D

However, I've spent almost 20 years of my adult life working for the Defense Department supporting our troops, so I've pretty much "joined the military" anyway.

that I was thinking of joining up for a few years, then going on to college. He said, "Oh, no, I don't think that's a very good idea".

So that was that. I went straight to college.

I remember actually debating on whether it'd be better to enlist in the Air Force or Navy than be drafted and go to the ground troops in Vietnam. BTW my lottery number was below 100.

The cycle must be broken somewhere.

I'm proud of my great uncles who were some of the first conscientious objectors in world war two. If everyone had done what they did, the only people fighting would have been Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and a group of generals in stupid looking uniforms.

or the Navy. This was back in '89-'90. I ended up getting into a junior college and then moving to a metropolitan area where I eventually found steady (albeit hard) work. I was also coming out as a lesbian at the time so I felt intimidated about the service.

Husband did 4 years back in the 80's. Both of us have fathers who are retired Vets - one a retired full bird, at that. None of us, not even the Repukeish bird, would want the kidlet (14 years old) to consider joining up for the military until the idiocy is over.
We'd figure out something else for her to do for her country other than joining the "PNAC youth corps" if she wanted to serve. And not just "winning the war on minds" like the current crop of privileged college pukes do; something that could really make a difference - first responder, ecology, teaching, social work, etc.

Haele

Nice to see you again! :hug:

In high school the most likely reason for a war was the Cold War. I dreamt of being a fighter pilot, pitting an F-15 or F-16 against Migs and Su's. However, poor eyesight killed that idea.

When college arrived the AF reduced it's eyesight standards, but I had grown a tad wiser and realized a pilot without excellent eyes was a sitting duck. If I couldn't fly jets then I had no interest in making the military an actual career so, barring the advent of a major, WW2 style conflict, I prepped for civilian life. I still had a keen interest in military issues, with several friends in the service, etc...

During the next couple decades a few conflicts came up, but they were, from the start, short affairs. Not the sort of things to create a huge recruitment drive. It seemed the volunteer/career military could handle things. The disintegration of the USSR pretty well sealed that.

Unlike our current Iraq War, the first one was pretty short lived. We pretty well kicked butt and took names. There were plenty of new, gung ho high schoolers signing up, and I knew it would be over before they left basic training. I didn't feel there was need or time for me to hop in there.

Also, knowing something of the military, I know they'd rather have an impressionable highschooler than a settled civilian like I had become by then. Call it brainwashing if you will, but there are times in combat where survival depends on obeying orders without hesitation. Civilians think too much. So, I was spoiled meat for any but a desparate military.

So here we are today. While I'm sure the military would take me if I signed up, I am beyond the age they are officially recruiting for.

However, even worse, I openly do not support this conflict. I think I'd be poor company for a soldier trying to stay alive in a fox hole in the desert. Better that I stay here and do what I can to get him home, ASAP.

Nuf said?

...but I guess my answer is "Because I've never had any desire to join the military."

Why does one have to give a reason for not joining the army?

What are your reasons for not becoming, I dunno, a ballet dancer? A neuroscientist? A game show host? Everybody's gotta have a reason, apparently!

In our society, it is interesting to know what kinds of people don't fall for the propaganda and why... Recruiting for ballet dancing is not widespread, society does not try to get you to become a ballet dancer.

:wow: My Grandpa wanted me to join the Navy
and go to the Naval Academy

:silly:

It was sooo coincidental that we both did the same thing at the same time - just a slight difference in geography. That really got to me.

:pals:

Instant like. Immediate kinship. Surreally remarkable. :dunce:

:pals: :yourock:

...which generally meant that I wouldn't be called up unless the VC were currently landing on Catalina Island.

Today, 35 years later, I'd gladly take my son's spot in Iraq, if I could.

Old people make wars. Old people should fight them.

He, like many generations of my family before him, volunteered for the Navy in WWII, stayed in through Korea and VietNam, served for 38 years and retired under Carter when his health began to go.

He told me he wouldn't like to see me because our nation had betrayed its promises too often and the military no longer had, nor deserved the respect of the citizens.

When a guy like that tells you not to go, you take his advice.

Bad knee, asthma, 20/seven zillion eyesight, etc. If they were at the point where I was considered as anything other than the most armchaired of officers, we might as well surrender. ;)

My family had a pretty big military tradition going on until my parents' and aunts/uncles' generation. As far as I know, my generation's the first in at least a century and probably more in which nobody's in the forces. I'm still trying to figure out what I think about that fact.

(I'm in Canada, anyway, so the history and overtones the military has here are radically different.)

Plus, I knew I was a liberal since 5th grade and was stuck in a small farming community in Kansas so my views weren't too popular, and I knew they wouldn't be in the military either. I also didn't have much respect for authority - when a military recruiter called my house, he said I could get a free pair of Army socks for just coming to talk to him. I laughed very loudly and told him, I had been buying all my clothes, including socks, since 9th grade and would pass on that great giveaway.

They never called back.

TlalocW

I graduated in '92 so I guess it was around the same time. Sounds like the recruiting tactics were similarly lame. It certainly wasn't like these days where I've heard of people being given signing bonuses. :o

The military never appealed to me. I am so anti-authoritarian that I once scored off the chart when working for a service organization that did psych testing of all staff employees.

My husband did 2 years in the Air Force stationed in Sacramento during the VietNam war: his SS number came up and he was able to Berry Plan so he could finish medical school.

He was an infantryman in World War II and Korea, lost a lot of his best friends in many frontline battles.

Later he became an alcoholic trying to deal with the pain of it all. As a kid I witnessed many of his numerous flashbacks.

When Vietnam came around he hoped I wouldn't be drafted (the draft ended before I became of age anyway) and encouraged me to go to school.

He was a conservative, Republican, America-love-it-or-leave-it kinda guy til the day he died, but still didn't want to see his son see the horrors of war and he ended up seeing war as the racket it is.

First and foremost because I know that it is likely that I will be expected to kill those who do not deserve to die. At that point, had I already joined, i could refuse as a conscientious objector and be imprisoned, but under other circumstances that might not be possible. In other words, if I was overseas, fighting, constantly scared for my life and being flooded with orders to kill and destroy, I might find myself doing so. The way I am now, I couldn't kill anyone, but the military changes people.

In 1991, at age 17, the Army almost talked me into it. I met with the recruiters several times and they had me almost ready to sign. But my Dad, who had been in the Air Force Reserve, largely talked me out of it. He said, hey son, I know you and how you are an easy-going guy who likes to take it easy, and you will hate the military more than anything you have ever hated in your life. The Gulf War was also all but over, and the spirit with which I had initially approached the recruiters, was waning. When I told the recruiter of my reservations and he got kind of rude, that decided it. I thought, I don't need this shit, and so I washed my hands of the whole thing.

Until I sat dumbfounded in my home office on the morning of 9/11/2001 and watched thousands of American citizens perish in horror and flame at the hands of Islamist fanatics.

For many months afterward, I stewed and seethed. How could a guy like me, with a good job and a life well-established, contribute to the national defense in ways more meaningful than getting pissed off on the internet?

It finally hit me when I thought about my Dad, ironically. He had been Reserve, and had managed to preserve his more-or-less civilian existence. Perhaps I could do the same, and exorcise a couple of demons at once: my desire to contribute to the war against Islamism, and a desire to rid myself of a nagging suspicion I'd carried since 1991, wherein I'd felt like I'd walked away from an honest challenge, and was therefore not as much of a man as I could be.

So I got in touch with the USAF recruiters, initially determined I would follow in my father's footsteps and be an Air Force Reservist. Alas, I was not careful answering the medical questions on the phone, and disqualified myself before I even got started. They don't take you in the Air Force if you have had major abdominal surgery, and since I had had major abdominal surgery as an infant, I was shit out of luck.

I went back to seething and stewing.

Finally an active-duty Army medic whom I chanced to know through the messages boards for the NBA over at ESPN heard my story, and he said, hey man, you have to know how to "play" the medical questionnaire. He said, do you have medical documentation on your surgery? Fine, go talk to the Army Reserve, and here is what you say....

So, in November 2002, having met with an Army Reserve recruiter in North Seattle several times, and having gone down to the Seattle MEPS and passed their physical and provided my documentation and passed the ASVAB and all that, I signed on the line and took my oath as a United States Army Reserve Soldier, and actually ended up doing my first real weekend drill with my assigned unit about 10 days later (yes, you can serve and get paid, even before Boot Camp!)

I did Basic Combat Training and Advanced Individual Training at Ft. Jackson from late April through early September 2003. It was the hardest thing I think I have ever had to do in my life. The stomach surgery never bothered me, but my left knee has been blown many times (first time: age 15, in karate class) and my left ankle is messed up too, and I have terrible eyes, which almost foiled me when it came to rifle qualification. I am also a couch potato, and the PT felt like it was going to kill me every morning, especially running, which hurt knee and ankle AND made me feel like I was going to suffocate for lack of oxygen. My aerobic ability has always sucked.

But I made it. I earned my black beret and went back to my wife and (soon to be born) daughter, and my unit, and have served proudly in a Reserve capacity ever since.

I'm glad I joined. At age 32 I am a little long in the tooth for an E-4, but I'm up for the E-5 board this summer, will be going to WLC soon, am back in school thanks to the generous Army Reserve Tuition Assistance program (on top of the G.I. Bill) and I no longer have to wonder if I am man enough to wear a uniform. Question answered. Demon exorcized. My dad and I have actually gotten closer since I joined, as now we have a common frame of reference we didn't necessarily have before, and I feel a tremendous sense of belonging with my unit I don't necessarily get at my civilian corporate job.

Yeah, it will suck if I get sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. Lots of people in my unit have been cross-leveled for deployments abroad, or have been assigned to us upon their return, and their stories seldom sound fun. But my wife and I are ready if it comes down to it, and we have full SGLI and an additional civilian life insurance policy, so that my wife and daughter will be seriously paid if I die in harm's way. Even if I can't be here, they will be well taken care of.

Bottom line, there is a tremendous feeling, serving a purpose larger than yourself. I don't care about Bush or Rumsfeld or any suit in Washington. I did not sign up for these men. I signed up because on 9/11/2001 I learned that history was NOT at an end, that there were still going to be battles fought for American safety and liberty against horrible and evil foes, and that the men fighting these menaces were going to have to be men of conscience who believed in the American experiment, warts and all, and were willing to do the hard, often ugly things necessary to ensure that the torch and beacon of Lady Liberty did not dip into the sea. Not in this generation, anyway.

And the truth is, there are some great people in my unit. Men and women I would be proud to fight alongside with, and whom I am already proud to stand in formation with, every time the First Sergeant hollers, "FALL IN!" Opinions in the unit vary, on the war, on Bush, but just about everyone is a patriot of the first order, a believer in the United States as a good and worthwhile nation, and there is something very humbling and special about being able to stand with these folk and do my teeny part for the country.

When I did some volunteer work with the Girl Scouts at a hospital on Roosevelt Island in NYC.

This hospital was only for the terminally ill. It was a one way ticket in until you died. The majority of patients were paraplegic and quadriplegic. Mostly men, mostly vets of WWI and II. They had a special area for the Vietnam Vets. It was a bit wild down there, so they only let us go in to say hi once in awhile.

On Saturday afternoons, they played a movie for the patients in a big auditorium. It was our job to bring anyone down who wanted to see the movie.

One day a WWI vet name Leo asked me if I would take him to the cafeteria instead of the movie and if I wouldn't mind staying with him to fed him. I ended up spending most of the afternoon with him. He was just an amazing person to talk to.

The result is that I have been actively opposed to war ever since. No one should end up spending the rest of their lives like these men did. For what?

That is a wrenching story, DYEW.

But in regards to those WWI and WII vets, they did not suffer or die in vain. The fascism of the Kaiser, the Reich, Imperial Japan, was not a small thing. At one point the Axis was set to envelope the majority of the globe, and it's fair to say that without the U.S. throwing its lot in with the Allies, committing massive amounts of men, material, and money, Europe would have been absolutely consumed by the noxious alliance of Stalinist Communist and Hitlerian Fascism, while the Japanese perpetually raped China and the Pacific Rim.

War is a horrible thing, and men maimed and wounded in war sometimes suffer horrible lives. But this is exactly why Memorial Day is so important, because without these men and their sacrifice, the freedoms and liberty we enjoy today, probably would not exist. Leo, and others like him, have left an important and worthwhile legacy, in that America and Europe are largely liberal and free, because they shouldered the hard and thankless and brutal burden of fighting fascism down in the trenches when it mattered most.

I was 13 in 1967. Vietnam was raging. Everyday on the radio were the reports, X number of Americans killed today, X number of VietCong were killed too.

A lot of the older guys in the neighborhood were facing the draft. Few of them had any desire to go fight in a war none of understood the reasons for.

After seeing 100's of men of gurneys, I just didn't want to see my friends end up like that for a war that made no sense.

took a shot. Luckily, my draft lottery number was like 312 which meant there was no way in hell I'd be drafted.

All clear meant I could continue with college and get on with life.

I was accepted into VMI(Virginia Military Inst.) summer of 1992, but 2 weeks before my freshman year was to start I received paperwork stating that they were decling my appointment based on some already cleared medical history. So I told the Army to stick it and never looked back.

Funny how life works out, back then it was the end of the world, now I can not imagine my life any differently.

Cool thread and good question.

Glad it worked out for the best!

US Navy. At 18 I was stationed in Italy with the command and control group for Med fleet ops. I was on duty the day our exercises in the Gulf of Sidra went pear-shaped with Libya. Many scary hours.

The military gave me some great experience, grew me up. But I'd never want to do it again.

After high school, there weren't many job opportunities around here and I didn't have the assistance to go to college. So I went to take the ASVAB, did really well, was promised my pick of careers in the military (which I now realize is a standard recruiter line) and went through the enlistment process. When it got to the point of the physical, they started talking about the need to be honest on the health history questionnaire, because if you had asthma and lied about it, you could die during the teargas chamber part of Basic training. That kind of woke me up and I realized what I was really about to do, and basically I checked off absolutely every health condition I had ever even "sort of" had. Back then, that was enough to get me out of it - today they probably would allow such a person in.

I thank my lucky stars on a regular basis, even now (13 years later) that I never went through with it. I was never a big fan of the government and definitely didn't have the personality type to be cut out for military life. At the time the wages sounded like a lot of money because I was making $4.25 an hour and thought anything above $6 an hour was a "good job". Over time I have become much MORE politically active and a pacifist. I am even less cut out for military service today than I was then.

I feel bad for the people who join the military just looking for a way out of their dead-end hometowns. I feel bad for the families when a service person dies in war, the same way I feel bad when a manual laborer dies on the job or even a young person dies in a car accident. I don't mean to sound heartless, but I don't believe that military deaths are any more honorable than the deaths of anyone else. I don't feel that the military is making any sacrifice on my behalf, so I don't feel a need to pay special tribute to them. If we are invaded on our soil by another nation, then I will feel indebted to and protected by the military. Otherwise, they're not doing me any favors.

about joining the Naval Reserve when I was working on my PhD -- Naval Intelligence was the best match and my choice -- and I would have gone in as an officer, thereby circumventing the worst of the mindless control-for-control's-sake...but I was too busy and soon enough the age cutoff of 36 years old (a stupid, arbitrary limit, if you ask me) rolled around and it was too late for me to join. I've always been interested in military hardware and history, and have a family history going back to the Crusades (further, actually) that revolves around heroism in combat and the whole officer-and-a-gentleman thing, but it looks like my participation will forever be limited to a stint as an Air Force cadet.

because they expected me to go to college. So I went. Haven't regretted the choice, not ever.

I wanted to join the military, but my parents told me I'd never be accepted, especially as a disabled dependent of an Army retiree.

My eyesight is so bad I'm legally blind without my second set of eyes. It has been since I was a teen. I don't know of any military commander who would want someone in his or her ranks who can't see 6 inches in front of her!! I'd need a white cane and a black lab and still I couldn't see where I was going.

Thank goodness.

:)

:)

I come from a family that is heavily Air Force, but as a gay woman I would have been a fool to join the military.

not having to deal with living in a barracks.

Besides, I had a scholarship to college, so they didn't have much to offer me.

But no navy, army, or air force wants to recruit me - why? I have a documented physical disability that I've had since birth. I'm deaf.

Actually, a funny story.. Back in 1994, when I became 18, mom (who's an well-known local disability activist) got a call from US Navy, and she jotted their number down for me to call them back. She told me to tell the US Navy and tell them I was deaf, and I was interested in the services via Relay services (711 for US Citizens, but we didn't have it back then), and they said uh-huh they would call me back and hung up quickly. Disappointed, because it would be interesting to see what it was like, so never got a call again. This year is my last year on the Selective Service since I turned 30. Still waiting for that phone call. Come on - SS/recruiters gotta be *THAT* desperate to recruit disabled people - they did recruit that autistic kid then kicked him out a week later.

Hawkeye-X

and sacraficed more than you will ever fucking know. Went to far away lands and spent many a frozen, muddy night out in the middle of nowhere.

I served. I would not do so today.

Well...today...let me say..thanks.

That's it.

my mom, who was not happy that her only son had joined the army. (after losing two husbands in vietnam). And my brother, who knew how bad it could be in the army.

I remember, back when I was a senior in high school, I kept getting phone calls from an army recrutier (sp?).

The guy would not take no for answer from me.

Finally, my brother who was sitting right next to me, snatched the phone from me and hung up.

Well when the guy called back, my brother answered. He had said to my brother, "I think we were disconnected."

To which my brother replied, "No I hung up."

And then he hung up again.

going to do something stupid, though.

Just didn't want that piece of shit being my boss.

He has slaughtered thousands of human beings just because he had some "issues" to work out with his sick father.

Why don't you ask that question?

Fucking freeptard.

I don't want to be a part of something that oppresses and murders. I don't want to be the pawn of a lunatic rich-boy wanna-be dictator. I don't want to mindlessly submit myself to any orders with no thought. I don't want to be part of an effort that I know is wrong. I could go on.

My Dad wanted me to go to Annapolis an I said nada. I was a hippy artist musician at the time (still am) and it was just not my "Career path".

female, crazy (ask my shrink), musician, liberal, don't take orders well, think for myself. Not the person the military would want. Now - too "old", pacificist, anarchistic, on psych med.

I didn't trust him with my country or my life.

I got to the Royal Air Force recruiting office. I picked Air Force basically because my grandmother was in the RAF during WWII. Made the recruiting officer gawp when I said I didn't want to fly planes, I wanted to help keep them up in the air. Took me seriously and yes the RAF would have been a good deal for me. I'm kinda glad I didn't take it in the end. Wouldn't have met my wife, wouldn't have had my son. No regrets.

Now if there was a war on - I mean a real war like WWII not like this Iraq crap - then yep I'd be signing up to help defend - requesting a supporting role of course. At 31 it'd probably be Dad's Army rather than the US or British Army though.

Mark.