Ok, as much as I would have wanted my first blog entry to be some super funny story, like say white guy buying magnums, I'm going to kick it off with a rant. First off I have a huge amount of respect for our military. Lets face it, it can be a shit job with few benefits. Some douche-bag basketball player will make more money sitting on the bench passing gas for a single game then most any grunt will for their entire military career. Most of my rant is the fanatical support some people have with the military! In their eyes anyone wearing a uniform, check that: a military uniform, cause not all professionals who wear a uniform get that pass, can do no wrong. Thats a pretty big cross to bear don't you think. Lets get a little reality check here:
First off who joins the military? Lets see.. some smart kids sign up so they can take advantage of free college later on. There are also the people who have the inner drive to serve their country. Then of course there are the not so smart kids. These would be the ones that after talking to them about possible career paths the phrase "the world needs ditch diggers too" comes to mind. Which catagory do you think makes up the bigger sliver of this pie chart? Take for example the three rocket scientists above. Granted, war is hell, when people shoot at you it would be normal to be angry with said people. Heck they are trying to kill you after all. So their answer was to pee on some people that they presumably killed. Ok, not something I would probably do but lets roll with the whole war is hell theme, bad stuff happens right? What really sets these geniuses up for the big fail is they not only video taped themselves doing it, but then they shared it will the world on the internet. Yeah, that will help the cause wont it. Now remember... a soldier can do no wrong right?
Over the last couple of days I read an article about an high ranking public servent retireing after 25+ years of service. This guy was going to get a big retirement check every year for the rest of his life. This evidently was the cue for Mr or Mrs fanatic to start posting comments comparing what this public servent was going to get with what some soldier was going to get and how this wasn't fair, cause life is fair right (oh wait, probably another future rant topic). It didn't matter that this guy spent 25 years crawling up the ladder to get to this postion. Come on people, use that brain for something more they keeping the breeze from blowing through your head!
Lets face it people, the military is made up of people. Any time you get a large enough group of people there will be those in that group that do not deserve this fanatical support. There will be those who commit crimes. Want to take a guess at how many soldiers have been arrested for anything from child porn to murder? There will be those who are just jack-balls and complete dumbasses. There will also be those who will abuse this public trust the first chance they get, regardless of whether or not they served in any sort of combat roll. In the end lets use some common sense. Does the military deserve some respect, sure, you bet, but does that mean they should get fanatical support regardless of who they are? Well lets hear it, what do you think?
