Not the PLA either… 
Made a new account to hopefully minimize self-doxing, but here’s some background. I haven’t lived with him in 10 years and I left the country 4 years ago. We don’t really talk all that often, but he had messaged me with some questions about photography and then brought it up.
I said something like “I’m sure you’re aware I don’t have a very fond opinion of the military”. He said “I’m not too enthused with the idea either, but I need the security and discipline that it will provide while I try to find something to dedicate myself to and I’ve been in this dead end job for about 2 years and my soul is decaying”.
I told him he can come live with me, that it’s easy to get a 1 year visa and I’d happily pay for flights and I have a spare room. He said he’d think about it but “needs physical activity and more friends and connection in general”. I tried to explain that I go climbing multiple days a week, volunteer for search and rescue, and play board games with friends every week that he’d be able to hang out with.
I get the impression though that he thinks visiting would just be putting his problems on hold for a year; maybe he’s right about that, but I think living somewhere other than our shit hometown would give him a lot of perspective on the world and help him maybe realize that what he actually needs is a community of some kind. I don’t want him to make a huge fucking mistake because he feels hopeless and gets pressured into it by our conservative step dad or some recruiter or whatever.
I also briefly tried explaining some issues with the US military, but it’s a bit hard to undo decades of american “education” in one conversation. He said “my moral code is also not nearly as strong as yours, and I have very little strong feelings toward very much at all outside of just trying to be a good person”. I assume he reached out to me because he’s having some doubts.
Anyway I tried to make it super clear that if he wanted to come live with me or if he wanted to do a work visa somewhere else I’d pay flights and anything else and help in any way I can; I’m not rich, but I have a small emergency savings.
I think I’ve heard there are organizations of leftist / anti-imperialist veterans? Maybe one of them has information I could send him. Any advice or ideas would be appreciated.
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I sympathize with your brother and his motivations for joining the military but shit, not many destitute people have the opportunity to go live with their brother in a foreign country with everything paid for, so I do think some guilty conscience is merited
Really hoping he takes me up on it. I think I’d probably just cut him out of my life if he joins up. I dunno… feels like I’ve just lost my brother.
(CW: discussion of SA)
This is a topic I’m trying to be more informed about; as a vet I’m trying to keep every young person I know out of the US military.
I always like to start off by saying that the military will lie to you every step of the way, from the time you contact the recruiter until the VA denies your claim. All anyone at any step of the way is motivated to do is hit their numbers/quotas, regardless of you. Recruiters and detailers have a certain number of certain billets to fill, and they will slot you in one regardless of what you want. Recruiters can tell you you’ll be assigned to Combat Camera as a photographer, but then at boot camp you find out you’re going into infantry. Even if you’re smart, diligent, and read the contracts and fine print, they will find a way to screw you. In any investigation while in, they will do their best to deny you your rights and railroad you into admitting guilt at a non-judicial Article 15 hearing (where evidence is not required and hearsay is accepted) rather than a court martial.
Especially for femme people considering joining (mascs should also be aware and care), I always bring up Sexual Assault statistics. You can find official reports here (warning: US government website) https://www.sapr.mil/reports But, also actual numbers are 2-4 times higher than the US government estimates. On a more personal note, my cousin was sexually assaulted by the same man as multiple others at their command (who was never convicted), and suffers from severe enough PTSD that they’re 100% disabled (and was physically assaulted by a VA police officer at a VA hospital). I lost a friend at my last command who was sexually assaulted by their superior, and I still hate that I couldn’t do anything about it all these years later.
It is a machine that eats able-bodied young people and shits out MIC contractors and broken husks.
GI Rights Hotline has some resources about this.
https://girightshotline.org/en/military-knowledge-base/truth-in-recruiting/The Quakers have some resources as well:
https://quakerhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/QH_SgtAbeApr2015.pdfI will try to keep updating this with more resources as I find them.
I finally figured out that the best search engine query is “counter recruitment”
By We Are Not Your Soldiers, a group of antiwar veterans that speak in classrooms
https://www.beforeenlisting.org/homeFuck I’m really sorry to hear that… thank you so much for the resources this is really helpful!
"my moral code is also not nearly as strong as yours,
Ask if he would shoot a child if someone asked him to, or cover up a friend being SA’d to save his own skin. What does he think the military is? Free bed and breakfast in an exotic tourist spot?
Men think that they will get some masculinity reset by joining the military when working a service job at McDonalds is far more brave and respectable.
What does he think the military is? Free bed and breakfast in an exotic tourist spot?
Pretty sure that’s roughly what he’s picturing. He vaguely knows they’ve done plenty of bad things, but doesn’t see them as fundamentally a force of evil. I think I need to focus on dispelling this illusion.
Ask if he would shoot a child if someone asked him to
I’m considering this approach, but I worry being too harsh will just push him away from his “crazy communist brother”. Ultimately, I don’t think I’m going to turn him into a principled anti-imperialist over night, but maybe I can convince him that the military is a lot worse than he realizes as well as it not being in his best interest anyway? Like maybe if I focused on showing how a lot of veterans regret their decisions.
Men think that they will get some masculinity reset by joining the military when working a service job at McDonalds is far more brave and respectable
Absolutely. In his case I’m not sure how much is actually motivated by masculinity. Certainly some of it, but I think with him it’s the structure and feeling of purpose. Like I honestly think he would agree that working at McDonalds is more brave, but would just say he’s not very brave… I could be totally wrong about this though.
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Your brother’s commentary reminds me a lot of this recent article:
Two Days Talking to People Looking for Jobs at ICE.
The motivating force behind American career fascism would appear to be wanderlust
I actually read this one a few days ago. Was on my mind when I was talking to him. So fucking bleak… I don’t really have a great sense anymore of what the average american’s views are on ICE vs the military? My assumption is that ICE is viewed as “much more evil” by your average person whereas the military is largely worshiped outside of leftists? Maybe that’s changed a bit since I moved.
Your brother is looking to avoid the humiliation that young clueless people experience on the job market - is my guess. He doesn’t know his worth and doesn’t know his options. I feel like you can prevent this (and good on you for the offer you’ve given him). I’d pressure him a bit more by warning him of the military’s false promises.
Good luck
There are things the US military does a good job of advertising itself as that go beyond a job market. Brotherhood, camaraderie, and giving your life meaning are all things the US military spends millions if not billions making young people think it can provide.
I need the security and discipline that it will provide while I try to find something to dedicate myself to
This is a common misconception. The military does not give you discipline, it just screams you into compliance for the duration of your contract. When you return to the civilian world you will be the exact same person you are now, just with tinnitus (or worse) and four to five years older.
That “four to five years older” part is the secret killer. You’ll go to college with kids four to five years younger than you, join the workforce with four to five years less experience, etc. The military will try to tell you that your service experience will be an advantage, but this is a lie. Your time spent in the military will be an albatross hanging on your neck. There’s a reason why US vet homelessness is so high, and it’s not because military service looks great on a resume.
Tell him he’ll be much, much better off spending those four to five years getting real experience, certification, college credit, etc. It sucks and it’s a grind, but that’s basically everything in the world we currently live in.
but I think living somewhere other than our shit hometown would give him a lot of perspective on the world and help him maybe realize that what he actually needs is a community of some kind
There’s the key right there. Really push to try living out over where you’re at for a year at least before trying for the military. I don’t want to sound crass about it but this sounds like a case of dumb-young-guy-itus where you’re essentially at a frog sitting at the bottom of a well staring at the sky above wondering if what you know right now is truly all there is to it.
Help him get out of the well and things should straighten out with time
Is university not an option? All the things he is looking for can be found there, there’s a decent amount of money to be gotten just for going, and worse case scenario some debt that gets deferred for years isn’t the end of the world. If he doesn’t have a degree he could make the most of it by starting with community college before transferring to a four year, and if he does he could do graduate school
He tried doing a bit of online community college, but it didn’t go very well. I think a combination of not knowing what to do with his life and being depressed from being stuck in a pretty shit home environment. I’m hoping I can convince him to come live with me for a bit or at least give him some option to move out and maybe in that time he’ll be able to think more clearly about what he’d like to be doing.
You sound like your company would be really good for him and you’re a good sibling for looking for any options to steer him clear of this. Whatever happens you definitely tried.
The draw of structure and friendship is a stupidly strong one. It’s what made me consider it at 18/19
Thank fuck I didn’t.
Yea… he’s just turned 21 and went to one of those online high schools. Pretty narrow view of the world and very lonely. I should’ve put more effort in keeping in better touch with him over the years
I’m not a vet, but I’ve rubbed shoulders with plenty of vets.
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Every vet I know (10+) suffers from some physical ailment, be it tinnitus (very common), knee problems, back problems, and so. One dude I know is getting colonoscopies in his mid 30s because he slept right next to a giant pit where they burn their trash. And this isn’t even considering the PTSD. And the really fucked up thing is that most of the vets weren’t even deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq. Just being a MP in some random base at Louisiana was enough to give them brutal tinnitus or being a glorified truck driver in Germany was enough to give them knee problems because they jumped off a ledge that was too high that one time.
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The VA isn’t going to do shit. At best, it’s a completely underfunded byzantine system where you have jump through Kafkaesque hoops and basically know the right people who know how to game the system in order to actually get them to do what they should be doing. And every vet is going to have some physical ailment from their service (see 1).
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He will basically have no rights as a soldier. All that shit in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, not that we should seriously consider them, completely goes out the window when you enlist. To give you an example, in courts martial, you’re guilty until proven innocent. And this is also not getting into the fact that fragging isn’t just done for anti-war reasons. It’s very scary to be surrounded by people with guns who all understand that dead men tell no tales.
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SA is completely rampant and being a dude is not going to save him from being SA by his superiors. And going through the proper channels will not save him from “accidents” (see 3).
I also briefly tried explaining some issues with the US military, but it’s a bit hard to undo decades of american “education” in one conversation. He said “my moral code is also not nearly as strong as yours, and I have very little strong feelings toward very much at all outside of just trying to be a good person”. I assume he reached out to me because he’s having some doubts.
What branch is he thinking about enlisting? Not all branches are equal.
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All I will say is this.
Let’s ignore for a moment, the policies and morals of imperialism, and just address the situation purely from a self-interested perspective.
The army isn’t ‘just another job’, it is a four year contract, literally signing away 4 years of your life to, for most people, do a dead-end job that you would do in civilian life for significantly less pay, under management structures created by the most authoritarian people in the world, where power and its exercise is literally the only thing that matters.
Want to go to college while in the military? Too bad, only so many can go and you aren’t friends with the military administrator who makes that decision (unless he thinks he can hack the marines, they get to do college in the service). The reason for that is that the modern military is very top heavy, and they always need more grunts to do grunt work. If he is lucky he might just get to be a mechanic, where he will still be in a daily battle with administrators to get basic supplies, because of military contractor graft, and still won’t be qualified to work on civilian cars when he gets out. But more likely he will essentially be a truck driver/loader, a job that he could do in the U.S. economy for quite a bit of money, CDLs are always in demand. Every path the military for the non-degreed and unconnected is either an exaggeration, or there is a civilian equivalent that isn’t that difficult to break into if you have access to a technical college.
Morr than anything, joining the military without a very specific plan and connections is just placing a hold on your life, to be restarted with some horrific stress injury and maybe even some PTSD. It is one of the only options available that pretty much immediately eliminates four years of your life with basically no ability to pivot to something else. It is an arresting of choice, not an expansion of it.
I recently started working as a mail carrier and it ticks a lot of those same boxes except I’m providing a valuable service to the community instead of doing imperialism. unfortunately it doesn’t pay as well as the military, but you can make decent money with good benefits if you stick it out for a while, and it’s a union job so it’s almost impossible to get fired after probation. plus you’re not risking your life so some baby-killing weapons manufacturer CEO can buy another yacht
maybe he could also look into becoming a firefighter? that’s a lot harder I’m sure but it’s something to be proud of
I was going to say the same thing. You still get routine, exercise, arthritis, tinnitus, low pay, and an actual pension. Both get to drive around in the heat all day with no AC. I imagine both ship a similar amount of drugs. Either one can get you shot for being on someone else’s land, but I like to think it’s less likely with postal work.
I need the security and discipline that it will provide
That is not a reason someone comes to on their own.
I’ve been in this dead end job for about 2 years and my soul is decaying
That is worker alienation
I would consider attacking the source of these ideas. Who or what put that choice of words in his head “I need security and discipline”. It sounds like exactly what a recruiter would say.
They’re unhappy and alienated, a recruiter has recognised this and told him that the answer to his alienation is finding purpose, then told him that the military is the place to find your purpose in life, your true calling, a cause that matters, yadayadayada. It’s strong stuff and it manipulates the minds of the depressed and alienated quite effectively.
EDIT: Interestingly if you plug this question into google you get a 7 year old /r/communism thread
His brother shouldn’t join the military and would likely not get the benefits he describes from joining the military, but I think security and discipline are valid desires and for something struggling with mental illness, I think it’s actually a good sign that he has some awareness that he might benefit from those things. I’ve been told that there are people who do great without those things, but I cannot begin to imagine such a thing for myself.
That is not a reason someone comes to on their own.
Yea it honestly didn’t even sound like him. I’ll have a read through that thread, thanks a bunch!
I don’t know if the thread is any good to be honest it just surprised me to see it as the first google result for a question that a considerable number of parents and family members must search, it even autofilled my question from “talk someone out of” so it’s definitely a common question.
Edit: Looked it up, this exact phrase gets searched 20 times per day.
I know a guy who joined the Army for the same exact reasons. He was lonely, his life was a mess, he hated community college and his job prospects. The Army hooked him in with a pretty sweet compensation package but he’s still lonely, still struggling with work/school, and his life is still a mess. When he gets out it will probably still suck because it’s a job, not a community.
The military isn’t going to give your brother friends, a career, or a partner. The discipline it teaches him will be the same exact discipline his shitty job teaches him now. He might be able to find what he wants in the military but it’s going to be easier to find it outside of the military where he won’t have to live in barracks and ruin his body and mind for four years.
Get him to join the Coast Guard if he really has to be in the military
