Tag: wtf that’s awful

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the military begins recruiting ‘soldiers’ before they grow out of their booster seat

four year olds have toy guns and green army men

by grade school you’ve memorized the star spangled banner and the pledge of allegiance

in middle school you’re old enough to play first person shooters set in war times. you and your friends brag about how many kills you have, what guns are your favorite

in high school, rotc comes to visit. you get letters in the mail detailing scholarship and housing opportunities you could have

and if you’re poor or unsure of your future or in love with the idea of ‘protecting your country’ like the men in call of duty

every branch of the military has a sponsored blog on here because they want everyone 13 and up to know that soldiers are heroes and they should join them

To those of you who were wondering, this is a very US-specific post. What gets done to you guys is terrifying, and it’s really unfair.

Ah yes I remember how the different military branches visited my high school at multiple times throughout the year and set up their little pull up bars and had little competitions and the strong little ones got lanyards so the recruiters could pick them out

I dont even know if you’re joking or not

We’re not

We’re really not. What’s super terrifying, that I learned in my kinetic imaging major, is that our military actually hires game designers to design video games promoting our military, and markets them to kids as young as ten or twelve. Our government made friggin reality TV shows out of taking high schoolers and teaching them about the “awesome shit” that they could do for the military.
We watched one of the episodes in my Critical Media class, and it made me so physically ill that I actually had to leave the classroom and heave over the toilet while sobbing my eyes out.

This level of propaganda can and does lead to violence even amongst said children. Ask any Puerto Rican child that’s ever refused to say the “pledge of allegiance” (that’s the real name for what most kids are asked to recite every day before school starts) what happens to them exclusively via the other children who consider this blasphemy.

I took the ASVAB (an intelligence test that the military uses to see which branch you would do best in) as a joke in 10th grade to see who would score higher, myself or my boyfriend. He scored a 91, I scored a 93. The next thing I knew, I had recruiters calling my house and visiting my school. I was pulled out of class to talk to recruiters who came to my school specifically to see me. One recruiter from the Marines showed up at my house after school. When I told him that my mother wasn’t home and I wouldn’t allow him inside he tried to push open the door and said “That’s okay, she doesn’t have to be here for us to talk.” I had to tell him numerous times that I would not talk to anyone without my mother present. Then he sat in his car and waited for her to come home. Keep in mind that I am an overweight female and these recruiters were still trying to get me to sign. They were talking about special diets and training programs that would get me in shape in time for my 18th birthday so I could join. It was ridiculous. My mom said that she had never seen anything like it, and she had scored a 92 during college when she had taken it. (Then again, she had joined the Air Force almost immediately after taking the test, because that was her dream.) Shit is scary.

Oh god yes this brings back memories. I took the ASVAB on a lark to skip classes. I scored a 92 and my GOD the effort they put in to try and recruit me… This was pre 9/11 when I did it, but afterwards (post 9/11) they got WORSE. They told me whatever I wanted to do for a career they could help me but they were so PUSHY they freaked me out. I hid whenever I saw the recruiting staff on campus

I started getting a recruiter contacting me when I was 26 goddamn years old, while married to a PTSD’d out twice deployed vet. 

Eventually I responded to an email with “I’m fat, asthmatic and married to a human y’all ruined so leave me the fuck alone” and he did. 

At the same time he started sending my then husband letters about how they were going to call him back to service if he didn’t re-up in the National Guard (who also get deployed to the Middle East), which is actually a lie. nevertheless, my ex was terrified he’d get brought back in and burned all the letters so there’d be no record of him receiving them. 

Turns out that recruiter won a bunch of awards in the state for his recruitment statistics. Interesting ways he went about it, huh?

the marines kept calling my house and mailing things to me and my little sister (who is 12) trying to get us to sign up and my mom finally had to talk on the phone to the dude and tell him that i was a chronically ill trans kid and i would not nor would i ever be joining the us military and they finally quit calling

ive also been singled out and yelled at by multiple teachers in school for refusing to stand and say the pledge of allegiance over the years, told things like i was disrespectful and was a traitor to my country and whatnot. its especially bad and military-centric in the south (i currently live in NC). If you dont live in the us, look up the words to the pledge of allegiance. its vaguely reminiscent of Nazi propaganda, and they start children saying it every day from age 5. how many 5 year olds know what they are saying and agreeing to? none of them, thats how many.  

My high school required us to take the asvab. For two years afterwards I received near daily calls from the air force.

what the FUCK America??????

 I thought those stupid military reserves adverts the BBC shoves down our throats were bad!

#I pulled a 96 on asvab when I took it and they never stopped#It took until I was a college senior before they even slowed down#Mail and phone calls and visits to my home#My home where a past stalker had put the fear of abduction and aisle#Assault* in me#But did these enormous strange men with their implicit ability to violence and violation#Care that I was terrified and my mother was outraged? Of course not#My parents weren’t citizens yet when it started BTW#My potential service was leveraged as a way to make their naturalising faster and easier

I hate my country.

No but the dystopian hellhole gets worse. You absolutely CANNOT say anything against the military or criticize them in ANY way without running the risk of someone threatening to physically hurt you or even kill you. If you have something against the military, you keep it to yourself or next thing you know youre gonna have fifty teenage rednecks threatening to shoot you for betraying the country. No joke. This is terrifying.

The Pledge of Allegiance:

“I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America,
And to the Republic for which it stands,
One Nation, Under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.”

I didn’t have to look that up because I had to say it every day of school since Kindergarten.