I found your entry interesting thus I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog …

If someone’s negligence costs you money, all bets are off.

P.S. Tooting your own horn about your intelligence in order to “win” a fight on the internet (something that never happens) is generally regarded as poor form.

And if you couldn’t guess that ahead of time, you either never have read the comments on this site, or you’re not as intelligent as you profess to be.

What I said is that for many (not all) military service is the only way out of a bad situation.
Two of my best friends joined the Marines in the early 1980′s, not for love of country, but because they couldn’t find jobs. They served admirably.
To ignore this reality is not worthy of a man of your intelligence.
I know you are intelligent, because you’ve mentioned it several times, but just because others have chosen not to do the jobs your soldiers do, doesn’t mean that they are incapable of doing them.
If anything, the training our military affords is testament to the fact that just about anyone can be trained to do just about anything.
Actually, I and my neighbors do do just about everything when it’s over 100° F…I live in the Phoenix Metro area.
Really, the superiority complex is wearing a bit thin, no?

If money were not a factor, do you really think the government would use money as an inducement to enlist?

Thanks for making my point to Bees for me. All too often members of the military have a low opinion of the civilian population. If you wonder why some civilians behave the way they do towards you, try reassessing how you may behave towards them.

Maybe it never occurred to you that many overweight civilians are ex-military, huh?
Probably not, because someone of your intelligence would not make such an overgeneralized statement…and someone with your military discipline would know when to stop (and spell my name correctly, part of our rules of engagement around here).

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For whatever it’s worth, you’ll never have my effusive, gushing praise. (Some need it. For people like you who don’t, it’s patronizing.)

But you absolutely have my respect. And I’d put down pretty good odds that the vast majority here feel the same.

To clarify: I do not expect any special recognition or extra sympathy just because I got cheated on while I was deployed. Obviously, it happens everywhere and can happen to anyone. I don’t write this message on every piece of mail that mistakenly gets delivered to my house; I only wrote it because of the message the letter was delivering. I hope you can see the difference between looking for extra sympathy and taking an opportunity to point out something very ironic.

Additionally, if you look back, I believe I actually defended the “WoW players” by saying that the labels some people give soldiers are just as unfair as the labels many people give them.

I do not look for and do not ask for special treatment. I do not ask for military discounts. I am embarrassed when someone thanks me for my service; I’m just doing my job and I have no romantic notions about what it entails. Contrary to popular belief, most soldiers feel the same way. I will differ on one point, however. Not all soldiers joined for “easy money, etc.” There is no easy money in the Army. While the salary comparisons between the military and civilian sectors have evened over the past couple of decades when you factor in all the additional benefits (housing, insurance, etc), it doesn’t take into account the hours dedicated. I don’t keep regular hours; in fact, in the past month and a half, as my unit prepares to deploy again, I have worked 14 hours a day and have come in to continue working a few hours a day on the weekends. I have been woken up in the middle of the night to take care of soldier issues on multiple occassions. While deployed, I work 7 days a week for 10-24 hours a day (no, that’s not a typo) for a continuous 12-15 months (with 15 days of mid-tour leave somewhere in the middle). This is all on salary. I don’t get overtime and neither do my soldiers. We calculated our hourly wage once while sitting around bullshitting once but decided that even our conservative estimate was so paltry, we didn’t even want to calculate a more realistic number.

Lastly, and this might catch me more flak than anything else, but what I am more than anything is honest. As humbly as I can possibly say this, because like I said, I really don’t want any special recognition, but at the same time, I like to keep the record straight: I can/could do just about any job out there; not everyone can do mine. Unlike the stereotypes being thrown out around here, I come from upper-middle class; I went to a private high school; my English teachers wanted me to be a writer; my math teachers wanted me to be an engineer or economist; my science teachers wanted me to become a doctor or physicist. I chose to become a soldier. That’s something that not everyone can do. One half of one percent of the US population has deployed to a combat zone and of those, only 20% are true combat soldiers. In a time when people refuse to go grocery shopping when it’s over 100 degrees and opt to have their cars towed rather than change their own flat tire, my soldiers have the mental fortitude to endure the most austere and uncomfortable conditions, the intellect to juggle ridiculously convoluted rules of engagement written by lawyers and politicians who have never felt a bullet fly past their ear or the concussion of an IED going off next to their vehicle, and the physical toughness to carry huge amounts of weight for hours on end and stay healthy enough to do it for months at a time. This is even more impressive when you consider that half the country can’t do any of these things simply by virtue of being too fat.

Anyway, I hope the source of your resentment has more to do with the people who shower soldiers with praise and gratitude rather than an experience with soldiers who demand it. Most are like me and want no extra attention and I try to impress that quality on all of my soldiers.

And Cathanz B, as far as the end of my last post, I can see where it seemed a little confrontational, as if I was threatening violence. I assure you that was not my intent. My only point is that most people would never say many of the things they write here because they lack the fortitude for confrontation of any kind. I should be used to it by now, but it still amazes me how ridiculously ignorant, racist, etc people can be in an anonymous environment. And yes, this is my real name, because I believe in accountability for words and actions. Thank you for the kind words; I really am over it and am grateful for what happened. It was exactly what I needed to see all the other injustices I had been putting up with for so long.

Like I said before, my only intent in submitting this was to share something ironic and humorous with other people. I thought it was hilarious and just wanted to share it with all of you. I really didn’t think my motives, agenda, innocence, etc. would be picked apart and stretched out of proportion so.