I really want to talk about how military family’s are treated. So first of all there are ALOT of stereotypes about soldiers, people who literally serve and put their lives at risk for our countries, for example All of them are poor. When schools find out that a child is from a military family they automatically put them down as a child who needs help buying things such as revision materials, school trip fees etc. At first glance this is a good thing right? But from experience, yes it’s good to get free stuff obviously however it’s extremely frustrating and embarrassing to both the actual family member who is in the army (my dad) and the child (me) because people think that you’re broke when your not.
Another thing is how do they know your parents wages, they assume that your military family member is just a little soldier who shoots guns when in reality there are a lot of different ranks that changes your wages for all they know they could be a captain. In general people who aren’t in a military family just do not care how they talk about the military and I think it needs to be talked about more, more children and teenagers need to be more respectful when talking about military and schools and government need to stop making military family’s into some poor helpless families who can’t pay for anything it’s insulting.
I’m saying this because of a situation that happened where dad asked me about revision sources and where he had to pay for them and so I asked my teacher and she told me I was a “premium kid” meaning I didn’t have to pay and it was because my dad was is a veteran and they didn’t even tell us. 🤭🤭
This!
Also, most of them these days are black or some other minority background and often coerced into the militia by the equivalent of bribing. Don’t get me started on the present day US militaries transphobia/biphobia/homophobia, and misogyny.
Then, they don’t even get fair treatment and fair wage for their service to x country.
It’s not condoning imperialism or colonialism to demand all armies treat their soldiers like people.
Obviously, the US, Europe at large, Canada and the UK have very different equally bad takes on this.
But, it’s possible to condemn colonialism (I do with a passion), and want all workers including those serving in the militias of the world to be treated better.
Disclaimer: I don’t go here, technically, I just read too much. @mollafer works in military intelligence though, should she like to speak on this. (No pressure).
So I'm not from a military family, so I can't really speak on a lot of this. But at my unit, we do get a lot of donations (school supplies, food, etc) to give to our service members who may need them. It's not forced on them, just kinda take what you need if you need it. But generally, the opinion around the unit is positive towards the public who drop this stuff off. We know it's done out of kindness, at the end of the day.
I do believe that the salary in the Army can be kinda low, but I believe most people, military or not, would like to be paid more. My civilian job is working at a school, and I get paid more on a drill weekend than 2 weeks at work, so I'm pretty happy with my compensation, but I'm also saying this as an officer, not enlisted.
Some enlisted struggle, some don't. My specialist in my intelligence section makes more than $200k a year. So depending on their skills and background, a lot of them are doing quite well.
I've really enjoyed my experience in the military so far. There can be rough patches, but as a woman, I can say I've been treated better in the military than I have as a regular woman in the outside world. The men I work with show great respect to me, and admire me. One of my proudest moments was when my male specialist in my section came up to me and said he greatly respects my leadership style and appreciates how I treat him as a human being, because there's quite a few officers that don't treat their enlisted with the same respect.
But anyway, thanks @meerawrites for including me in this discussion! I hope my opinion contributed a little to the overall conversation :)
