Ton of people in the notes listing off the ways military veterans suffer. Sure, fine, most of that's true, a lot of it is very common, some of it is nearly universal. But i want to re-emphasize my main point: the enlisting-age people reading this are MORALLY SUPERIOR TO KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE AND SHOULD ACT ACCORDINGLY.
I wanna take a moment to speak directly to the kind of person who*wants* to enlist, the self-described patriots. Consider the following:
1: it is a fact that US military intelligence gathering is imperfect
2: it is a fact that US military intelligence analysis is imperfect
3: it is a fact that military personnel are regularly ordered to carry out airstrikes, drone strikes, artillery and mortar strikes, and raids based on bad intel or bad analysis.
4: it is a fact that innocent people, including children, die because of these imperfections.
5: it is a fact that working-class Americans in no way benefit from these deaths. No one benefits from these deaths.
6: it is a fact that working-class Americans don't benefit from the deaths of enemy combatants, either. Does some ISIS fascist shitstain deserve to taste an Abrams tread? Yeah, he deserves that. But the US is largely responsible for turning him into an ISIS fighter and creating the socioeconomic conditions that made the war he's fighting happen. And the American people are not made safer when Uncle Sam introduces him to the afterlife. The civilians around him are not made safer by the drone strike that kills him because they'll probably die in the explosion too. The US going around killing people, even "objectively bad" people, is the pot calling the kettle dirty.
7: it is a fact that, even if you never deploy or directly support combat missions, you will be partially responsible for this and other forms of violence.
The US military is a morally abhorrent organization. To join is to sell your soul to the Devil, almost literally. You. Are. Better. Than. That.
