I don’t want to give too many details so as to avoid doxing myself. I never left the US and wouldn’t have done so if asked, but fundamentally, I don’t think that really matters. It’s all part of the same machine. It was well before I became anything that could be described as communist, but all that means is that it hit that much harder when I had to come to terms with what I’d been a part of.
Maybe that’s the sort of thing you can’t ever make up for, but I’ll spend the rest of my life trying anyway. If anyone on this site never wants anything to do with me again after having read this, I understand.
I was in the Marines and took part in the occupation of Iraq. Some people don’t want anything to do with me, and honestly, respect. But I’m generally welcome here. And people like us can report from the belly of the beast and speak to specific evils, we need to get this information out. I’ve talked at least 3 people out of joining up, and many many people into considering that the military might not actually be a good thing and or turned them against war.
Thanks for the response. I’d like to hear about some of the stuff you’ve seen, if you don’t mind.
Gonna be honest, it’s too long of a story and I don’t really want to get doxxed. But here’s the cliff notes.
Insane amounts of money going to even the most basic things. Like contractors can just slurp up mountains of cash just to build a plywood shack.
Intel on various oppositional country’s governments where various industrial parts that have multitudes of uses are reported as “possibly nefarious”. This then gets leaked to the media to say “they’re building wmd’s”.
Really gross abuse of rank and file service members.
Extreme alcoholism and sexual assault.
Learned how the whole apparatus has its tentacles in every country around the globe.
Question, was there really as much shitty nu-metal being blared out of humvees as I imagine there was
Yeah… I knew guys who’d do that. Smh. My team and I would just sing shitty off key renditions of random songs.
while I understand the hostility people show towards the direct actors of the will of empire, I don’t understand why so many leftists act surprised that we give people front row seats to imperial violence and then act shocked when all of the propaganda can’t cover up the shock and horror of what they’re actually doing. For every Aaron Bushnell out there who went as far as self immolation, there must be at least 10,000 more people serving empire who are at least in doubt of what they’re doing. If someone wants to hit the “switch teams” button, I say welcome them in. I can’t imagine what that level of guilt must feel like, but if they’re willing to join the left, they’ve already done quite a bit of growth already
Honestly, that’s bad, but you’ve brought so much more pain into the world with such an ugly ass avatar
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But nah really, rehabilitation is about realising things you didn’t before. We live in a big deceitful world that tells you your whole life that doing that kind of work is moral, and I think a lot of people here are very quick to condemn others for not exiting the womb and immediately being aware of world politics and class consciousness. It also takes bravery to face up to your past mistakes and admit they were wrong.
Glad to have you on side now, comrade.
What’s important is you realize now what horrors you were contributing to, no matter how far removed from it. It’s not an irredeemable stain of sin; it’s something you did before you knew any better, because you had been lied to your entire life, and are in fact still constantly lied to. You just understand they’re lies now.
Thanks. It’s just been kind of weighing on me since I occasionally see the sentiment of “all current and former US soldiers should be killed” get upvoted and I don’t really consider myself any better than a former troop just because someone else was paying me for the same kind of work.
Nah, jk. Supporting the imperial war machine is the default for a lot of people, it would only make you irredeemable if you refused to actually change and improve. If we only allowed the “pure of heart, never done any wrong” people be communists, we’d have maybe a dozen people, and a dozen people can’t succeed in a revolution.
We also have
Get on your knees and pray 10 Communist Manifestos and then maybe Marx will grant you passage to the great socialist state above
Better 10 Communist Manifestos than 10 Das Kapitals
Reciting Das Kapital is what it felt like learning the creed as a kid lol
I sentence you to a thorough noogieing for being a nerd, because that was the real crime.
Your profile picture is you getting noogied.
Hey I just wanted to say: definitely don’t use your skills and knowledge to sabotage the US military, that would be really bad.
The only thing you should confess for is having an awful pfp that makes you stick out like a gangrene thumb
I’m really worried that my only option for work will be with a defense contractor. Those are the only places hiring for my field lately.
I sort of have a conspiracy theory that these tech layoffs lately are so that MICs can have more/cheaper programmers as the U.S. ratchets up for war with China.
As someone in systems engineering, almost all jobs are fucking defense in all of the west. Everything else in engineering is outsourced to other countries through imperialism. It’s why I’m doing train stuff. You gotta deal with companies that are in the top 10 evil companies of the world, but I avoid it as much as possible. The defense contractors even found ways to integrate working in the public transport sector to bring it under their umbrella. Sucks
I sincerely hope that you find some other work. If you can’t, I hope you find it within yourself not to sacrifice the lives of others for your own economic gain.
I’m not at the point that I’m would consider selling my soul like that, but I’m disabled and my meds cost 7k a month. No good job means no good healthcare means I can’t continue living. Right now I have insurance through the state and I’m trying to get on SSDI, but I don’t know how long those will last.
Honestly, I consider working for MICs just for the purposes of doing faulty, net-negative work.
Do all the calculations in imperial instead of metric. Go on fox news and blow the whistle on the MIC being unpatriotic when challenged.
Yeah it sucks where I live like 90% of the STEM jobs are military contractors. My sister who’s an engineer was struggling to find work and was trying to avoid companies that make bombs. She landed a job at a place she thought mostly just civilian work, only to discover a few months in that no indeed they do some military stuff.
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I think it’s just that pervasive because there’s nothing else we build anymore. A company I used to work for that was decent got bought out by an MIC contractor. I was still a lib at the time but quit anyway because the new management were a bunch of assholes that removed a bunch of safety protocols because they slowed things down.
At least you can speak directly to the bullshit of the empire and not just speculative. That knowledge is invaluable to exposing the empire’s lies. You learned and grew there’s respect in that. You saw first hand the bullshit - how the sausage is made so to say.
Use that stuff to keep talking to people and helping them grow. You’re amongst comrades here.
Thanks, appreciate it (and everyone else who voiced their support). If anyone fresh out of college comes to me for advice, the very first thing I’m going to tell them is “Do not work for the MIC.”
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I was in the Army before 9/11, with the invasion forces of Iraq in 2003 and the year zero occupation all before the age of 22. So yeah… you’ve got less to be uncomfortable about that some of us.
