• @dfc09
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    41 year ago

    Yep, I deployed and my wife and I stayed faithful to each other. The military just has a way of convincing terrible matchups to get married. I started dating my wife a bit before I joined, and basic training had me ready to marry her as soon as I graduated. Luckily she was smarter than me and we waited a few years and worked out about 40,000 problems before we actually got married.

    But I see a lot of young soldiers who aren’t smarter. The military can make you feel very alone, make you miss your friends or girlfriend super badly, make you want to make a big romantic gesture when you get back to them, make you want to lock in a partner to face the world with. So yes the 18-20 year olds go marry somebody they really shouldn’t have, and over the years they grow apart because they were only held together by expectations. Then when they get split up by a deployment, they both want to experience another person consequence free.

      • @dfc09
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        21 year ago

        I agree, but very few self respecting adults are going to voluntarily sign up for a combat MOS, and we gotta keep those gears turning on the military industrial complex!

        For real though, I got lucky. Joined at 19, thought I wanted to kill people, didn’t deploy until I was 23 and much more in the mindset of “what the fuck this is not me at all”

        A lot of the younger guys were vocally disappointed when they found out it was just a peacekeeping mission, low risk. Us “older guys” just said thank God, we’d like to go back to our families at the end of this.

        • @[email protected]
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          fedilink
          31 year ago

          No one is actually mature enough at the age of 18. It’s society’s norm for matureness because you have to set a somewhat low enough limit for things like this, like enlisting.

          Im reality, you mature completely when you’re about 25.