I can understand your viewpoint, there’s no shortage of evidence to support that line of thinking. “Shit happens” doesn’t quite cover it when said shit that happened involves maiming and loss of innocent life. There’s a wide range of personalities and motivations that can compel a person to sign an enlistment contract or make whatever the dark pact is that results in commissioning as an officer. Some parts of the population are over- or under-represented due to the availability of other opportunities so it’s not a perfect representation of the US but you do get to meet a lot of people who would otherwise probably never be within the same state as you.
My experiences mostly put me in contact with people who joined up to do some good in the world but I know that’s not universal and even then, there are times when almost everyone will fall short of the ideal. I believe it’s due to circumstance than any strength of character that the stuff that I got wrong never resulted in death, injuries or significant damage. That being said, the people I’ve known and respected took their moral and ethical responsibilities seriously because they cared about the outcome of their actions and the impact on everyone involved.
Might not be much point to this and I’m just thinking with my keyboard. My best attempt to try and tie this together is that we don’t always get things right, sometimes people set out to do harm to others and get what they’re looking for but it’d be a mistake to look at the US military as a monolith since there are good people doing their best to form it into what they believe it could and should be.
I can understand your viewpoint, there’s no shortage of evidence to support that line of thinking. “Shit happens” doesn’t quite cover it when said shit that happened involves maiming and loss of innocent life. There’s a wide range of personalities and motivations that can compel a person to sign an enlistment contract or make whatever the dark pact is that results in commissioning as an officer. Some parts of the population are over- or under-represented due to the availability of other opportunities so it’s not a perfect representation of the US but you do get to meet a lot of people who would otherwise probably never be within the same state as you.
My experiences mostly put me in contact with people who joined up to do some good in the world but I know that’s not universal and even then, there are times when almost everyone will fall short of the ideal. I believe it’s due to circumstance than any strength of character that the stuff that I got wrong never resulted in death, injuries or significant damage. That being said, the people I’ve known and respected took their moral and ethical responsibilities seriously because they cared about the outcome of their actions and the impact on everyone involved.
Might not be much point to this and I’m just thinking with my keyboard. My best attempt to try and tie this together is that we don’t always get things right, sometimes people set out to do harm to others and get what they’re looking for but it’d be a mistake to look at the US military as a monolith since there are good people doing their best to form it into what they believe it could and should be.