Demographics Poll: What is Your Military Status?
semiticgoddess
Member Posts: 14,903
- Demographics Poll: What is Your Military Status?51 votes
- Currently in the military (combat experience)0.00%
- Previously in the military (combat experience)7.84%
- Currently in the military (no combat experience)0.00%
- Previously in the military (no combat experience)11.76%
- No military background41.18%
- Only family/friends have military experience35.29%
- Other (please specify)3.92%
2
Comments
now in italy conscription is no more mandatory, but at the time that i was supposed to serve in the army it was.
i never used a firearm in my life and i had never been trained for war, still at the time i did my civil service, that was 6 months longer than the regular conscription, i was "technically" a military, the army payed for my food and other expenses, i was under the jurisdiction of the military court and so on, even if i did not see a single solder in the whole time of my civil service, i was up in the mountains helping the old people living there. this is the reason i vote other instead of no military background.
I was at some point stationed 5 months in Balkan - but it was peaceful at the time, so luckily I didnt see action (should have voted no action..). @semiticgod perhaps you could expand the poll by adding previously in the forces and stationed abroad?
according of what he told me when i was a child and to what he told to my mother in the end he even managed to stole a train and loading it with soldiers that like him was ethnically italians but politically in the austrian side and crossed the europe bringing them to italy. those people was under no jurisdiction and had no nationality as was no more citizens of the empire that had just collapsed and lost the territory from they were from, but was also not italians as they were former austrian citizens. i know for sure that the ones that was not lucky to get on the train stolen by grandpa had to spend years as war prisoners in crimea before italy finally was aware that they existed, reclaimed them as new italian citizens and a solution was found for their case.
so also that grandfather was somehow a "coward" hero, as he and the others on the train could avoid it and become immediately new italian citizens
Combat experience against drug dealers.
Shot in the back, wheelchair, physiotherapy, almost 100% now.
My former platoon killed the bastard some months ago.
Here's the funny part: a Human Rights organization tried to sue me for "inciting violence". Just because I've asked my platoon to get the bastard who shot me.
This was Brazil, ladies and gentlemen. Not anymore since the last presidential election.
Anyway: former military, a lot of combat experience and tangos down. The Navy qualified me as "unfit to serve" due to my wound, so I'm a civilian now. This year I'll make some tests to try to join the Firefighters' Department.
My (figurative) hat is off to those who serve. I think it's a sound choice for many.
Until a bullet misses your head for just a bit, until you drag a wounded companion by the assault vest leaving a trail of his blood on the street, until you carry the coffin of a man who died by your side or at your command, until you see yourself drowning in your own blood, until you see your wife crying like a motherless child by your side in a hospital.
Real life combat doesn't have respawn or reload. Every time you set foot on the field you're risking your life and willing to kill another person.
It's not an adventure.
when the war is between 2 nations a military has to try to kill other solders, not criminals, but people whose only fault was to born at the other side of a border line.
in a regular war a soldier not only will face all the things that you tell about, but will actively try to cause them to other human beings. and the trend modern war is to have more and more civilians killed, more old people and babies killed, there is no more honor or fair means in modern warfare.
so a soldier, even if he is lucky to avoid personal injury, has to face his own conscience cause war is the most brutal thing that humanity can do and even if a soldier has not decided himself to initiate the war the damage and killing is performed by his hands and by the weapon that he is using.
i repeat, your case was different as you was facing criminals, people that had decided to be so and has to face the consequences of their own decisions.
Thank you for your service.
I don't know what your day-to-day job looked like on the ground, but I'm guessing that your superiors wouldn't have assigned you to transportation duty unless they needed those trucks moving that material. It might not have been glamorous or dramatic, but it was impactful nonetheless.
I used to work at the homeless shelter, helping homeless people rejoin the workforce and get back on their feet and become self-sustaining. But most of my job, like most of all of the jobs of the volunteers and employees at the shelter, was bureaucratic. Making a difference in the world isn't always flashy or photogenic.
Merlin, the probably main character (in a cast of hundreds, the character appendix winds up at like 80 pages by the 8th or so book), even says "amateurs study tactics, but professionals study logistics." when unveiling the aforementioned gamble.