Hacker News Reader

Comment by 0xbear | Hacker News Reader

To get the glorification you need to consider that those men and women are willingly exposing themselves to mortal danger. This kind of thing is hard to understand for someone who has spent all their life in an all white upper middle class neighborhood with not a worry in the world.

The US foreign policy might be haphazard and misguided, but don’t you dare shit on the very real sacrifice these kids are making.

View on HN

Except most of them don't expose themselves to any danger. The average fatality rate per 100k in the military is far, far, far below the rates incurred by fishermen, loggers, steelworkers, farmers, garbage collectors, landscapers, roofers, taxi drivers, etc. The military isn't in the top 20 for dangerous jobs.

I think that the fatality rate is lower than I would expect because of improvements to the medical care. If you look at ratio of injuries to deaths: in Afghanistan it's about 8:1, in Vietnam 2.5:1 and in WWII it's 1.5:1 [1]. If it stayed the same military would still be the most dangerous profession. I would argue it still is - sure injured soldiers survive but often without limbs or with serious health issues.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualt...

Are you suggesting that for any of the other professions I mentioned the non-fatal injuries are not serious? The fatality rate for military service is so low because few people in the military actually face any serious threat whatsoever. It should also be pointed out that the fatality rates in all of the other more dangerous professions was much higher in the past and has been steadily getting better due to improvements in equipment, procedures, and medical treatment. Military service never has been the most dangerous profession and current reality is no different. What is different is that there is not a half-billion dollar propaganda campaign behind getting people to volunteer to become loggers.

Annd logging is about 3 times as likely to kill you than the military. https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/15/dying-for-...

Also there are many, many jobs in the military that do not go anywhere near combat.

> The US foreign policy might be haphazard and misguided, but don’t you dare shit on the very real sacrifice these kids are making

Not to be ... well regarded as an ass, this is no longer the 1960s it might be time to rethink this line of thinking. Take modern day Iraq, was that worth the "sacrifice", what was the "sacrifice" actually for ?

You could extend this to almost any war the US has been involved in. Attacks on US soil (not counting terrorist actions) have been pretty rare. WW2 can be similarly deconstructed and the intentions found to be impure. Remember: USA does not get involved in wars for reasons of morality, despite what excuse they may present.

and yet if the policy is so haphazard and misguided wouldn't it be better to steer them away from a completely a wasted sacrifice?

Doubly so because their cost is measured in lives.

> wouldn't it be better to steer them away from a completely a wasted sacrifice

Pretty sure your OP is not opposed to that, but the "Little Johnny" language bullshit that his parent wrote.

I took it as a reference to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun

Maybe it would, but that’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is that they are serving their country to a far greater extent than most, and I’m not going to blame them because there’s some neocon shithead giving them idiotic orders. They sure as hell aren’t doing it for money.

It's my understanding that many are doing it for the money and other benefits. The benefits are the stuff of dreams for many who join. Medical, dental, education, housing, pension, genuine advancement prospects, coupled with a steady job that won't vanish in a weekend. These are big draws, especially to a person whose other option is a zero hours contract at a chain store. I've been a reservist (non-US) for almost 20 years; I certainly am not in it for anything involving serving my country, although of course everyone has their own motivations.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com