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Comment by abduhl | Hacker News Reader

You’re just complaining. The world exists as it does now and broad generalized complaints like yours are often used to support positions which actively harm those you purport to help.

Say we take away the military on-ramp to class mobility. What can we do for those trapped in poverty whose only ticket out was enlistment? Your answer should be focused on what we can practically do as the world stands now, not in your fictional utopia where militaries aren’t necessary and education is free. The military is offering “good” and you’re looking for “perfect.” We all know the saying.

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Things don't get better if you don't complain. All of my siblings have come back from military service (marines, army rangers, navy) worse off, and the benefits in no way compensate them for what they lost. I recommend it to no one. The best military service is the service you did not perform. The VA is notorious for being terrible. The US has non profits for wounded/disabled veterans because care and support (most importantly around mental health) the government should be providing isn't. Since 2001, more than 114,000 veterans have died by suicide [1] [2]. Over 40,000 veterans are homeless on any given night [1]. This is a pipeline problem; stop putting people into the pipeline.

I max out my contributions to progressives, similar PACs, and canvass door to door at every election I can for those who champion for these public goods (healthcare, education) to be universal. I'm doing my part to sway anyone I can from putting themselves through a grinder for services they should be entitled to without military service. Yes, the world sucks current state, and yes, I agree whole heartedly that complaining is not enough.

[1] https://stopsoldiersuicide.org/vet-stats ("Veterans are at 50% higher risk of suicide than their peers who have not served." ; "Depending on branch, up to 31% of service members develop PTSD after returning from combat." ; "The rate of suicide for veterans in the LGBTQ+ community is up to 7x higher than for non-LGBTQ+ veterans." ; "More than 40% of female veterans report experiencing military sexual harassment or military sexual trauma.")

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/us/911-suicide-rate-veter... ("Suicides among post-9/11 veterans are four times as high as combat deaths, a new study finds.")

The military is no picnic and it’s no savior. It’s not billed as a day spa and the people who join up are without question taken advantage of. It’s hard on many families, including mine and yours apparently. Support isn’t there once you’re out. Support probably isn’t there while you’re in either.

But there’s nowhere else to go for someone stuck in the cycle of poverty. They don’t have money. They go to one of the few places that still recognizes that cash isn’t the only currency the young have to give and offer their bodies and lives. If you’re just as likely to get shot in the streets of Chicago as overseas, well you might as well get your tuition paid for.

The groups you support (progressives, similar PACs, politicians) have recently started telling the world about how poverty is systemic and how useless poor people’s actions are in the face of such a fucked up system, so how can you sit here and tell me that these people need to find a new way to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps while taking away their army issued boots?

> The groups you support (progressives, similar PACs, politicians) have recently started telling the world about how poverty is systemic and how useless their actions are in the face of such a fucked up system, so how can you sit here and tell me that these people need to find a way to pull themselves by their own bootstraps while taking away their army issued boots?

Much easier to get out of poverty with universal healthcare and subsidized education versus going to the sandbox and coming back with PTSD just to get your GI Bill and Tricare. Don't tell me it isn't affordable, the productivity and wealth demonstrably exists. The system chooses cannon fodder over plowshares. It is very easy to sit here and tell you this with every other OECD country providing models to crib off of.

> Much easier to get out of poverty with universal healthcare and subsidized education

Isn't that the case though? Medicaid provides great healthcare for those in the lower income brackets (my family used it for the majority of my childhood years) and most colleges are basically free (community college and some state schools will actually pay you).

I don't think the ability to pay for education or healthcare is really the reason for poverty here.

Establish the other pipeline out of poverty then come after the military. Or, alternatively, establish the other pipeline and let the government compete for young people. Don’t just try to fuck poor people by taking their options away and then promising that a different option is “coming.”

Sounds like your siblings had tough deployments or unit issues, which is certainly a thing and the ugly side of the tradeoff of service.

But, most of what you point out is a veteran issue, and I 100% agree, but that's not the military's fault, its the VA and the executive/legislative branch.

Arguably no branch of the government is more invested in a strong veteran support network than the military itself, as the dynamic you point out is well known, and keeps people from service for probably good reasons.

What are the services people should be entitled to and who should pay for it? I am just curious how this works.

We already pay for most of those services, it's just that right now, we often get to pay twice for them, in both the upfront dollar cost, and all the non-dollar suffering that untreated medical issues, chronic homelessness, and generational crime cause.

I thought it is healthcare, education (enumerated) and maybe others. Now I am even more confused.

> What can we do for those trapped in poverty whose only ticket out was enlistment?

You just give them the fucking food, education, and healthcare. Look at the current US military budget and tell me that's impossible.

The military is not offering "good" — it's offering the roll of a dice. Sure, one side says "good" but you've got a "death" side too. Wealthy people do not have to roll this dice at all.

The majority of our lives has featured a "war" almost entirely based on false pretenses. Thousands of soldiers died. Do you think their families were happy about having this on-ramp to class mobility?

I had recruiters coming to my house and deriding my living conditions to get me to enlist when I was 17. It's predatory, abhorrent, and not even remotely "good."

> You just give them the fucking food, education, and healthcare. Look at the current US military budget and tell me that's impossible.

It’s impossible.

Here is some analysis:

https://hwfo.substack.com/p/peace-in-ukraine-and-universal-h...

This almost entirely ignores the phenomenon of insurance companies inflating healthcare costs and making incredibly large profits. Health insurance industry profits ($31bn in 2020) are almost equivalent to what your link says the entire military expenditure for the European theater is ($35bn in 2018).

Not to mention the bureaucratic, political, and productivity costs plus the costs to employers and what individuals pay out of pocket.

>It’s impossible.

Nothing is impossible. Well, except certain classes of time travel into the past.

Higher education funded through government spending is not a utopia, it already exists in many places and would not be prohibitively expensive for the United States if there was a will.

Try it first, then compare. I had free college, it was mostly a waste of time for everyone. It was not a bad college, it was the best in the country, the others were worse.

In many cases you get what you pay for. In my case it was approximately zero. From what I hear from new hires, the quality these days it's worse, they are mostly diploma factories.

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