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Comment by silisili | Hacker News Reader

Surprised comments are so negative. I think it's a great thing to expand - the military can be an excellent career path, and this allows more people to take it should they choose.

I know many 40 somethings in way better shape than most 20 somethings. And all things considered, if I were someday somehow sent off to war, I'd much rather be surrounded by the former assuming equivalent fitness.

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I think the timing makes it harder to view this optimistically? although for voluntary enlistment I'm not personally concerned yeah.

Yeah it sounds great if you make up positive scenarios in your head for sure

Becoming an E-1 at age 40 isn't a "career path", it's a last resort for somebody who for whatever reason can't make more than $30K/year with the skills they've gained over the last 25 years, and for whom having functioning knees is less important than needing the money.

So they should just age out in poverty and die? Such people exist. To be clear, I'm 1000% against anything resembling a draft, but if an older person wants to, why stop them? A guy in my brother's medical doctor graduation class was 46 years old. Good thing nobody explained to him it was too late and he failed already.

In all seriousness, I do agree about the functioning knees part. But as long as it's voluntary, I don't see the downside.

It seems unhealthy for the sake of our military.

I'm not privy to the decisions about how staffing 42-year-old As infantry men is militarily wise, however.

> So they should just age out in poverty and die?

You referred to joining the US military as an E-1 at the age of 42 as a career path. As an Army brat, I can tell you that it absolutely is not. At that age, it absolutely is a job of last resort.

A career as a doctor has a lot more upside than an entry level grunt.

> So they should just age out in poverty and die?

I like how the options are "age out/die" or "be part of our disgusting military machine", no other options; people have no value unless they've already got money or can risk their blood.

Surely we can think of SOME option better than either of those?

They had 40 years of functioning knees, but it didn't get them to a place where army wages or army housing looks good. If the army breaks their knees, maybe they can get service related disability.

> Surprised comments are so negative.

It's midnight in the US on a workday, what would be more American than non-Americans complaining about America on American social media?

most career paths don't kill you for oil

Why not just join ICE? The acts you might have to commit there are probably less bad than what the military gets up to, and you don't get sent overseas?

Farms need fit 40 year olds too.

How many 40 year olds are looking for a career path as an infantryman?

unemployment and rising inflation make for a convincing force. Gotta provide somehow.

ain't nobody going 11B (infantry) at age 40.

maybe aviation electronics, or supply, medical.

marching with a pack and a gun ruins 20 year old knees.

If you start at 40, then you will lack the rank to ride in the truck.

Many people look for purpose and impact in their careers.

If one has impact in the military, what purpose is it serving under current administration and leadership? It's a hard sell from an ethical perspective.

Jobs that feel purposeless is a common complaint but actively serving evil?

I feel like there was a 14 word phrase that described the purpose, but I can't remember it right now...

> Surprised comments are so negative

it's because people cannot disassociate their own anti-war views with the benefits of a military career.

Are you admonishing people for not being selfish and making decisions which benefit themselves even if it puts them in a position where they can't say no to wronging someone else?

What does this even mean? "If you just ignore the fact that your job is murdering people for no reason, the benefits are great!" Why, exactly, should people "disassociate" that?

More than 80% of the US Army are noncombat roles. Only the naive or uneducated associate someone in the US Army with killing people.

Ah yes, your job is simply to carry the ammo for the guys slaughtering schools full of children, so to speak. Squeaky clean conscience!

Technically those were precision guided munitions carried by Air Force bombers. So you can enlist in the army with a clear conscience.

You're wrong. The girl's school was hit by multiple Tomahawks as video evidence shows. The US Navy is the only service capable of firing Tomahawks. The root cause is DoD intelligence folks failed to get recent surveillance on the girl's school near a former IRGC building before adding it to the target list. It was probably a target passed along from Mossad but no one in the US kill chain did any due-diligence that they're supposed to do. Furthermore, offensive weapons release by a drone or ship requires an officer to give the final order.

You are asking whether someone should not have picked the military career if it was the best fit for them, just because you are personally morally against what they do?

That's why i dont confound the military with the political aparatus's directing of said power. Because the military isn't murdering people for no reason - they are following (in the case of the west) a elected official's policy (which you are very welcome to dislike and oppose, as i do as well).

The negativity isn’t anti-military service. It’s because this specific expansion at this particular time for this current administration is all very ridiculous.

I think most people still are in support of the idea if military service even if that job may entail death.

People should look up what the US military has been up to for the past half a century if they think this particular time is an abberation.

However you choose to look at it, military service is still widely respected as a duty to the nation and a place were patriotic sentiments exist.

I’m not debating the right or wrong of it, but it just is so. I’m pretty sure the entire history of militaries have been full of people enlisting to die and kill on behalf of some random politician they don’t necessarily agree with. There’s nothing particularly notable happening differently.

But Trump being the clown he is, this is laughable.

Yeah just think of how great it would've been to serve in the past decades. Oh wait you'd still end up killing people in the Mideast - half way around the world, and in turn getting killed by them, all in endeavors that ultimately make the world a worse and less safe place. And that certainly includes America.

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