We getting into strawman shit, or are you just not paying attention? The suicidal shit came before the military, not because of it. I’ve got plenty of real faults if you want to make a dig at any of them - no need to make shit up.

You’re missing the point - not everyone has the privilege to consider the cause.

Even now as a civilian in healthcare, which sounds infinitely more benign, I’m stuck working for a different flavor of orphan grinding machine in exchange for a paycheck. …but does that mean I should personalize the evil shit this industry does, like refuse care if someone’s too poor, or do provide care but financially ruin them in the process? I’m a surgical tech, soon-to-be nurse: I can’t control any of that shit. Should I quit in protest? Cuz that won’t change anything outside of severely reducing the quality of my own life.

Same is true of the military: you milk a living out of a shitty system. Are there other options? Sure, but the vast majority of those are shitty too.

I left “I’m a fucking idiot” in there for a reason. Had I played my cards better in the first place I wouldn’t have been stuck weighing whether I should kill myself or put myself into that kind of ethical disaster… which probably would have ended with killing myself anyway.

Lucky for me, they made me a medic, so I never had to find out.

Veteran here. It’s more like: “I’m a fucking idiot, but I could use some healthcare, and that college thing sounds nice.”

Plan B was to kill myself, so I don’t feel bad about enlisting - I got what I needed from it.

You’d be amazed how few people join because of cliches like patriotism. That said, it’d be way less fucked if people could get things like healthcare and education without needing to agree to blow themselves or others up.