I'm a veteran. Thank us by agitating to not make more of us, especially the wounded and broken.
*I get grumpy on veterans day... For reasons.
Discussion
Respect 🫡
Understood and you’re not the first to set this example. We can’t understand unless you all are willing to be this frank, so it is appreciated. My uncle never wanted to discuss Vietnam, and he earned two Purple Hearts there.
My time in the army was painful because of how awful it was, but that was nearly exclusively because of piss-poor leadership. I was rarely in harm's way due to my MOS, but, I spent nearly every waking minute outside of my job (I loved my job) fighting to maintain just the barest whiff of sanity in a sea of ego, narcissism, and ugly self-agrandizement.
I love how you can still say you loved your job despite the pervasive toxicity otherwise.
My direct supervisors were really, really good at thier jobs, really good leaders, and really good at deflecting most of the BS so the rest of us could GSD. (get "stuff" done) Most of the other leadership in my 5 years of active duty plus some in the national guard was laughable incompetent, dangerously incompetent, maliciously incompetent, maliciously narcissistic, dangerously narcissistic, or just downright scum.
When I talk to other veterans, they think I'm lying about how bad it was, and at this point, I probably am not being as realistic as I should since I try to inject some humor into the telling, or, I'd just end up raving angrily.
But, still, I loved my job. I know I saved people's lives with the work that I did.
It is an honor to hear some of your experience. Thank you for your candor. We can’t move forward on fantasy and fiction.
You can, just not in a direction of peace and honor.
The other way is not forward progress IMHO, but I realize this debatable to those for whom progress is a zero-sum game.