If you’ve ever thought about becoming a soldier, chances are you have a pretty good idea on what that entails. Even if you don’t know anyone that has served in the military, books, movies, TV shows, and many other sources of military life is plenty.
Is that why the Army put out a terrible video named “Becoming a Soldier | GOARMY”?
Why Is Army Recruiting is Big Money?
Everyone knows by now the United States spends way more than the rest of the world on its defense. President Trump signed $1,300,000,000,000 for the Department of Defense in 2018 for the following two years. No other nation comes close to that amount.
But where does a good portion of that money go?
One of the best things America has to curb its potential abuse of power is its all volunteer military. Shockingly, an all volunteer military isn’t that new of an idea. Britain abolished conscription in 1960 and was one of the first countries to do so. The United States followed in 1973.
During Vietnam, the draft only made up 25% of the United States military, but half of the Army’s battle deaths were draftees.
And guess what! It turns out an all volunteer force was more motivated and stayed in longer than when people were forced to kill and die for The Chicken Hawks.
Right before COVID-19 had its big impact on America, the Army had a recruiting budget of about $157,000,000. The money could be better utilized, thanks to targeted advertising (the Army Times article doesn’t go into detail, but social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter can target its users for anyone – for example, the Army could target 16-18 year old males who like a “Military War Heroes” type page).
That money is used for way more than targeting, however. The Army’s many propaganda videos aren’t just propaganda – some are just bad.
The “Becoming a Soldier” Video, Line by Line
“Before I joined the Army, I thought it was a bunch of robots going about their day, but now that I’m in, I have a lot of opportunities to do a bunch of cool things.”
Notice how the video starts off with a negative connotation towards soldiers, but the soldier’s follow up to that statement has no correlation to what he stated at the very beginning.
It turns out that pretty much every business that has billions of dollars at its disposal can give you “a lot of opportunities to do a bunch of cool things.” The Army isn’t special for that.
I did get to shoot a live AT-4 rocket launcher, and I can full admit that was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. However, the cost of that experience, just for the AT-4, was $1,480.64 (the price is from the year 1999, which inflates to $2,314.94 in 2021). There were numerous live AT-4s shot on the range that day.
I also found it funny that this took place right after I got back from my first deployment!
“The Army will make you mentally fit much more than a civilian life because it teaches you the most true and greatest form of discipline, that’s discipline under stress and chaos.”
I don’t know how many times I’ve seen soldiers panic under “stress and chaos,” even during training. Training can help in dealing with stress and chaos, but it is down to the individual person whether or not that stress and chaos will be too much.
Also, if everyone who has been in the Army has been “taught” the “most true and greatest form of discipline,” then wouldn’t the vast majority of veterans be extremely successful in their post-military lives? Wouldn’t life as a civilian be a complete piece of cake?
Honestly, life in the Army was pretty easy. All you have to do is show up and do your job. If you can do that, you know how much money you’re getting every two weeks and your housing, health care, and 3 meals a day are all taken care of.
It’s way harder to keep your life together in the civilian world. Just remember who you are going to kill and die for in the military.
“The calmness, the mental tenacity, when you think of tenacity, you think of like gritting teeth and being strong. But a sniper in the Army shows the most mental tenacity because you have to sit and (you have to be stone cold) you cannot move. You have a job to do.”
Why in the world did this video all of a sudden turn into a recruiting piece for snipers? So far, the video hasn’t touched on “becoming a soldier.” Out of nowhere, he’s a sniper!
The captions have a couple mistakes in them. If the Army was as mentally tenacious as they want you to believe, they wouldn’t have mistakes in their captions. Soldiers are ALWAYS told “attention to detail” and this clearly shows little to no attention to detail.
In this blunder, the captions read, “you haveto [sic] be stone cold.” In the video, the soldier doesn’t say those words.
Communication in the Army is terrible. A little piece of information missing could change the whole outcome of a battle, or even a war. In my personal experience, I laughed at when a group of medics were ready to operate on me.
A quick search can show you how miscommunication in the military isn’t stuck just to YouTube videos – including one where an American B-1 Bomber killed 5 American soldiers and 1 Afghan. The investigation lead to note that the air crew and the special forces unit in the area were negligent in communicating positions of ground personnel.
“The ghillie suit is the biggest piece of kit that a sniper uses to move where he needs to be and take those shots that he needs to take, blending in with his environment. So, we use artificial and natural forms of camouflage. Natural being that vegetation that surrounds you in your area. So say I’m walking through a patch of woods, I’d grab some natural vegetation that surrounds me and I’m going to tie that into the ghillie suit and make myself one with my environment, with what’s around me. It’s vital to what a sniper’s job is. If you use it correctly, it can literally make you blend in with your surroundings and you will be unseen.”
Again, what does any of this have to do with “Becoming a Soldier”? Ultimately, this video is clickbait to get people who might be interested in joining the Army, then it turns into a piece to dig into a man’s need to be a badass sniper.
I never was trained as a sniper, so commenting on all of that would be above my paygrade. However, it all makes sense and works for selling someone on being a sniper. I’m just sad they didn’t use the term “concealment” unless that is just an infantry term and snipers are above using it.
“In order to become the cool guys that you see on TV, you have to take a lot of prerequisite steps. Those prerequisite steps can be not so fun or seem not so fun.”
Finally! We get to the “becoming a soldier” part! However, it’s all boiled down to “prerequisite steps” and doesn’t really explain what becoming a soldier entails.
“But when you’re in them, like I’ve built the biggest bonds that I’ve kept to this day in my basic training classes in those tough courses.”
It is weird hearing, “…basic training classes in those tough courses” because that doesn’t really make sense. Basic training, or basic combat training, isn’t really hard – it’s only hard if you make it or tell yourself it’s hard.
One thing that’s hard to knock is the comradery the Army has to offer, but as with anywhere else, once you change locations and gain distance between people, most people you were around fade into your past. I keep just as much contact with former soldiers as I do former flight attendants and pilots that I worked with.
I probably keep even in less contact with soldiers because of where I stand today on government/military.
“Everyone, they want you to be a part of the Army. They want you to join the force. They don’t want you to go home and not provide anything to the United States Army.“
This is true – it generally is pretty tough to get out of the Army. Part of that reason is because they almost always need soldiers, so getting out without causing a huge scene can be difficult.
Think about how much money and time is spent on getting just one soldier through basic training. Would they want all that to just go to waste…especially when they can Article 15 you and make you do monotonous work?
“You just have to grit through it, make some friends, have fun. It might suck at the time, but it’s fun. Just have a good time with it and you’ll be fine.”
Wow, he makes this sound so easy! It is true, though, that if your mindset is right, it can be fun. If you can break yourself down to the primal essence of being a human being (luckily, I was able to do that), it can be fun. Remember, though, there most likely won’t be the smartest tools in the shed at basic training. They’re hard to deal with sometimes.
So What Is Becoming a Soldier Exactly?
The really odd thing is that this video doesn’t not only give any real information on becoming a soldier, it doesn’t even give any information on becoming a sniper. It tells you about being a sniper.
The thumbnail also shows “GOARMY PRESENTS – DISCIPLINE UNDER STRESS.” This is a much better video title. Why did they not use that?
Becoming a soldier is a lot of work. Even the enlistment process is a lot of work, especially if you have any law, medical, or intelligence issues. The playful way it’s kind of sugar coated in this video is kind of an insult to the viewers’ intelligence.
Chicken Hawks will praise this video as the most amazing video because it features a sniper. However, now we know better.
For fun, you should try to watch this video on .25x speed!
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