My Army story begins with just another day in sixth grade social studies class. My social studies text book was opened to the end of the American Revolution. As the teacher spoke about it, my eyes caught an image. For some reason, I honed in on it.
After losing myself in that picture for a little bit, something clicked in me.
How selfish would it be of me to not do my time when those men sacrificed so much to fight and WIN against insurmountable odds?
That moment, at age 12, I made the terrible decision to join the Army.
My Army Story from Decision to Join to Enlistment
After I made the preposterous decision to join the military at age 12, it was like there was nothing else I could do. I wasn’t so focused on the Army at first and only really gave a thought about joining another branch when I turned 17.
My father, surprisingly, wouldn’t sign the waiver needed to join the military at 17. It wasn’t that he was anti-war or anything – he just thought I wouldn’t be able to handle being away from home. It seemed like an odd thing to think of me since he knew I love traveling so much.
Thankfully, he withheld. Otherwise, I most likely would’ve ended up as a Marine. Not that there is anything wrong with being a Marine…it just wouldn’t have been a better path for me.
I was perfect for college – almost straight A’s, participated in many activities, outgoing, hard worker. Even thought I earned a couple scholarships and was accepted to the University of South Dakota (which I don’t even remember applying for), I was still dead set on the military route.
Then We Have 9/11
9/11 happened my senior year in high school. If I had any doubts of joining, they all disappeared that day. One of the more odd memories I have is when the school principal came out to the lobby to let us know something is on the TV we probably want to see. The rest of the day, the school was pretty focused on that what occurred.
Later that week, I was watching something in the living room. Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” came on the TV and I became full of emotion.
Why, who, HOW could someone hate America so much? I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Didn’t we have the best country in the world?
I guess if you’re taught in a government school, you’ll get the information the government wants you to have.
However, I still waited to enlist until I was about to graduate high school. I also told the guidance counselor that I didn’t want to ship until the end of the summer. Since I was “signing my life away” (a phrase I thought was just a phrase), I wanted to be able to enjoy a few months of freedom and at least try to get into shape.
The only real opposing voice in my Army story was my father. Other than that, with South Dakota being quite a Republican state, I had a lot of support with my decision. It kind of bewildered me I was only one of two of my graduating class that decided to enlist full time out of high school.
My Time In the Army
My five years of Basic Training to my ETS (End of Term of Service – the day you get out of the military) went by fast. It’s strange that I was probably more of a Chicken Hawk after the time I spent as a Recruiter.
When I shared some of my positive experience in Iraq with a woman, she told me I had been put on a plane and flown to an isolated island in which all of the positive experiences I had in Iraq were all staged. I had many contractors of my experience, and I saw how crazy the “anti-war” people could be.
Little did I know the pro-war people were just as crazy as well.
Seeds of Liberty Are Planted
After my 5 year (only signed up for 4) stint, I got out and became a flight attendant. I truly had the freedom to go where ever I wanted to go.
Until my Army story continued…I got recalled back into the Army.
I didn’t want to go back, but I signed a contract that said I would, so I did. It’s all been downhill ever since.
One of the first things I did when I reported back to Ft. Benning was call my former Station Commander of my former recruiting station. There was a certain degree of guilt I had because I told so many future soldiers the possibility of getting called back in was only if there was a World War 3. In my defense, that is what I had been told ever since the day I signed my contract.
That year I got recalled was by far the worst year of my service. A good part of that is because this was the time when I really began to question why we were in the Middle East. It didn’t hurt that another recalled soldier introduced me to Ron Paul and Libertarianism.
The absolute waste of time and money really exposed itself to me when I was recalled.
When I returned from that deployment, I began to go online and do “anti-recruitment” against the military. I was successful in having many young people give joining the military a second thought, and some even decided against enlisting after visiting a website I had back then.
My Army Story Continues?
After going through my anti-recruiting stint and diving way too deep into politics, I broke away from it all. It felt like I was never happy.
However, the American Empire is too strong and the public education system is extremely diluted. It doesn’t teach much worth value, and it doesn’t teach enough on how to think critically.
As my Army Story continues, hopefully the later chapters have a much happier feeling. Hopefully kids don’t join because they’ve been lied to or mis-informed.
I’m also not 100% one-sided on this – it would be facetious of me to point out nothing good ever happened while I was in the Army. Just listen to me and a buddy talk about basic training experiences on the podcast Oh! It’s On! With Juan and Sean.
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