heavy topic i guess but while its on my mind-- i kind of hate that people fall back on "you should respect the troops because of the vets with ptsd" when vets with ptsd basically never speak fondly of the military complex or the country that cajoled them into it

if someone really earnestly goes thru the wringer and has trauma from military days i promise you they hate the fucking military 99% of the time. theres a reason they try to groom kids into it early ykwim

its a weird topic. i dont have sympathy for people who commit murder. i dont care about "just following orders", i dont care about the milgram test. youre a coward who deserves to wrestle guilt forever if you murder a human being because of "orders"

but also we cant kid ourselves. the united states is a propaganda machine. kids are indoctrinated into that nationalism basically from birth. i think you can hate the footsoldier who commits war crimes AND detest the system that brainwashed him into thinking it was justified

like, you know how i talk about noir a lot and what makes it noir? and how the anger and cynicism attributed to noir was never misplaced, it was topical? its because a lot of those authors and screenwriters went thru wwii and realized the united states is a force of evil

ANYWAY. i guess im just thinking out loud! since i do it sometimes when im feeling ok. i guess my takeaway here is its really weird how the people who use vets as a crutch for their nationalist sympathies never give a shit about the homeless and disabled vets on the street ykwim