Posted on Jan 21, 2016
Do you believe the divide between the civilian population and the military population is widening?
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I believe that the majority of Americans get their "information" about military life from two sources.
1) Hollywood, where exciting screen images and contorted relationships make for good entertainment, but have nothing do with real tactics, operations, strategy and leadership.
2) Vocal miscreants that were bounced from the military, who need to paint unrealistic picture that "explain" why it wasn't their fault that they were bounced.
1) Hollywood, where exciting screen images and contorted relationships make for good entertainment, but have nothing do with real tactics, operations, strategy and leadership.
2) Vocal miscreants that were bounced from the military, who need to paint unrealistic picture that "explain" why it wasn't their fault that they were bounced.
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Sgt Joe LaBranche
Kim Bolen RN CCM ACM - it's difficult for some veterans to readjust to fit in feel like a valued member of society due to giilt, shame, and wounds of the soul. I was that way for years until I reached out for help. People use to always tell me to get over it, but no one could tell me how. Everyone progresses at different rates. God bless and thank you for what you do, Kimberly Bolen!
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Maj John Bell
Bravo! Good point. I feel that many of my fellow employees think the company exists to pay them. The number one goal of any company is to make money for the owner(s). Good companies know that it is a balancing act between for things 1) Quality 2) Service 3) Price 4) Taking care of the employees. Too much or too little attention to anyone of these and the company fails.
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Maj John Bell
Kim Bolen RN CCM ACM - I'm confused. You raised the BS flag on my two points in the original posting. At least I think you did. I do think that the entertainment industry largely gets it wrong. On the war-fighting depictions, Hollywood has created unreal expectations of how "surgical" the military can be. On leadership depictions they often depict leadership as stupid or conniving.
Two of your comments lead me to believe you dislike an attitude you feel you get from veterans. 1)"...some believe that we civilians know nothing about the military complex. How shocking it was for them to find out that we did and actually they are better off now than this civilian. Some Veterans can not stand civilians and have an air of superiority about themselves." 2) Veterans do not trust anyone other than their brother or sisters in arms.
I'll agree that is true of some, but in my opinion that is an insignificant minority. Perhaps because of your efforts, you come into contact with more of that minority. Perhaps I because of my situation I under estimate the size of that group. But I do not believe that that the camaraderie that exists between brothers and sisters-at-arms indicates anything about how we feel about the civilian population. It is instinctual to feel a sense of identity with people of common experience. That is neither good or bad, it just is.
Two of your comments lead me to believe you dislike an attitude you feel you get from veterans. 1)"...some believe that we civilians know nothing about the military complex. How shocking it was for them to find out that we did and actually they are better off now than this civilian. Some Veterans can not stand civilians and have an air of superiority about themselves." 2) Veterans do not trust anyone other than their brother or sisters in arms.
I'll agree that is true of some, but in my opinion that is an insignificant minority. Perhaps because of your efforts, you come into contact with more of that minority. Perhaps I because of my situation I under estimate the size of that group. But I do not believe that that the camaraderie that exists between brothers and sisters-at-arms indicates anything about how we feel about the civilian population. It is instinctual to feel a sense of identity with people of common experience. That is neither good or bad, it just is.
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We're becoming "Foreigners" to Americans. Rather than being a reflection of Society, we are becoming outliers.
I'm not sure that I am phrasing this correctly, however I believe that if you look at the Military as a "Foreign Land" and Service Members as People who have requested to Immigrate to said Foreign Land. We go there, acclimate, and become Citizens. Then when return "Home" we are "different" than we were when we left. We sought new opportunities and we found them. We returned home for whatever reason, nostalgia, family, time, etc... but we're no longer part of the same Society.
CC: Capt Richard I P. 1LT William Clardy
I'm not sure that I am phrasing this correctly, however I believe that if you look at the Military as a "Foreign Land" and Service Members as People who have requested to Immigrate to said Foreign Land. We go there, acclimate, and become Citizens. Then when return "Home" we are "different" than we were when we left. We sought new opportunities and we found them. We returned home for whatever reason, nostalgia, family, time, etc... but we're no longer part of the same Society.
CC: Capt Richard I P. 1LT William Clardy
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1LT William Clardy
Are you saying that you feel more like a légionnaire étranger than a citizen soldier, Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS?
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Capt Richard I P.
Cincinnati are never the same as the other patricians again. Nor are Veterans the same as the other plebians. Even in Republics.
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Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS
1LT William Clardy I will always be a Citizen Soldier, though I may plow.. my sword will be close by my door, and there will be no rust...
That said, I did just pass the age where I am no longer eligible to join the Legion (39.5).
As CPT Jack Durish said, "stranger in a strange land" is apt. I'm not always comfortable at "home." But I don't think I was when I joined to begin with.
That said, I did just pass the age where I am no longer eligible to join the Legion (39.5).
As CPT Jack Durish said, "stranger in a strange land" is apt. I'm not always comfortable at "home." But I don't think I was when I joined to begin with.
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Sgt Joe LaBranche I'd say that it's widening because so few Americans serve these days. If you haven't had the experience, you don't understand it. The service members live and work on military bases where the don't have much contact with civilians and some of what they do have is negative. There in lies the problem.
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LTC Bink Romanick
Kim Bolen RN CCM ACM Of course they do. My point was that most who haven't had the military experience don't understand the military. The volunteer army has made us a professional army rather than athe citizen army of the draft era, when many shared the military experience.
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CPT Jack Durish
Capt Seid Waddell - You have more in common with those here on RP than you have with your own siblings? On RP are you the first child, middle child, or last child?
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Capt Seid Waddell
CPT Jack Durish, middle, but feeling more and more like the first every day. I got out before the internet was started, and it was a different world then. We still have some big brothers on here that have been out since before we ventured into space, who had been in the AAF in the brown shoe days.
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