What is your most radical or unpopular opinion concerning the military?

My most radical opinion of the military is, that 99% of officers feel that they are above many military regulations. Uniform wear especially. Even since my retirement 26 years ago, I see their disregard for the correct wearing of their uniforms is appalling and shameful. Were I on active duty today, I would not salute their violations of uniform wear. But I had to respect the rank, but not the man/woman in that uniform.

I really have no radical or negative opinions.

SGT Joseph Gunderson getting reprimanded or even kicked out for wearing your religion on your sleeve...having a bible at work, or a religious calendar or even speaking about your religion while on duty or in uniform....just really makes me mad.

Well ever since the 1980's I thought the retirement benefits should be portable and based on years of service with a 5 year vesting period so that someone that serves 5 years or more gets a portion of the retirement as a lump sum or annuity. Also, say someone in their thirties that wants to enlist can roll in their civliian plan that has accrued so far to the military plan, so they might not have to serve a full 20 years before retirement but what they expected to round out their past civilian work. Thats really the biggest thing making the military retirement system more interchangeable and compatible with the civilian side. Nobody else agrees with me though and folks either say impossible or it would drain people away from the military and will never happen.

I found out in the late 1990s that Smedley Butler's quote still held a lot of truth. War is a racket.

In the spring of 1990 as a Marine grunt, I had a chance to help develop lesson plans for patrolling operations, infantry tactics, and weapon system training handouts and courses in Spanish for the militaries of Honduras and Guatemala.

These forces then committed atrocities against local indigenous people who could not read, let alone study and espouse Marxism, or wage a guerilla war against their governments.

What they had was land that wealthy individuals in both countries wanted for development, but the local subsistence Indian farmers were in the way.

By labelling them as communists, not only did they have a free hand in pushing them off their land, but in exterminating them as well.

Our military once stood on the principles of spreading democracy. I once believed we could and would do no wrong, that we had moral clarity on our side. Now I am more inclined to ask who is profiting when I see it deployed. Patriotism to me, is more often than not, a lie used to justify the enrichment of the few over the many. I am not saying it is dead, but patriotism should never be blind to consequences.

Mine was that I joined the Marine Corps. My parents were against anyone of us kids going in because of some of my uncles' experiences in Vietnam but, I went anyways. It had nothing to do with me going in the Corps, but, that I went in any branch of the service. Later they realized it was for the best and my older brother actually went in the Air Force about a year and a half after I went in.

That everyone, either upon graduating from high school or turning 18 if not in school, has to serve a minimum of 2 years in the military branch of their choice.

We only need one camouflage materiel.

Tired of hearing "hero" attached to someone who did a tour in Iraq or Afghanistan.(mainly by the news media)

That we spend entirely too much money on R&D and equipment when the soldier (sailor, airman or marine... also coastie I guess) is the most important part of the military.