Hey man,
I agree that this is appalling but I'd be lying if I said I was at all surprised. I've been in the Reserves for almost 5 years and was deployed to Iraq for 7 months. I pretty much experienced the same type of stuff the whole time I was there. Hell, for the first several months we had no bunkers and weren't even issued the atrophine kits that everyone in country was supposed to get in case you get exposed to nerve gas. I'm not gonna lie, I had already grown to be highly skeptical of the US military before my activation and deployment, but my experiences over there sealed the deal. Anyone out there reading this who thinks the US military is some highly trained organization has the wrong idea. The reality is, probably about 5 ot 10 % of the military is highly trained and good at what they do....like pilots, special forces, Navy SEALS etc etc. The rest are people who have been pushed through shitty training regardless of whether they pass or not. Mind you, they've been TOLD over and over and over that they ARE highly trained, but for the most part they're not. Also....relating to the article posted by mikimouse... this is further experience in my 5 years in the military....
1. The military and the US government with whom you place your trust as a military servicemember will NEVER do the right thing by you. You are just another expendable piece of gear like a truck or a rifle. If they fuck up and people get killed it doesn't really matter to them. They also do everything in their power to screw you out of the little money you make.
2. You can join the military and do poorly in every training program you enter and still "pass" about 85% of the time. Its just like going through the motions. I know many people that went to multi-week schools to learn about specific pieces of equipment, passed the schools, and still know nothing about the equipement they attended school to learn about.
3. Although war is a life or death situation, the US government doesn't seem to care enough about military servicemembers to provide the right equipment and properly train people to use it.
4. Everyone in the military gets promoted 1 level beyond their capability so that everyone is incompetent at their job. ( its a famous sociological principle)
5. In addition....smart people leave the military when they realize how much of a clusterfuck it is, and stupid people stick around and pick up rank purely based on time in service, so that once again incompetence reigns supreme.
6. When you REALLY need something (gear, food, ammo etc) its never there....then when its not needed anymore its in abundance.
I'm just gonna stop now, I could go on and on and on. The point is, its not like I expected much when I joined the military but I did expect to be treated with basic human respect and I expected to the military have some rudimentary system of organization. Its been repeatedly apparent that that just isn't the case in the US military. I've been screwed out of pay and promotion, left out in the field on training OPS, and even not fed for almost two days on a training exercise 2 years ago. This is what you can expect if you join the military...is this sounds like fun, I can put you in touch with a recruiter in your area.
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