this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2025
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Chapotraphouse
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Where do they get the impression that the US has what takes in terms of individual valor either? We haven't fought a war against a near peer with our own troops since WW2. US soldiers can be bloodthirsty and cruel, but where have they had valor? Didn't American troops run from the bloodshed in Ukraine with their tails between their legs or did my memory make that up? (I'm actually seriously asking that question as I don't remember if I read that in an article with sources or just a comment here sometime.)
Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba all showed communist soldiers fighting with more valor against a technologically and economically more powerful USA.
I'm sorry this is off topic but that implication really fucking pisses me off.
No, early on there was a lot of US volunteers getting rocked because they were expecting to have a similar situation to fighting an insurgent force in Afghanistan or Iraq
But Ukraine didn't provide proper air or artillery support and basically used them as meat shields against the Russians, who did have those things
Hence the untimely end of the 1st Armored Reddit Brigade
Did they even get into combat? I thought the barracks ate a cruise missile because they posted the location online.
There were multiple incidents of this
Veteran volunteers were used as irregulars in the fields, they got their shit rocked and one literally hoofed it out of Ukraine on foot because he was scared to get sent back into combat
The 1st Armored Reddit Brigade were all in a base that got attacked because they wouldn't stop posting
The cruise missile happened to another group of volunteers who wouldn't stop posting
It's kind of funny that they don't learn
American mercs? a lot have died in ukraine. there's a telegram channel dedicated to tracking mercs in Ukraine
the subreddit volunteersforukraine has probably gotten quite a lot of people killed
I was talking about the reddit brigade specifically
Oh look a cushy ass conservative “historian” glorifying sending the domestic proletariat to die trying to kill their counterparts abroad all so the international bourgeoise can profit and repress ideologies that would counter their hegemony.
Even better to refer to “individual valor” when prefacing an article about someone denounced by their own mother.
Individual valor? The military doesn’t give a shit about valor, the US doesn’t give a shit about valor; they give a shit about treats flowing and need your family members blood to prime the pump. As they say in the “Fixin’ to die rag”
Lather rinse repeat. Don’t worry, wheat berry, about growing in the sun, uncle sams got a mill for you whether you like it or not, and when you’re ground to flour with your friends and “enemies”, you can take comfort in knowing you feed the rich.
Also if we’re talking individual valor, my grandfather was conscripted to Korea, was in combat, but upon returning all we ever heard was that he was a “clerk”. No bullshit talk of valor, flags flown, uniforms or medals displayed, and the only picture I’ve ever seen of it is of a few Korean boys holding up the chocolate bars he’d given them. The closest thing to a parade he was in was krackkkers throwing bottles when he marched with Father Groppi.
The only time I saw him mad was when he saw me playing soldier; and decades later I recall it didn’t feel like anger but the most profound sadness and disappointment I’ve felt - in that we might perpetuate violence.
Fuck any scum who glorify war or perpetuate it.
I don't hear much talk of valor in war from those who have been in it. Many veterans understand their role in society as expendables in the battle to make the line go up and to maintain hegemony, and either buy into it as an ontological good to support that cause, or understand their crimes against the humanity of the world. And they’re both hit with americas blowback, because capital doesn’t give a shit about war or dead soldiers unless they make a buck from either, and liberal “anti-war” movements don’t care about war they just want to consume without guilt, and disregard the blood that greases the skids.
What’s an “honorable™️” way out of poverty in the US? Join the military. What’s an dishonorable way into poverty in the US? Failing to die abroad like a “good ™️” soldier. In the US a veteran is just a sunk cost, and a risk to exposing the mask of valor for the lie it is. A dead soldier is the blank slate upon which Uncle Sam signs up the next generation.
Capitalism wants us all dead, and will profit as long as it takes to make that happen.
TBH the military isn't that great of an option economically. It allows for a little bit of a distraction from the immediate conditions, an opportunity to travel, a sense of purpose, and a promise (read: lie) that it will give them an advantage.
Anecdotally, I've met a few veterans who completed 1 tour and then decided to go to college because there was nothing much available for them, and a few more who picked up substance abuse and other bad habits from their enlistment, or were just floundering. I don't know the exact figures but I would suppose that for each 1 returning veteran success story, there are 8 veterans barely getting by working in dead-end jobs, and 1 veteran either homeless or institutionalized or prematurely dead.
The graphic phrase
"suck-start a shotgun" is one I've only heard from ex-military personnel.
Yeah I’m the first generation of my family to go to college instead of the military, so lots of veterans in my family. Mostly because they were drafted, or some had unexpected kids in their early years (or trouble with the law, etc) and it was the “best option”. No officers in the family, so they’ve all received the shit end of the stick, and that’s greatly tempered most jingoism. I’ve not met a “proud soldier” in my family. But I believe there’s a strong line of audhd that runs through it that the state has greatly benefited from.
The wwii grandpa, who lied about his age to enlist at 15 had departed to signal school shortly before his shipmates mostly died in Pearl Harbor, was probably the closest to being “proud” of his time in the military (and idk how much of his background is even true lol). After that he deployed with operation torch, then the family story is he was in the “state department” (OSS), and remained in north africa where he had met my grandma, and covertly supported the Moroccan independence effort (my dad recalls playing with Mohammad V’s children). And after all of that, moved back to Appalachia to take over the small family farm. He and my grandma are buried on the farm in the “family plot”, but had to sell the rest of it to pay for medical bills.
Others in the family include my cousin (only survivor of an ied - (was kind of an asshole before and it didn’t help)), half brothers (ones spouse left for his CO, ones stepson took his life), and my father (during the end of the vietnam war, so he lucked out and never deployed outside of the US, but still managed to get COPD/asthma from being a mechanic).
Similar to everything else in America unless you’re of a wealthy, West Point dynasty, the most charitable thing Uncle Sam will give you is a ditch to die in