So I'll throw my 2 cents in here at the risk of exposing myself to some potential animosity.

I'm a vet so I feel like I have some insight into this world.

First off, for some context, I'd like to say that I never really liked or had an affinity for the military even when I was in high school. I remember a recruiter calling me one day and asking me if I was interested in joining and I straight up told him "No thanks. I don't feel like dying halfway across the world." At the same time, I had almost always been completely surrounded by a support structure that thought extremely highly of the US Military, so I didn't have a negative opinion either.

When the opportunity presented itself to join an MOS that allowed me to play music and also guaranteed that I wouldn't be deployed, I said "what the hey" and signed up. The benefits of education, housing benefits, etc were just too alluring to pass up. This was all waaay before my political awakening. I say all this because (1) fuck the military and (2) based on my experience I think directing our anger at young veterans is a mistake.

The military targets vulnerable teenagers that are sometimes as young as 15 or 16 years old. Recruiters will straight up lie to their recruits and the family of these kids are often extremely liberal patriotic types who believe their children are doing something extremely honorable and brave(fuck them for not knowing better but that's the reality). High school kids really have no way to even understand the context of US Imperialism, they're just doing what they've been told the right thing to do is.

But you know what happens after they join? The vast majority of them fucking hate it. They're treated like shit and told that they need to lose their identity to become a weapon of the US Flag. They're told if they fuck up they will be court martialed and will never be able to gain employment again. These kids experience verbal, physical, and sexual abuse by their superiors. That abuse is often swept under the rug. They suffer tremendoulsy from depression and other mental illnesses and have a suicide rate significantly higher than that of the civilian population. When their contract expires or they break the rules, the government wipes their hands clean and forgets about them.

When they get out the last thing we should be doing as leftists is saying "fuck you." If they're looking for a space, we should welcome them. They have first hand knowledge about how fucked the military industrial complex is. They have first hand knowledge seeing that when people have power over others, they abuse it. They are prime for radicalization and also....they're just fucking people trying to navigate their way in the world so we shouldn't root for them to blow their brains out.

I know it's fun to be an edgelord around here, but this is kinda why I have a problem with the crabs when a 20 yo Marine dies in Afghanistan. He's just as much a victim of capitalism and the US War Machine as anyone else. He was just a kid and he wouldn't be dead if the US didn't have a material interest in invading other countries for profit.

That being said......fuck Chris Kyle and everyone like him. That mother fucker had it coming. ___