When I was in the VA for a while I talked to a Vietnam vet and he was genuinely curious about why I was a communist. He asked questions and got the basic gist about why we were really there, not to stop communism but military industrial complex shit. I also got about everyone else there (15 or so) to march into the leader of the programs office to stop a trans veteran from getting kicked out for defending themselves from someone who started a fight with them (zero tolerance policy).
CW for past suicide experiences:
I had my own issues, tried several times to shoot myself because I was so depressed and loaded with guilt having been a willing part of the military and evil, however indirect my part was in both deployments. I still struggle a lot with the guilt I carry having knowledge of how the sausage of empire is made.
I’ve gotten better in the last year or two. Turned my experience into something I can build on and learn from. I try to help people now through a career in fire fighting, building my family, and trying to be a good person as much as I can.
In some ways I have, I’ve been in and out of the VA every so often for mental health, I have some friends I can confide in, but a dialectical and materialist analysis really broke me and helped me realize the nature of what it is and why we do the things we do in the military. I can’t help that I was suckered into a system so vast and evil that I can’t do a thing about, but I try to take the good from it that helped me personally grow as a human. I have a lot of PTSD from it, I still get triggered by smells and sounds, and anger issues stemming from it, but I’ve matured more so than old friends from high school (when I left for the army) due to the responsibility placed on my shoulders.
It does carry more weight when people talk about the military or politics in general because I can say things as a communist about my experiences and what things are actually like. I do use it to my advantage though, the military persona/style. People are more likely to give me an easier time, less likely to fuck with me, and for some reason the freedom loving muricans give me respect they otherwise wouldn’t, simply because I “served.” It’s selfish in a way, but at least I recognize it I guess.
That’s what I say to people when they talk about how great my benefits are. “Yes I love having my physical, mental, and emotional well being destroyed forever while losing and innocence I never knew I had, but yeah I can jump through flaming hoops to maybe get a VA appointment months from now while fighting for at least a year to get a claim for disability that they know people with that job suffers from.”
This says nothing obviously of the victims of the US military, but you know what I’m saying
I still struggle with this. Yes I was lied to and suckered in as a child, but the military shaped so much about who I am now. It’s difficult to try to separate myself from it, even if I’ve been out for several years now. It’s a weird dichotomy between the morons who praise me for being in and “serving” and my own personal knowledge of how evil and stupid the military is.
·1 year ago
