They’ll take real good care of ya.
Mike writes:
I thought you might be interested in this story from over Ron [Paul]’s birthday weekend. My cousin and good friend, who now lives in Houston and came with us to Ron’s birthday event, was an Army paratrooper and sniper until about two months ago. He enlisted 4 years ago and throughout his time there I would send him letters with articles, books, your interviews, and especially Ron Paul videos and articles. He ended up becoming a non-interventionist anti-imperialist Ron Paul fan.
His radical change in mindset kept him from being deployed to kill and/or be killed, because when they were about to send him, he was vocal to his bosses about no longer believing in the mission, and not being willing to re-enlist, and about how if they sent him they’d have the expense and hassle of bringing him back early. So, thankfully, he never saw combat.
After the birthday party on Saturday he was telling us stories about the disgusting bureaucracy of the military. When he was training as a paratrooper, it became very clear that the things they were learning to do were never intended to actually be used in combat. They were WWII relics that were being taught for the sake of tradition and because “that’s just they way we’ve always done it”. During his time there, 6 young people died in training! The military tried to keep it under wraps, but it actually made it into a local newspaper at one point, something along the lines of “Why is the military killing so many young paratroopers?” His supervisors would disparage and mock and even chuckle at the dead kids: “Did you hear about that dumbass who jumped out of the bird and got his throat slit by the jump cable? He was dead before he hit the ground. Idiot.” The message was clear: the Army doesn’t give a flying fuck about you.
Chandler told us a particular story about a jump he was scheduled to do, but was relieved it would be canceled because the weather was so obviously dangerous that day and would prohibit even the Army (which was already notorious for not caring about the lives of the paratroopers) from sending anyone up. But when he asked his supervisor, they said that he would be jumping no matter what. He was “government property”, after all. The reason for jumping no matter what — despite the growing body count and the extremely dangerous weather — was because if they canceled a jump, the Army would owe the Air Force money (since the Air Force supplied the planes and pilots). And more importantly to the Army, since it’s not like it was their personal money, was a matter of pride. So, these young brainwashed paratroopers would be sent up to jump out a plane for no real purpose at all in weather that could easily get them killed just so some Army sergeants could protect their fragile egos from their rival bureaucrat counterparts in the Air Force.
I’ve known all of this crap for years just from reading about and understanding government bureaucracy and the military, and reinforced and heightened through listening to your show, but it was powerful to hear everything I intuitively knew confirmed by my good buddy who witnessed it firsthand for 4 years. And it was satisfying to hear that he now shared my disgust for the military.
