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A Draft Thread That Isn't Nine Fucking Months Old
Church
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I was "drafted" by the Republic of Ichkeria to help fight the Russian invasion in 2000. I was nine years old at the time.
I was given an AK-74 carbine, and paired with a scout, as his spotter. Then I was sent to fight in the Siege of Grosny. Though we were supposed to be scouts, we joined up with a squad to aid in the counter-offensive (At this point, the Russian forces had all but secured the city). Specifically, my squad's job was to aid in the capture of the town of Shali. It was a three-pronged attack; other units would secure the towns of Argun and Gudermes, thus creating a supply corridor through which to bring reinforcements and supplies to Grozny.
The following days were occupied by a Russian counter-attack, as they tried to break our supply lines, but we succesfully held all three cities and did not allow them a further foothold in the region.
We then advanced to the city itself. We fought the Russian Federation forces through January, but then tens of thousands of reinforcements arrived, cutting off our supply line and forcing us to retreat. We attempted to withdraw from the city, and helped many civilians escape in the process.
We were forced to stop in the Caucasus by a heavy snowstorm, but then came under fire by artillery. We were forced to make our way through the blinding snow out of the mountains, where we were ambushed by thousands of Russian soldiers, out-numbering us by at least four to one. We could not retreat into the mountains because of the artillery, we could not cross the river to the north because of the Russian battallions chasing us. We could not retreat to the southeast, because that would have brought us right into the belly of the beast, where the main Russian expeditionary force was. Our only way out was a canyon to the southwest.
Of course, it was mined.
It was a disaster. Of our unit of two-thousand, casualties numbered at six-hundred, with about four-hundred of them fatalities.
Our leadership was in shambles after this. Only one General had survived, and he was badly wounded, maimed by a land mine. I do not know what happened to him after this. He survived the retreat, I believe, but he did not lead us. He was a poor leader to begin with.
That was only the beginning. My first month in combat. The following months, I functioned as a spotter. Then, a scout. At times, a designated marksman. For the four years after the Battle of Grozny, I was a part of the Ichkerian Army's guerrilla war on the Russian government of Chechnya. They were years filled with ambushes, bombings, and assassinations, and I do not wish to discuss my part in them.
I was given an AK-74 carbine, and paired with a scout, as his spotter. Then I was sent to fight in the Siege of Grosny. Though we were supposed to be scouts, we joined up with a squad to aid in the counter-offensive (At this point, the Russian forces had all but secured the city). Specifically, my squad's job was to aid in the capture of the town of Shali. It was a three-pronged attack; other units would secure the towns of Argun and Gudermes, thus creating a supply corridor through which to bring reinforcements and supplies to Grozny.
The following days were occupied by a Russian counter-attack, as they tried to break our supply lines, but we succesfully held all three cities and did not allow them a further foothold in the region.
We then advanced to the city itself. We fought the Russian Federation forces through January, but then tens of thousands of reinforcements arrived, cutting off our supply line and forcing us to retreat. We attempted to withdraw from the city, and helped many civilians escape in the process.
We were forced to stop in the Caucasus by a heavy snowstorm, but then came under fire by artillery. We were forced to make our way through the blinding snow out of the mountains, where we were ambushed by thousands of Russian soldiers, out-numbering us by at least four to one. We could not retreat into the mountains because of the artillery, we could not cross the river to the north because of the Russian battallions chasing us. We could not retreat to the southeast, because that would have brought us right into the belly of the beast, where the main Russian expeditionary force was. Our only way out was a canyon to the southwest.
Of course, it was mined.
It was a disaster. Of our unit of two-thousand, casualties numbered at six-hundred, with about four-hundred of them fatalities.
Our leadership was in shambles after this. Only one General had survived, and he was badly wounded, maimed by a land mine. I do not know what happened to him after this. He survived the retreat, I believe, but he did not lead us. He was a poor leader to begin with.
That was only the beginning. My first month in combat. The following months, I functioned as a spotter. Then, a scout. At times, a designated marksman. For the four years after the Battle of Grozny, I was a part of the Ichkerian Army's guerrilla war on the Russian government of Chechnya. They were years filled with ambushes, bombings, and assassinations, and I do not wish to discuss my part in them.
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I am fucking dreading it.
I'm going to be doing everything I can to dodge it. Not because I'm scared of basic training, but because I don't believe in the principle of dragging someone against their will and holding them essentially captive for such a long period of time.
In more general terms, draft is not military "service". It's state-sanctioned slavery, justified under the "it's necessary" excuse.
Anything from washing off graffiti, planting trees, fetching donuts and washing PD vehicles.
MWO: Adamski
I'm doing this thing now where I get a degree with some financial help from the army (they basically pay for tuition), and in return I sign up for double the time (2X3=6 years). I just finished the third year of my Aeronautics degree (out of four). Oh, and you're supposed to be actually doing something that has to do with your degree. Of course, for the first three years you get payed like a combatant (around 700 shekels a month, 175USD) and for the next three an officers wage (around 6000 shekels, 1500USD, about twice minimum wage. For an engineer with three year's experience).
So basically, at 17-18 your sign up for ten years of you life. Which is fun.
But that's not really the typical military experience for a Jewish male in Israel. Except the shafting. Pretty typical there.
I'm against the idea of mandatory service (military or otherwise) because I don't particularly think the U.S. needs it (in the sense that Israel does, for example) and because I don't think conscripting people into civil or military service would really be very good for the country WRT patriotism/civic engagement/etc.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
This military anecdote, like every other military anecdote I have hard, has only helped to convince me that no, you morons, a draft will not do our youth "some good", either mentally or spiritually. The pattern seems to be:
Nope -- as you might have surmised had you read my really short post.
And I'm sure it did, 'cuz presumably it involved really hard work and/or danger. The point is that I would be a little bit more amenable to really hard work and/or danger if they didn't involve immersion in such an apparently messed-up culture.
I also have pacifist ethical reflexes, but I dunno if I have logical pacifist convictions, so I didn't want to go there.
Saying that the opinion of people who don't like the army and therefore didn't serve doesn't count because they didn't serve seems kind of silly.
Plus, it seems odd to me for you advocate compulsory military service. I mean, you probably don't mean that countries need programs of child-soldiers, so what do you mean about your experience making you a better person? If someone's experience in a holocaust made them a better person, would that mean that holocausts are a good idea?
I still have allot of agression that 11 years in the corp did not vent.
Did it make me a better person yes and no.
I did things that are hard to explain.
It depends on the person for what they take from thier experience and apply it to the world outside .
I'm not saying that his opinion of the military shouldn't count. I'm saying he has no basis on which to say military service won't do a person any good.
Ignoring your embarassing fallacy, I'm going to say that I don't believe children should be used as combatants, whether it be compulsory or voluntary, but I still got a lot of good out of my service. I would have gotten a lot more out of it (And significantly less psychological growth stuntage) had I been older, but I still got something from it.
The people with the mental/emotional/moral integrity to grow from the kind of stuff that veterans apparently like to share with outsiders are not the lazy, cruel, and stupid adolescents Jansen et al. want to conscript.
And even if we are making major life decisions for the stupid and shiftless, presumably other people should get to choose their own enriching experiences.
I agree.
What was my fallacy? Saying you endorse compulsory military service because you said your experience made you a better person?
I admit that you did not say that, and that you may have not meant it, but that is what the discussion was about before your post. I understood your (implicit) support of the idea that military service made you a better person meant you also support a policy of drafting young people.
If that is in fact what you meant by fallacy, I would argue that it is not a fallacy but rather an assumption that seemed reasonable to me at the time, and of which I was aware.
Also, note that I didn't say you support child recruitment, I said that you obviously don't, and that seemed to conflict with your assumed support of the previously mentioned policy.
And a question, to you and other people who said service made them better people. I have spent the last three years in college. I am a better person now (almost 22) than I was when I were 18 years old, but I do not conclude that it was college that was responsible for the change. The question: how can you know that it is the army that makes you a better person and not just maturity? It seems to me that the things that people usually say they gain from service (discipline, responsibility, perspective) are also things that seem (to me) to come naturally through maturity.
The fallacy was comparing encouraging military service to encouraging genocide.
To be perfectly clear, I believe in compulsory military service, but I also believe that people who are only in the military because of such a policy should not be used in foreign conflicts.
Maturity doesn't just happen. It comes by experience, not by time. I fought in the war for four years, and I think I grew up more in that time than many people do in twice my life-time. Note that this obviously doesn't apply to certain aspects of maturity, like, say, motor skills, and theory of mind. That should go without saying.
I was not equating. I pointed out that "X had some good consequences" does not in any way equal "X is a good idea".
If you're not using the military, then why have a military? Why not make it compulsory public service? That is, why does it have to include guns and shooting?
Yes and no. Maturity is very obviously biological. A retarded person that has been through a war isn't any more mature or less retarded. Since he did not have the mental faculties to process the experience in the same way a mature person would, it has caused him only suffering.
You admit yourself that an 18 year-old would have better motor skills 14 (I don't know what you mean by "theory of mind"). Then why would he not also be better equipped to understand people other than himself and understand long term consequences?
It seems as if maturity, to you, is completely spiritual - an idea that strikes me as unscientific and odd regardless. By this I mean to say that saying maturity is derived solely from experience is akin to saying that morality is derived solely from religion - ie disregarding any innate biological factors.
The fact that this pattern endures throughout history with people from all races, backgrounds and cultures giving an answer along the lines of "builds character" doesn't suggest to you there might be something in it?
Just because you can't see how a poisonous atmosphere might bring out some good in people != it doesn't happen, just suggests to me you have little faith in the intrinsic decency within people. And just because "builds character" has become a favourite catchphrase for all sorts of dribbling idiots & conservative nuts doesn't mean the concept itself is faulty.
[Having said which, the US draft is a bad idea...and what the hell is going on with that OP?]
That is quite sensible though.
I'm a assuming you are American, since in many places "not complying" won't get you called names, but only leave you with a rather uncomfortable mass of lead in your skull.
There was a thread from nine months ago that was talking about people's draft experiences. Church found it and posted his in it. I hacked off the old shit.
Which, you will agree, is a far cry from summary execution.
EDIT: ElJeffe, I think this thread, with the current combination of OP and title, might be a bit confusing to newcomers.
You know that the comparison was not fair. If it was fair, then I simply would have agreed and there would have been no point in making it.
I didn't say don't use the military. I said people that have not volunteered for military service should not be used in foreign conflicts. Note that neither serving in the border guard nor the military police involves serving in a foreign conflict.
You have successfully summarised what I just said.
How very irrelevant, thank you.
The development of motor skills in no way amounts to the experience you get from the discipline of a military lifestyle. If wisdom developed on its own, we wouldn't have any use for things like parents. Or law.
I'm not going to recognise a response to something I never said.
I know, I saw that. I'm just wondering if it is quoting someone else, or if there is more to the story. Having a little trouble believing that a 16 year old Eastern European (presumably) kid who spent four formative years as a child soldier in Chechnya and was only rescued by an NGO three years ago, is posting on PA with flawless English and a perfect grasp of US colloquialisms?
No offence, I'm just curious - there might be some background to this I don't know, and if the above is true then good job! But it is somewhat out of the ordinary.
I learned English from my mother, who was from Oxford. I'm also an exceptionally adaptive person, if you're willing to take my word for that.
It's unfortunate that that is the case in some countries, but I still don't believe that anyone should allow themselves to be bullied into killing other people. There are alternatives to simple denial, such as fleeing the country. You may risk your own life in doing so, but is that really worse than taking the lives of others instead?
I should add that this doesn't really apply to children, since they are not capable of doing things like that themselves.
Any assistance to military offensives results in you killing people by proxy. Meaning, if you give a gun to someone and you know for a fact that they will shoot someone with it, then it doesn't matter who actually fires the gun. You both share equal responsibility for that person's death.
Which is the kind of distinction which only much matters to people who have never been near a battlefield.
The more practical point - what I think Church meant - is that if you put large numbers of drafted soldiers in or near combat, then they make mistakes. Whether it is shooting up a civvy car at a checkpoint or leaving their rifle on auto & spraying their mates by accident, mistakes get people killed.
I doubt either the dead civvies in the car or the dead soldier much care about your nebulous method for applying blame, they would just rather be alive. Professional soldiers are far less likely to make such mistakes.
EDIT: Church, must say I'm skeptical, but I usually am. I also recognise that bizarre rarities do happen and have no other reason to disbelieve you, so that's that.
There is no point in making an argument you do not agree with? Seems rather harsh. Also, again, I wasn't comparing military service to genocide, I was using an extreme example to make the point that a thing that had a good consequence isn't intrinsically desirable.
If there is a foreign conflict than every member of the army does, in fact, serve in a foreign conflict. If the border is being invaded, the border guard is going to shoot the invaders. If the military police happen upon an enemy soldier, they will be required, in every army, to shoot/capture/report to some other authority.
Does a medic not serve in a war if he doesn't shoot people?
Moreover, no army would want to waste money and time training people to be essentially useless in wartime.
No, you said "Maturity doesn't just happen. It comes by experience, not by time.". I said that in a very serious sense, maturity does "just happen".
No, I was showing a thought experiment that demonstrates that maturity is not purely experience-based, by pointing out that a person who is not mentally equipped to deal with an experience will not gain "Maturity" through it.
No but neither does "the experience you get from the discipline of a military lifestyle" equate to a positive experience.
Actually parents are there to (literally) baby-sit you until you are capable of wisdom. Although I wasn't saying that experience is worthless. I was asking how can you differentiate between the "goodness" you received from your experience and the "goodness" acquired purely from going through adolescence.
And laws don't develop maturity, and they don't make people good. They just make sure that most of the people who aren't naturally inclined to be nice to each other will have sufficient negative reinforcement not to be giant dicks.
But you did - at least as I understand it. If I simply misunderstood you, please point out where I was wrong.
I have neither the desire, nor the years required to indulge that request. I simply can not bring myself to believe that making this any clearer to you will do any good, whether you're deliberately misinterpreting my posts or whether you just can't understand them.
Fair enough, I just don't agree that being stationed with the National Guard building flood defences or such is contributing any more to "homicide" than working for that same government in any other function, paying your taxes which contribute to the military budget, contributing to the national economy which makes all that possible etc etc.
In fact, if you go far enough down the line in a globally linked society, you can probably connect any dead person to their killer through some indirect contribution. But it's a pointless & and meaningless exercise.
Also: not homicide.
When I was in the Marine Corp. I knew of 2 people that refused to pull the trigger one of which was during a heavy firefight in Afghanistan
Now you get into the fine line of killing in the name of war and protection of oneself or property.
There have been some rather questionable things I have done to name one: VBSS {Vessel, Board, Search, and Seizure} I can go on and on with what I did as VBSS missions and how the people who ship I boarded had every right to fire at me and I to return it.
I have no quams with killing people as it did not bother me to do it compared to various people who thought it was wrong an varying degrees
I have been to some countries that had penal legions and conscripts as an army with people to goad them into action
That, however, is not the time to develop morals.
The sad thing was he was my commanding officer
Church, I am sincerely sad that you do not see any redeeming quality in my posts, so much that you won't even argue your point. I genuinely wanted to understand how a person that went through what you have could possibly have the opinions you claim to hold, and I have failed. I can only hope that it is your fault, and not my own - since that is much more comfortable to live with - and so I will.
Tobasco, I applaud you for your apparent moral bravery. I truly do, mostly because I think I lack it myself.
Yes, it's clearly my fault. That explains perfectly why I seem to have gotten my point across to everyone but you.
Thank you.
Although be frank I don't see anyone who has gotten your point, simply people who haven't argued with you. This explains, in a way, your aversion to arguing with me.