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18-year-old U.S. Solider is alleged hitman for Mexican cartel
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Competency is what gets a soldier promoted. True, competency is occasionally demonstrated by the unit's success rate in regards to the missions it takes part in. However killing the enemy isn't the primary objective of most soldiers since only a minority of the military are combat arms. Even soldiers with combat arms MOS's, killing is rarely the objective. Normally the objective is to capture an HVT, gathering intel, escort noncombat arms MOS's like Civil Affairs, etc. The completion of these tasks does not require killing. On the battlefield, the chain of command will rarely know how many of the enemy you killed, but they will know whether or not you sufficiently performed your assigned task and this is what will cause you to receive awards and promotions in most cases.
Also, killing can often be detrimental to your cause in a counter insurgency campaign.
Thank you, this is what I wanted. I do partially regret making this thread, and I apologize if my views on the military have offended anybody and am glad of the alternative viewpoints posted, especially this one here.
I'm backing out of this now.
You also have to take into consideration precedent for this shit, especially considering the ties to Mexico. There was an excellent History channel Gangland special on about MS13, the notorious central american and Southwestern US gang. The story detailed a banger who was recruited in middle school by the gang, was sponsored and encouraged to do good in school, and then immediately went Army special forces out of high school. He deliberately avoided criminal activities and tatoos so as not to tip off the recruiters.
The Army then trained him in spec ops, demolition, and small unit tactics. He left the military 2 years later and proceeded to become a trainer for MS13, relaying everything the military just taught him to his gang.
The military didnt give him the intent to become a murdering son of a bitch. Some people just have that going in.
The reason they found all this out? Dude was on point during a liquor store robbery, and proceeded to use an AK47 and his army training to make short work of 2 responding officers...all caught on tape.
In the context death was used earlier, it was not implied as societal punishment, see:
A quote which you supported with:
Murder does not necessarily equal punishment in the relevant sense that the word punishment is used. To imply that punishment (read: from society) is the only reason we don't murder is short sighted. Punishment comes after the fact, mental traits like empathy and sympathy come before.
I do not want to murder people because I do not want to be murdered =/= I do not want to murder people because I do not want to be punished.
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Regarding Mercenaries:
People become mercenaries/contractors because they're actively recruited by people looking for those job skills, especially if they were in certain MOS. Think about the job faires at universities that are looking for the top 25% of the class who majored in certain courses. Same idea. More low key. The difference in pay for joining a defense contractor is amazing, as are the benefits they offer. Again, same for kids coming out of a university looking to go corporate. I was floored when I saw what was offered to me. It's more than I make now, and I've gone back into the private sector, gone to university, and am a supervisor at a large company. Maybe you can fault the gov't for not paying its soldiers enough, but when someone else comes along with tons of resources to throw at your men... it's like faulting Anadarko for not being able to beat Chevron-Texaco's headhunters.
Regarding "hit men":
You think maybe this guy could have been a thug before he went into the Army? Everyone from all walks of life go into the armed forces, from rich kids to poor kids, from people who worked at McDonalds to people who were criminals before they went in. Some people, when they get out, go right back to McDonalds or go right back to crime. Some clean up their act and go on to better things. It all depends on how they apply things they learned and whether or not they choose to do anything with their experience.
Military training isn't magical. It has the same external forces exerted on it as any other occupation/schooling, and those forces are introduced by not only the people around the system and the people already in the system, but people who are going into the system.
Not really. You're expected to follow orders and fight where and when you're told to fight, but you're not scrubbed of morality nor are you encouraged to kick puppies, push old ladies down the stairs, or take candy from small children.
I don't want to seem rude, but you might want to regroup and re-research this line of thought, because anyone who told you this was making shit up and you need to stop propogating it, as otherwise people will start to believe you're the one making shit up.
It doesn't matter how you couch this or how many 5-dollar words you attempt to insert, this is a gross simplification that, following your previous train of thought, displays a lack of understanding of not only what it takes to be promoted as an officer, but also what "successful bomb drops" actually means.
These days, "successful bomb drops" doesn't mean maximizing death. In fact, if you haven't noticed, we've spent a hell of a lot of money in the last 30 years doing the exact opposite. Success hasn't been determined by deaths since we were deliberately slaughtering buffalo.
Seriously this looks like a "he jut happened to be active duty when he decided to be a fuckwad."
Trying to link this to some overarching "military service turns you into a merc" argument is flawed. That argument CAN be made about some jobs in the services, but not broadbrushing like that.
Yeah, this is becoming a more common practice throughout the country. Tactics for room clearing, for example, are easily adapted to home invasions. And if your rival gang has knowledge of close combat tactics and urban warfare, you had better catch up quick or get wiped out. The heyday of gang warfare consisting of blindly firing a sideways-held Mac-10 out of a speeding car window is probably past.
I think that Gangland episode even talked about how gang-affiliated graffiti is starting to pop up all over Iraq and Afghanistan.
It's also worth pointing out that there have been many active or aspiring gang members who entered into military service and found something there that led them to abandon that lifestyle in favor of something more constructive and law-abiding.
Case in point: Alvin fucking York.
now apparently, the OP is not familar with one of the army's most bad ass soldiers, Sgt. York.
See Sgt. York was fighting in ww1 against a metric shitton of germans when he came under fire. He returned fire with his pistol and was such a BAMF that the entire shitton of germans surendered.
The man is considered a hero to this day, not because of the men he killed but because of the enemies he captured. The army is full of examples of men and women who through couraged managed to accouplish the mission, usualy with few enemy casualties, and are lorded as hero's.
Anyways, since you're obviously also in the wrong thread, what on earth were you reading that had, "insufferable soldier-worship, blind militarism and breathless apologism?"
Thank god for text to speech or I wouldn't even be able to read posts.
yo son
you know the white man gonna do wutevah the fuck he wants to anyway, right?
so if there was no volunteer soldiers to go and fight you know george bush would have drafted us anyway
so really yo dumb ass should thank them for taking your place, cause it was gonna happen anyway, dawg.
Am I doing this right?
edit: I didn't have the heart to spell soldier as 'souljah'. I just couldn't do it.
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Yes it is fair. He chose to gain the training, then ignore the parts about who and when you shoot. Where are you getting the "few marketable skills" thing? He was still in the US Army, so it's not like he wasn't getting paid for his skills that had been taught to him. He was also vesting a GI BIll, which (as I can tell you) is fantastic if you can make it through your four years.
This is a guy who was either crazy, or as his Grandpa says:
PS @echo thank you for changing that hideous avvy.
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You also misspelled "soldier" in the thread title.
Looks like the prosecution are seeking the death penalty, as of some 2011 article on the first page of a google search. It's probably still in the courts.
necropoasting up ins