- cross-posted to:
- pics@lemmy.world
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I mean, when you literally sign up to be cannon fodder, I don’t know what you expect. America has always treated troops and veterans like livestock. You could simply choose a career other than oppressing the third world for oil profits.
what do soldiers fighting a cruel and meaningless war expect luxury meals?
The latest Chinese propaganda has been posting pictures of their aircraft carrier meals.
Yum! Then sign me up for the “Chinese propaganda aircraft carrier” mission 😋
Operation Dim Sum vs The Orange Chicken
if i was a US soldier this would be the most demoralizing thing i could see
Oh, no, the volunteer soldiers who are willingly taking orders from pedophiles and Nazis aren’t feeling COMFY and eating gourmet food???
Fuck’em. This is better than they deserve.
Oh no the people who volunteered to be murderers aren’t getting good food :(
Every US male who turns 18 “volunteers” to be eligible to “volunteer” to die overseas for the Epstein class.
Lots of people arguing about this in the comments, but I’m glad there’s so many people defending the position that it’s ok to do bad things if you’re poor, because that’s exactly my position. I wasn’t in the military, though, no.
I was the guy that trafficked kids to Epstein’s Island.
I don’t talk about it a lot because most of the time people judge me pretty harshly for it. You wouldn’t believe how many dates have walked out on me the moment I drop what I used to do for a living. I mean, look, I’m not a pedophile myself. Most of the guys I was working for were just desperate and in it for the money. I don’t support what the guys in Washington decided to pay me for. Blame them, not me.
What was I supposed to do, work in a warehouse or a grocery store or something? What am I, some kind of chump? Fuck that. With the money I made duct taping children’s mouths shut and throwing them into my trunk, I managed to earn enough money to put myself through college, and finally persue my real passion.
That’s right. Now I’m finally able to persue a dual major in Moral Philosophy and Women’s Studies. Also, funny coincidence, I’m a TA and I’m actually teaching one of the girls I met in my previous line of work about feminism. What a funny little coincidence!
Thank you for your service defending what this country stands for.
your honor, I object
An army recruiter came to my extremely poor elementary school, and could basically say anything to us kids. Told us that if we joined the army you can get whatever food you want, at all, from the mess hall and a chef will cook it for you. And yes, being able to get food was a motivating factor for some of us.
I asked if you could get eggs Benedict every day if you asked for it. He looked a little nonplused, then said “oh yeah sure! Every day!”
I knew at that point he was full of it and told him so.
The rich school near me had the same thing. Navy medic came in to describe how amazing the navy treats you. Definitely not a recruiter, though. Made very clear up front that he wasn’t there recruiting. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
Army recruiter in elementary school? Wtf? Just when you think lemmy already showed you what it’s like over there… From “it sucks” to starship troopers’s shit level.
What do you think that story is about in the first place? It’s based on a true story, just painted over to seem like fiction.
I will say, that experience varies wildly by branch, and even chow hall to chow hall within a branch. I was in the Marines, and the “new” chow hall on Pendleton mainside (they opened it about a year after I got there, but that was 15 years ago now) was really pretty good. Solid breakfast burrito line, an omelet station where you could get real eggs, etc. Lunch and dinner had a few options, and a panini bar.
The chow hall we had before that one opened was a dump.
But then, I went TDY to an Air Force base. And let me tell you, that was better than most restaurants I’ve been to.
If the Air Force had to eat at marine corps chow halls until they could pass a DoD audit, they would pass on a month.
I knew this post was going to end on an Air Force story when I read “varies wildly by branch”.
told him so.
How did he respond?
He didn’t like his ruse exposed but tried to play it off and change the subject. The teacher was amused though
Good for you.
Now do modern prison and public school food for comparison.
In the US, yes.
Less chance to get shot in prison
Drastically higher chance of getting shanked tho
Honestly, the pics I’ve seen of USA school food were worse. Which kinda tracks; I’m sure they value soldiers higher than children.
Above I see full grain rice and a variety of protein sources, if industrially produced. Salad is missing of course but that would be too much to ask Ig
edit: I have heard that it varies. Both the pics in this post and the posts I’ve seen are anecdotal but not isolated outliers either.
School food in the US is highly variable. Each individual school district sets food contracts, and there are over 13,000 districts. That said, many of them have very bad food, especially any district contracting with Sodexo is going to have awful food. But a lot of us make lunch for our kids to bring every day either way
My boys have packed for probably 2-4/5 days forever. They ALWAYS buy on Friday as apparently get a treat - ice cream bars, etc. And, cannot just buy the treat… Mostly they take leftovers. Occasionally (maybe once a week or so?) sandwiches - PBJ, or whatever delimeat we have.
As @protist@retrofed.com just mentioned, it varies greatly.
The lunch at my kids school today is:
- Crispy chicken sandwich
- Tater tots or French fries
- Assorted chilled fruits (from local farms, usually blueberries, strawberries, cranberries, peaches, and apples)
- Choice of veggies: pickles, cole slaw, or cucumber salad
- Milk (1%, fat free, fat free chocolate, soy, almond)
Each of those gets a swap option (not as much variety here given what it is) for allergies and preferences (such as vegan options).
It would be really hard to try and make me consider that worse than what I just looked at.
Edit: Full disclosure, our kids bring their lunch every day, on Fridays they can get an extra treat like cookies or something from there though). My wife makes bread fresh, we get our produce from the local farms too as well as growing a few things ourselves, etc.
Speak for your terrible school district. Mine growing up, and my kid’s today, had magnitudes better food than this slop.
Prison food tho, you’re on the mark based on what I’ve heard from my buddy and my brother from the time they spent back there.
Nah, my kids’ district has really good food. But we also have high property taxes that pay for it.
If I can only fix one I’m going with the school food.
The company that ran my alma mater’s cafeteria also served kitchens. The food plan my college had selected was the one below what they serve in prison…
This looks on par or worse than school lunch when i was in grade school. Looks like less too, somehow.
This is the exact same stuff they fed us when I was in Iraq 20 year ago. They gave the contract to the lowest bidder who bought the cheapest food possible then pocketed the “leftover” cash. This isn’t new. The difference between then and now is our families could send us care packages and we didn’t have cell phones to post about the mystery meat. I don’t want anyone to eat like this but I also don’t know why everyone is surprised by wartime food. Food SUCKS when you deploy, it’s why they give troops the big send off steak and lobster dinner. Best way to avoid giving our troops trash food is to NOT DEPLOY THEM.
pro tip: stop fucking joining this shitshow.
For many, joining the US military is the only way out of poverty, a path to citizenship, or a way to a higher education. Some others just are victims of propaganda, or just genuinely sadistic, but unfortunately most of the people joining the military are victims of a failed education and social security system designed to bring more troops into the meat grinder.
EDIT: Holy moly. I do not condone US imperialism at all. I am not saying that people who fall into the poverty draft get a free pass either. What I AM saying is that the US war machine is a fucked system that results in endless atrocities abroad but unfortunately will only to continue unless we dismantle the institutions that blindly draw people to the machine so that these people who would otherwise be vulnerable can wake the fuck up and turn away from it. These systems include capitalism, propaganda, imperialism, jingoism, a failed education system, etc… Chill out friends.
Joining the US military means killing innocent men women and children all over the world.
Is “wanting to escape poverty” a valid excuse to murder children? Bank robbery is a more noble profession than US militant.
Is surviving a reason for doing something bad?
I’d say yes and anybody that disagrees has probably never been in that situation.
There is a reason the military recruits the poor.
Surviving is when you go work for or McDonalds or Uber not kill brown children. Such a pathetic excuse for mass murder. As if these people had no other option. In reality becoming a mercenary mass-murderer is just a bit more lucrative than flipping burgers.
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You are saying that it is okay to torture and murder foreigners for money (and college)
Spoken like someone who’s never truly known desperation or genuine hunger. ie. One of the bourgeoisie who’d be first against the wall.
Putting the fed in feddit. Loser.
What are you talking about the average US militant isn’t poor at all and even the poor ones could easily work somewhere else. You’re just doing mental gymnastics to excuse doing child murder for money
No, I’m pointing out the hypocrisy in you pretending to know what it is to be desperate, that you can judge others in such a position.
I ain’t justifying diddly squat.
Edit: For clarification, watching the fall of the American empire in real time is both amusing and enlightening. Hopefully, it happens fast enough that I get to see the end result.
If you can join the most expensive military in the world, you are not nearly as desperate as, for example, people who survive in NATO without that.
Also nowhere near as desperate as the people whose countries NATO keeps invading.lol. seems like you know what bourgeois is huh? careful with all that edge.
there are lots of ways to ‘survive.’
let me ask you question: what’s worse from a moral standpoint: stealing an old ladies purse or killing someone? what about pitching a tent on land that someone else owns? what about parking your RV in a wal-mart parking lot overnight?
some of those things are crimes and you’ll be looked down upon even if you don’t get caught.
so, why do we say ‘thank for your service’ and then turn around and see the thief as less than human?
i’d rather have someone poach on my land than bust into my house and shoot me in the face. i’d think anyone would feel that way.
That whole thank you for your service thing is also distinctly American. No where else does that.
I don’t thank people for their service. I understand that some people needed to to survive. You’re legally allowed to park in wall mart overnight with an RV at a majority of locations as well.
You either agree that the people your empire has been invading have a right to defend themselves by eliminating your ss troops, or you think that your ss troops deserve to survive and get higher education.
Which is it?the reason is capitalism. but it doesn’t excuse those who voluntarily join.
would you say the same for ICE? they also recruit from poor migrant communities because they’re most desperate and the pay and perks are good - would you say they’re justified in joining and terrorising the ones that didn’t?
and while I 100% agree that propaganda and the system failing them is the main reason driving that - we don’t counter the propaganda by normalising the poor-to-terrorist pipeline as “well the system sucks but you gotta do what you gotta do” - there are red lines and if we could collectively resist them - we starve the system from being able to force people into the meat grinder
Would it be okay, then, for me to rob, torture, and kill your family if it was the only way for me to get higher education (i.e. something that is not necessary to live)?
What about the families these monsters kill that won’t be able to receive higher education on account of being dead or kidnapped?Strawman but good
not a strawman. literally every role in the military is involved in the murder of children. every. single. role.
And what about roles outside of the military? When was the last time you contributed to slavery or child exploitation with your purchases? How about your employer?
You are equating purchasing things with directly participating in the most vile military on the planet.
I hate to break it to you, but your consumption of unethical products is also direct participation in the unethical production of said products.
two things can be true at once.
Just wanted to make sure since people in this thread seem to be taking a holier-than-thou stance. As above:
Would it be okay, then, for me to rob, torture, and kill your family if it was the only way for me to get higher education (i.e. something that is not necessary to live)? What about the families these monsters kill that won’t be able to receive higher education on account of being dead or kidnapped?
If we’re talking about more than just service members who directly engage in combat and are including non-combat roles (cook, mail clerk), then the answer has to be yes.
Why “strawman”? They are literally saying that that is perfectly okay to do for USians against people elsewhere. Why can’t you also say how it would be so good if you were on the receiving end of this poverty-alleviating programme?
Also, again, what about the poverty and education of the families these soldiers kidnap, torture, and kill?
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You think I care that the only way for them to go to college is to go and murder people in the country I’m from. Fuck them and fuck anyone who makes excuses for the American empire.
Seriously. Oh its ok, you needed to work at Auschwitz to pay for college.
They have the option of just not going to college.
Or do you think I should be rewarded with more university by kidnapping, torturing, and killing your family?
i couldn’t afford college. Didn’t join. Ended up a software engineer. 🤷♀️
service guarantees citizenship
No, it does not. Grew up watching the non-english news, every year you would see reports of people that joined the military with that promise from recruiters and were deported at the end of their service.
I’m making a reference to Starship Troopers, specifically the movie, which was a satire on fascism. “Service guarantees citizenship” was a propaganda line by the fascist government in the movie.
They don’t deserve even mud for food. But, there’s a solution: see that fatty right besides you, soldier?
Mildly infuriating? The coward butchers in the us military deserve every humiliation and degradation they can get.
While I get what you’re meaning, I am going to ask a question: do you treat criminals the same?
The way you see military, many of whom are from low income without many means of survival, as monsters because they join a government system that promises social services that harms so many. So a means to an end.
A criminal will steal or murder for similar reasons a person joins the military - except instead of social services, they’re taking what they need to survive. So do you think they deserve humiliation and degradation? Heck, prison food is similar.
Both are forced into making morally wrong choices that affect others outside of themselves but instead of anger at the system that creates these situations, you insult the people. It’s reactionary.
This from someone who knows multiple leftists who changed because of the military. So I see belittling them online as counterproductive to any type of coalition being made as it separates them from others who may hold similar if not the same beliefs.
do you treat criminals the same?
“Criminal” is a mich more wide group of people in the relevant sense. It includes people who are deemed such simply because of being of a “wrong race”, to people who do sabotage against the genocidal machine, to people who, indeed do some of the stuff that soldiers are very guilty of (strangely, you don’t seem to say that we should be ecstatic about people like Epstein and Maxwell).
A much better question would be “do you treat cops the same?”, but the military is still much worse.
The way you see military, many of whom are from low income without many means of survival,
Poverty draft is a myth. The USian military is mostly from well-off backgrounds.
Furthermore, if you can sign up for kidnapping and torture of foreigners for oil, you can find a different job.A criminal will steal or murder for similar reasons a person joins the military
So, you think that we shouldn’t speak ill of the likes of Epalstein and Maxwell, on the grounds that they were simply doing what the military does?
But yeah, if one intends to do kidnapping, torture, and murder for money, they can at least keep it to the Imperial Core instead of to foreigners.
So do you think they deserve humiliation and degradation?
These people that sign up to contribute to the most awful things that can be done deserve significantly worse.
Both are forced into making morally wrong choices
People who sign up for the USian military are not forced to do that.
but instead of anger at the system that creates these situations, you insult the people. It’s reactionary.
Do you think that insulting cops and ICE thugs is reactionary? Do consider that they do much less evil than the military.
So I see belittling them online as counterproductive to any type of coalition
If they are actually dependant, they understand why their former colleagues get such ire and would die with the victims and against said colleagues.
So I’m not going to argue because again, I said: I understand where the sediment comes from.
I want to address what concerns me about this type of agression. When someone does something for so long, it becomes part of their personality, their being. So insulting the military can come off as insulting the person rather than the role/entity. Especially for Americans, who do not have much outside of propaganda being fed from every angle and barely an education, many barely read anymore. If they can barely critically think, do you think they’re at fault or are they raised/trained to just believe it? This is the general population, not elite class who have better education purposely.
The middle class in American just a mean of the lower class and upper class, the stat you’re referencing is basing it around any household 50-100K - household, which means two parent income. So two parents making 50K would be low income in my opinion because each person is making 25K which is about 12 an hour. The lower percent was 85K and up I think showing that below 85K in an household leads to more enrollment in military. It’s just that the phrase “middle class” doesn’t exist like it used to as prices have rose and driven that class further down. This study even polled and it shows similar in 2025 so I’m supporting the data you read with the thought that people are surviving well on 80K and below. The main statistic that I want to point at is a majority joined for money and education.
Now to touch on that part about class, the elite class has no law to follow in the US. You’ve seen it, we’ve all seen it. So why bring up Epstein? It’s linked but not relevant to what we’re speaking about. Yes, he’s a criminal and a pedophile and deserved to be punished to death but that doesn’t relate to poverty stricken individuals who I referenced resorting to a life of crime by societal standards. This type of conversation diversion is used by right-wingers like Jordan Peterson and the rest of the grifters to avoid talking about the actual point. Again, it’s reactionary - you’re using pedophilia crime from the elite to compare to poverty related crime which is galaxies away on a morality spectrum. Killing someone from being on the brink of death for a way to survive is different than owning an island and sex trafficking humans. The reason is to get a reaction in the moral play. You can read why it’s reactionary due to the chain of you acknowledging the relation of poverty to crime and military by stating the statistic of the military being middle class so why mention a upper class criminal again?
Again, I understand your sediment. I’d just rather work towards deprogramming others who may be leaving the military or whatever relation to it with some grace in conversation (mostly in real life as this is what online banter is nowadays and probably always has and will) rather than attacking and letting the right (that can be reasoned with, I know some can’t be reason with) grow larger due to more alienation.
So insulting the military can come off as insulting the person rather than the role/entity.
I am perfectly fine with insulting individual unrepentant USian shutzstaffel troops.
Especially for Americans, who do not have much outside of propaganda being fed from every angle and barely an education, many barely read anymore. If they can barely critically think, do you think they’re at fault or are they raised/trained to just believe it? This is the general population, not elite class who have better education purposely.
Propaganda isn’t done sci-fi mind control. These people are adults that supposedly still have brains that can self-reflect and analyse their beliefs. Stop pretending as if they are helpless and not self-serving and monstrous.
The main statistic that I want to point at is a majority joined for money and education.
Which shows that they can’t be defended.
It is so incredibly silly how this ‘they just want to go to university’ (by committing atrocities) retort is being thrown around as if they don’t have the option of simply not attending a university.
You’ve seen it, we’ve all seen it. So why bring up Epstein?
Because somebody thinks that we should treat criminals the same as the military (despite criminals being a lot less harmful than the USian military). Considering that we are for some reason expected to just excuse the soldiers engaging in enslavement of foreigners, that means that so should the criminals.
but that doesn’t relate to poverty stricken individuals who I referenced
Only a small part of the USian shutzstaffel can be described so.
Again, it’s reactionary - you’re using pedophilia crime from the elite to compare to poverty related crime which is galaxies away on a morality spectrum. Killing someone from being on the brink of death for a way to survive is different than owning an island and sex trafficking humans.
You are saying that it’s perfectly fine to sign up to participate in kidnapping, torturing, murdering, and more assorted colonial subjugation of the Global South if one is poor, but that holding such people in contempt is reactionary.
Stop pretending as if they did so to survive. University is not needed to survive, and if you can sign up for the USian ss, you can find a different job.
why mention a upper class criminal again?
Because you just broadly said that criminals should be treated the same as the military when criminals do range from Epsteins who do what the military does to people who are, in fact, innocent.
And yes, you are currently saying that being essentially an Epsteinian lackey and helping to do human trafficking is fine if you are poor, so I am not sure why bringing up him rattles you so much.
Again, I understand your sediment. I’d just rather work towards deprogramming others who may be leaving the military or whatever relation to it with some grace in conversation (mostly in real life as this is what online banter is nowadays and probably always has and will) rather than attacking and letting the right (that can be reasoned with, I know some can’t be reason with) grow larger due to more alienation.
Don’t have a problem with that. And, if they do come to the understanding that what they did was bad, they will also understand the ire they were getting.
Good. I hope they starve. Fuck them.
Why?
Because they’re imperialist killers for hire?
You don’t think some members may have joined before this administration and got trapped doing this kind of shit?
Its not like you can just quit, you usually do jail time.
And if they have a family, are they supposed to just abandon them?
Help me understand why it’s their fault they were told to do stupid shit with very little recourse.
You don’t think some members may have joined before this administration and got trapped doing this kind of shit?
What, when we were occupying Afghanistan for 20 years and slaughtering hundreds of thousands of civilians? What on earth makes you think I only hate them because of who the president is?
Its not like you can just quit, you usually do jail time.
Tough shit. A person threatening you with jail time does not justify committing murder.
And if they have a family, are they supposed to just abandon them?
Even if they have to, they’d be no worse off than the families of the people they kill. Although, I suppose they often kill the families too, so kind of a bad example.
Help me understand why it’s their fault they were told to do stupid shit with very little recourse.
This may be a difficult concept to grasp, but human beings have agency which means that if someone tells you to do something, you don’t actually have to do it, because you are not a robot.
Where are you getting your info. Links please.
Links for what info? Do you need a source for the fact that there was decades-long occupation of Afghanistan? Have you been living under a rock?
I’d you’re not going to link any info at all, why do you keep replying? I’m literally asking and everyone just downvotes me like I kicked their dog rather than proving any source.
You saying they joined before a administration did war crimes? So they joined before July 4, 1776?
Trump is worse, yeah of course. But there is no living USA president that shouldn’t be send to den hauge
I’m not saying any of that, I’m asking why soldiers deserve to eat trash food. No one can explain it, they just say “they deserve it”
US soldiers deserve worse than shit food. Because they’re rapists and murderers. That’s why. They should just be redacted before they rape and kill more innocent people and kids. Same with IDF.
Explain please. Citation?
Murderers deserve punishment. What more is there to explain?
More info needed. Links?
Lower moral and enemy = more change to refuse order = less innocent Iranians civilians dead
Explain why you think that invaders of Iran, Yemen, Palestine, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and many, many other places deserve better.
The US military has been like this for decades though. You could argue ignorance, but at some point you have to take some personal responsibility for your actions.
The US military has been like this for decades
*Centuries
You don’t think some members may have joined before this administration
Oh? Which administration do you claim it was fine to join during?
Its not like you can just quit
They can always quit, unless they are cowards .
And if they have a family, are they supposed to just abandon them?
Why are you not as concerned about the families in the receiving end of their invasions?
Help me understand why it’s their fault they were told to do stupid shit with very little recourse.
Why did they follow up on doing what they were told about signing up to murder foreign kids?
The last time the US military did anything not evil was WWII and that was not really by choice. It’s their fault they were told to do stupid shit because they have at least three generations of murder as examples they could have looked at.
US straight up turned away diaspora Jews who fled Hitler. Soviets let them in, even tired to warn western countries like UK and so on but The West was ready to let Hitler destroy and conquer Europe so they could be turned on the Communists. The USSR foiled that plan.
Canada did the same thing as the US, by the way.
This is not even true . Fire bombing of tokyo and the two nuclear bomb are in the top worst terrorist attacks
Yeah no, I completely agree they still did loads of very evil stuff, it’s just the last time that they did any thing that was somehow helpful
No. I never heard this apologia when talking about russian soldiers. I am pretty sure the consequence for refusing to serve is a lot higher than in the USA
They’re bombing my home country. People don’t generally root for the people who are murdering little girls where they come from. There are 5000 less Iranians in the world because of them.
