Americans that are in the armed forces, What is the current feeling inside it?
Do the army support the president even if his orders are against your constitution? How is the overll clima and feeling today?
Just asking because I'm curious, I have no horse in this race :)
Edited to Armed forces since thats exactly what I ment
You might want to edit your post to read "armed forces" rather than army. The United States armed forces include Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, Air Force, Space Force (LOL), and the National Guard. I apologize if I left anyone out.
The National Guard is not monolithic either, as it is per service and per state. I.e. Minnesota Air National Guard, Minnesota Army National Guard, Iowa Air… you get it
To clarify the army has 3 types active, national guard and reserve
The reserve doesn’t have combat mos and are primarily support. Active duty soldiers live on bases when not deployed, and train throughout the week like a regular job. The national guard is still part of the army, they train for the same jobs at the same place and wear the exact same uniform. All three departments wear a name tape that says U.S. army.
They just so happen to be in their respective states service, and can be acted on by the governor as well. National guard also does disaster relief when state side. All three departments can be deployed to a conflict internationally.
I'd like to know if there is are general differences between the branches. Like, is the Air Force more liberal?
There are differences but I wouldn't use terms like "liberal" although those who chose to join the Marines due tend to have a particular stereotype.
There are differences, but it's quite difficult to define. There's not a huge political difference except maybe the Marines are stereotypically known to be more right-leaning.
You are right that is what I ment! Just edited
I am recently (last few weeks recent) out of the Navy. Not eoas but I doubt people are interested in the reasons and it would be easy to dox me if I got into details.
Its bad. Most of the people in the navy are more than willing to do whatever they are told. I was a role that had a higher than average level of people leaning left and even then most of them were explicitly republican even if they thought trump was stupid.
The military will just do whatever they are told unless someone higher up is willing to break ranks first.
If you honestly think they have an issue with following illegal orders, I think you should take a look at The Kent State massacre
The military has done some horrible stuff but going back 50+ years to prove how they feel today seems a stretch.
Even if it was over 50 years ago it was a significant point in history that a lot of people seem to forget, and was a major turning point for the public during Vietnam. It's also relevant to today with what's happening.
Get literally any soldier who was deployed to iraq or afghanistan drunk and they'll tell you about unpunished warcrimes they witnessed or participated in.
Are they allowed on Lemmy? Partially sarcastic
Is anybody not allowed on Lemmy? It's a federated platform
Yeah, since it's "peace time" and less risk there's probably a decent chunk of the armed forces who are just in it for the perks ( free college, Healthcare) and don't believe in it and are trying to serve there time and get out and not make a career of it.
They aren't cops who almost always want to be cops and make it a core part of their identity and belief system. They aren't allowed on lemmy.
People inside rn be like: "Why are some of these people I'm shooting white??.. Ah well."
none of my friends in the armed forces are smart or socially conscious people. they are not at all curious about any of life's questions.
Yeah, the armed forces is overwhelmingly conservative. Even if you’re not conservative when you go in, being immersed in it for so long means you likely are when you get out. There are outliers, sure. But statistically, the people in the armed forces will only have the opinions that Fox News tells them to have.
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Anyone who answers this question is doing so at risk to their career. I hope they do either way.
Yeah I know. But I'm curious to know if they support the president even if he decides for a coup. Just curious not american
Some definitely do. The majority may not support it on its face, but will follow orders to a far point.
It's not a risk I'd personally take with trump as president.
How about we ask ‘Americans that are in the National Guard’, too.
i didn't know the difference since Im not american. Another nicer person let me know and I edited it
Since that's organized under each state they probably feel good about their own states.
You’d be surprised, also regarding federalization for immigration enforcement and protest control. Who’s to say that the courts don’t weigh in on the side of CA and limit the use of CA-NG by the POTUS, and then he brings in a neighbor state’s NG instead? These are wild times, they even activated the Marines… on top of NG. This is crazy stuff.
Normally they just terrorise brown people, also nice that they don't have to take a plane to do that now.
I have no horse in this race :)
The fascist armed forces do and they have them trample on protesters.
Let's face it, who do you think elected the Mr. President?
Musk's voting machines?
The 9-10 million people who voted for Biden in 2020 and didn't bother voting in 2024.
edit: fixed date typo
These boots taste great.
"War criminals of lemmy, what do you and your fellow pond scum think about potentially shooting white people for a change?"
Pond scum is an extremely productive microecosystem. I won't stand for you insulting it by comparing US soldiers to it.
Additionally, gonna hazard a guess that the majority of the protesters aren't white or at least wouldn't be considered white by the soldiers regardless of their skin tone. They're literally protesting white supremacist actions by the government.
😂
Army or military? There are several branches of the military, Army is just one.
Edited
A better question is if anybody in the military is on Lemmy
I'm a veteran, no combat service. I was in during President Obama so somewhat recent. I'm past any contract so I can't get called up. Speaking from some experience though your average enlisted person most likely does not want to deploy or help in LA. They are likely removed about how dumb it is. There might be some who won't, but you won't hear about it, they'll just process them out under "other than honorable" conditions, which maybe is not the worst option given the current admin. To me its a scenario where you would not refuse orders, even though they are dumb and unconstitutional. It would have been hard for me to refuse the current order too, I would be removed the entire time, I know thats not taking a stand. I would do the bare minimum, which is kinda what I expect to happen, extreme low effort but we'll see. Most comments on the post aren't wrong, just wanted to point out a general reluctance I do not know what it would take to refuse an order.
The way you describe it I'm reminded of when the South Korean president tried to ... I don't even know what his goal was. Apparently the soldiers were confused, the pooiticians were confused, everyone was just too confused to get violent.
Is he making military orders that are against the constitution? U mean the marines in LA thing?
I don't know. That's why I'm asking
They've never had any problems with any of the other crimes against humanity they were ordered to do so why start now? They literally think they should be hailed as gods in the US and anyone who doesn't is a traitor, you think they'd have any qualms about killing protestors when they've already been told that they're anti-US terrorist scum?
It's literally the exact same tactics the IDF uses. Wonder who Israel learned it from.
Have you talked to anyone in the armed forces? Many of them are there because they grew up poor and in the U.S. joining the military can be a good way to get out of poverty.
Only a tiny fraction actually do any combat and even fewer commit war crimes. The main ones committing “war crimes” is Congress who does things like give weapons to Israel.
Most of the US military have zero qualms about obeying illegal orders.
Reference: Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and most other U.S. instigated wars for their entire history.
This is what has been most depressing/distressing about watching all of this unfold. People online (and I'm not immune to this either) have this impulse to think "Surely not right? Surely these people will come to their senses and not just blindly follow transparently evil orders right? We've been told these people are heroes who stand up for freedom and democracy and our safety right? Surely at least some of them will do the right thing right?" It's so ingrained into us through support our troops propaganda and various TV/Movies showing them and cops as principled heroes saving the day. We've also seen this with corporations. "Wow I can't believe this company turned away from DEI so quickly. I can't believe this company is going to keep selling surveillance tech to the government. Surely someone will see how wrong that is."
And then I snap back to my senses and remember history. We've seen what horrors these people are willing to commit, whether they want to or are "just following orders." Maybe you at least believe that they won't do it to US, as cynical as that is... and then you remember Kent State, segregation, the violent crackdown on unions, the police rallying around protecting cops who execute people in the streets, etc.
Nobody is going to come to their senses. None of them are coming to save us from themselves. If we don't stand up for ourselves this is just going to happen and be another chapter in a long history of cruelty.
The Milgram experiment. The Zimbardo prison experiment. The bystander effect. At the end of the day, humans are just monkeys with smart watches. As social primates, it's really hard to be the one to stand up against the crowd. Our brains decide how to act based largely on the reactions of other humans around us.
It's disheartening.
The thing is that it becomes different when the order becomes "go to your home town, shoot anyone who disobeys, including your friends and family."
It might take a decade of brutal civil war, but look what happened in Syria. In the end the people in the army were also tired of murdering their own people.
Of course they do, they also want to keep some sanity or, you know, keep breathing.
I'm certainly not getting my hopes up, but this being in LA instead of Kabul might have a significant effect on how willingly the rank-and-file will just open up on a crowd.
There's a big Navy base in San Diego; some of the Marines are probably coming from there. Some probably grew up in California, more probably visited LA at some point. Going a few hours to a place where people speak your language and there an In-and-Out Burger down the street is very different from going halfway across the world to a place where you recognize little and understand far less.
Honestly it depends people have become pretty divided, I’m sure there are enough freaks in the Maga media cult that no longer see their fellow citizens as humans but just as a part of the woke mob. The direct and logical conclusion of the culture war was always an actual fucking war.
If that’s the case, then we should shun these traitors.