A friend was in the Navy. He's super sharp. His stories about the Navy are hardly patriotically inspiring. He said imagine it's more like a prison. Not everyone of course, but many incredible dregs of society. I'm not even sure why he decided to serve, he's kind of a random guy. I don't think it was super-patriotism or anything, maybe it was to learn how to work on electronics (I should ask I guess).

So back to the point, not to implicate the original commenter's brother or anyone who is nobly serving, but unfortunately it sounds like our military is far from the well-oiled purposeful machine we'd like it to be (presumably varies by which one we're talking about, I'd expect less dregs in the Marines for example).

I'm thinking - much like cops - pay and entry standards should probably be a lot higher. Our culture should be the BEST get to do this, not those that pretty much can't/won't do anything else - again, excepting those who choose to do so most nobly - particularly in today's awful service climate - rather than the worst (in the case of cops, often thugs that want to get away with it)....

A friend was in the Navy. He's super sharp. His stories about the Navy are hardly patriotically inspiring. He said imagine it's more like a prison. Incredible dregs of society. I'm not even sure why he decided to serve, he's kind of a random guy. I don't think it was super-patriotism or anything, maybe it was to learn how to work on electronics (I should ask I guess).

So back to the point, not to implicate the original commenter's brother or anyone who is nobly serving, but unfortunately it sounds like our military is far from the well-oiled purposeful machine we'd like it to be (presumably varies by which one we're talking about, I'd expect less dregs in the Marines for example).

I'm thinking - much like cops - pay and entry standards should probably be a lot higher. Our culture should be the BEST get to do this, not those that pretty much can't/won't do anything else - again, excepting those who choose to do so most nobly - particularly in today's awful service climate - rather than the worst (in the case of cops, often thugs that want to get away with it)....