patrick.net

My dad came from a very blue collar background where no one in the family went to college nor did anyone in their social and cultural circles(all that would change by my generation...now every single kid goes to college). His uncle had been in some of the heaviest combat in WWII as infantry. He came back messed up bad...bad enough that he had to live in a separate residence from his wife and son most of his life. He still had jobs and was a great grandfather to my cousin, but very messed up with PTSD his whole life. The religion they all subscribed to was pacifist. So my Dads older brother got drafted into Korea and was a medic but did not carry a gun. I won’t get into it but he also was involved in some of the most brutal fighting of the war and also had bad PTSD. I went to my uncles retirement and saw where he worked His whole life. Understand their sisters both graduated from UCLA and my dad graduated with an EE degree and was very very good at his job. Brains ran in that family. My Uncle got a job after Korea with a local government and stayed in that job never promoting. Now that I work in govt, I can see that is not a good thing at all. He never got married and to the best of my knowledge never even dated once he got back. I’m sad that I never really had a. Chance to know him because I think he had great potential in life. He tried to show me and my brother he cared, but he was clearly a shell of a man. And finally Vietnam...my dads brother in law was in Vietnam. Again another man horribly impacted by PTSD from combat.

And what all this did was make my dad work hard. He was never home except to sleep...he worked multiple jobs while going to college with no financial support from his parents. They didn’t even know he was going to graduate(but of course were very proud when he did.)

His message to me and my brother was avoid drugs, pray, be good to people, and work hard. It was a given that we were going to college. From and early age it was clear they would pay, they would support us and we absolutely had to go to college. It was a resounding message from his now enlightened half of the family. My cousins...his sisters kids...got the same message. There was no alternative. It’s because he didn’t want us going into the military. He didn’t want the horrible stuff that happened to his family members happening to us.

In retrospect, I probably needed a kick in the ass. I was lazy and almost got the boot from a state college due to poor grades. And even when I stepped it up(I wound up with a 3.2 gpa on classes in my major), I was still lazy and soft. Things wouldn’t sort out well for me until I was about 26 or 27. My brother otoh killed it. He was always an extremely hard worker and it showed.

Despite all that....I think maybe we need mandatory military service. Right now, our country is fucked. We have asshole terrrorist who have taken over part of a Major US City including a god damn police station. And a bitch of a leftist mayor is incapable of handling the situation along with a clueless lying leftist governor. Military service would provide perspective and order. Make people follow direction, make them be mentally and emotionally tough. Even in the most cupcake of support jobs, there’s still enforced order in the military.

I know I would have benefitted...would have moved up my timeline In life a few years. I think if military service were mandatory there would be fewer pink hairs and fewer young people making stupid demands, doing stupid things, and in general hating America.