re: why did the US military lose its prestige/gatekeeping ability so rapidly?

Our ruling class basically hates the country and the families who traditionally supplied the volunteer forces. The families have figured it out.

Probably feeding young men into the pointless meat grinder of Vietnam.

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why did this happen?

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Culture is top down, and the current ruling class are upper middle class. They think fighting is stupid.


The South and the mountain west were the only regions that had an honor culture though. Service was alway unusual outside of those regions.

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Women, and people infected by chick think.

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I think it really is cultural. I remembering dealing with these people when I was younger and people saying things like “serving is stupid” or “why would anyone want do that.” And that’s a whatever, it doesn’t matter, but it just doesn’t make sense to them.

If all you care about is making money, if you think like a merchant, the idea of service will be an anathema.

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the idea of service will be an anathema.

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The idea of service for my kids, where the biggest priority of the United States Navy, should be not running into shite, that is a problem. I use the Navy as a repeated example, because there are billions of dollars of equipment at stake, not to mention lives, and it's less important than "justice." It's not just a random NCO with a hummer or a Bradley and a squad.

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The South and the mountain west were the only regions that had an honor culture though. Service was alway unusual outside of those regions.

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That was not my experience. The 6 closest friends I had in my IOBC training platoon were from RI, NY, CO, CA, MA, and PA. Thinking back there was one guy from GA, one from TX and one from WV if you consider the latter two as the South. There were 2 that went to VMI and one that went to the Citadel but I don't remember them being from the South but they may have been. When I transitioned to the reserves I went to EOAC and the demographics were just as varied. My platoon and later company had enlisted soldiers from all over the country but there was a higher percentage of them that "talked like me" but still nothing like an unusual distribution.

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not long ago, you had to serve to be anyone.

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who told you this bs?

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why did this happen?

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Volunteer army. So smart people decided they didn’t want to waste four years of their life but instead would rather work or go to college. So by default the armed services ended up with a disproportionate amount of people who did not have the option of working in a private company or going to college, I.e. loser shitheads.

More successful types saw the high amount of loser shitheads and further avoided service. This caused a spiral effect.

Not to say there aren’t some great people that serve, but for the most part when I hear someone my age spent time in the military, my first thought is, “Why? How’d you manage to frick up your life such that was an attractive option?”

Obama….look no further than this dipshit administration. The military purge her orchestrated was the beginning of the end.

How would you word it for a younger culture who has lived through less history yet seem unaware how easy it is to repeat it?

Most of the posts so far are people blaming "the other side" instead of coming together for an actual solution?

Standing back with living history as my teacher I see this yet can not communicate it apparently to those who need to see it the most.