Joining the Military?

                                                                     Thinking about joining the Military?


The military... trying times to consider joining...  Economically it may make sense... patriotically it may make sense...  all that may be.  I once joined the military for these reasons in 2002, after 9/11.  My experience was... well, I will explain my experience later.  For now, here are a list of questions you might want to ask yourself:

1.  What if i join the military and it turns out these wars are not justified?  How do I know they are truly justified?

2.  Joining the military means putting myself in a situation where I will be asked, nay ordered, to kill or be killed myself because the Commander 'n' Chief decided it was necessary.  That is, the President.  Is this, or perhaps future and past, presidents THAT trustworthy?  Have they/he ever lied before?

3.  No matter what anyone says, the real reasons for war are usually only known to a select few.  Am I comfortable putting myself in that situation not knowing for sure that it really is necessary?



My military experience was this:
I spent 4 years in.  The first 6mo.  consisted of basic combat training and Advanced Individual Training.  The next 2 months I waited for my Security Clearance to pass.  The rest of the time I was a part of SIGINT (signal intelligence).  I cannot go into details here, but I never saw combat, luckily.  But I did take it upon myself to pay attention to politicians for the first time in my life, as this was life and death.  Can you guess what I found?  LIARS.  The reasons for Iraq changed quite often.... I also found that the U.S. Government took credit for over 500,000 children deaths BEFORE 9/11 in the middle east, as a result of sanctions... 

I was not smart enough to think about this stuff until it was too late. When I first considered joining, all I received was praise from those around me.  My teachers at school, my military family,  some of my friends, brothers, you name it.  and now that I have been out for years, and talk about this stuff, one of two things happen.  Either 1) they tell me everyone knows this stuff but I'm just a jerk because I talk about it or 2) they tell me I hate my country.  Well, those are not arguments.  Those are statements that are either true or false...   now, I will take being a jerk or an unpatriotic jerk over having deaths of innocent people on my mind any day of the week and a hundred times on Sunday.  Use logic, think for yourself.

As you can see, I am not spreading a conspiracy theory, I'm not telling you to not join, I'm simply asking you to think about what you are doing.  Go look at the suicide statistics of soldiers in the military these days...  it is not a game.  Life and Death are literally what is at stake...  Choose wisely... and I will make this plea, do NOT sign any papers or take any oaths until you are sure... because once you are facing the gun of some foreigner somewhere, none of this will matter... your survival instincts will kick in and you may say to yourself "ya, I was duped into this mess, it's not my fault, but I am going to survive it."  Well, if you read this and still join without being certain you are doing the right thing, it will be your fault.

A Little Something To Consider About Jesus

At best I consider myself to be a Quaker.  I believe there is goodness in each and every person, and following that goodness is a simple decision.  But since the dominant religion in the United States is Christianity, and the story of Jesus, whether true or not true, holds an enormous value to me, here are my thoughts.

Statists tend to believe that "if only people were forced to do A, B, or C, we would live in a much better world than we do now."  or perhaps even just "if only people did A, B, or C..."  and then go on passively accepting legislation to make it happen.  (ex: If only people paid a higher wage... well, I'm not for actively forcing people to pay a higher wage, but if the state should pass a law to make it happen, I will not interfere with it.) 
What I don't understand is, why don't more people look to Jesus' example when it comes to force?

Disclaimer: Jesus' name has been introduced to justify just about any political idea one can think of, so what I am going to do here is present the audience with a few simple facts to make my case... and I think it's one that is hard to ignore.

Here is a list of some of the miracles performed by Jesus:

• Turning Water into Wine
• The miracle of draught of fishes
• The Feeding of the 5000 and of the 4000 men
• Walking on water
• Transfiguration of Jesus
• Calming the storm
• Finding a Coin in the fish's mouth
• The Cursing of the Fig Tree
• He knew he was going to be betrayed
• Raising of Lazarus
• His own Resurrection

The point here is, Jesus could most likely have done anything he wanted.  He gave his own life for our sins... but what did Jesus not do?  Jesus did not try to force a situation in which everyone knew at once that the God is Israel is indeed the one true God.  He did not try to remove man's free will and replace it with any correct doctrine so that all would be capable of going to heaven.  And he most certainly did not approve of violent solutions to problems.  As the question goes, "Who would Jesus bomb?"

After all, if God is all powerful, why doesn't He just force us to do as he wishes?  The answer is hopefully obvious at this point.  That particular method of solving problems is wrong. 

So, when it comes to advocating state intervention to solve problems, why don't more people follow Jesus' example and choose peaceful methods over the state? 

I thought about writing this blog because I see a man who comes by my work every single day, telling people about how they need to find Jesus.  This man had the nerve to tell me, when I suggested that Barack Obama likes to kill people (see the acknowledged innocents who are dying because of our drones) his response wasn't that "that's part of war" or some other cliche, but it was "if it spreads the gospel, it is justified." 

In other words, he thinks that BLOWING PEOPLE UP IS JUSTIFIED IF IT SPREADS CHRISTIANITY!!  Again, Jesus could have forced people to follow him without harming a soul and he chose not to... does anyone honestly believe He would have said "bomb people until they choose to follow me"?  The problem is, I know this man is not the only "Christian" who thinks this way. 

If Christianity is about saving souls, what is the point of blowing up people engaged in blasphemy?  Blowing them up would not save their soul, it would damn them (and perhaps your own in the process).  If Christians want to save souls, it is clear that they should use the power of persuasion/reason and not force, as religious beliefs cannot be forced on a man; and blowing up blasphemers destroys their chance for repentance. It simply makes no sense to use force to spread a religion of peace. 

I just want to wrap this up by being clear:  it is not my intention to make an enemy out of Christianity.  I think there are very good things about the religion... the 10 commandments are great, the message of love that I take from it is invaluable.  My intention is to question the strategy of using force to spread the gospel, and any other good for that matter, and question whether or not people who advocate using violence to spread the gospel ought to be considered Christians at all.