What happens when you do minimal screening before hiring agents, arming them, and sending them into the streets? We're all finding out.

I skipped the steps of the application process that would have clued the agency in on my lack of fitness for the position. I made no effort to hide my public loathing of the agency, what it stands for, and the administration that runs it. And they offered me the job anyway.

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  • unexposedhazard
    855·
    1 day ago

    The agent then told me a bit about his own background. Like me, he enlisted straight out of high school, then got out and vowed to get as far away from the violence of the military as possible. Like a lot of veterans, he had trouble assimilating into the civilian world. “After about six months, I was like, ‘These people aren’t like me. I want to be around like-minded people.’ ” He found his way into law enforcement.

    This also stood out to me. People ive had discussions with have often tried to argue that the military is not as bad and that ACAB doesnt apply to military veterans. Fuck no. Active military deployment turns people into fucking ghouls that are incompatible with society. Some people turning out well (like the author) is just the exception to the rule.

    • Branch_Ranch@lemmy.world
      32·
      17 hours ago

      2x Combat vet here. Yeah, you’re not wrong. I have grown to despise many of the guys I’ve deployed with. I see their posts on FB and am to the point I really want to call them out and publicly shame them. I feel like I’m a unicorn, I’ve gotten more and more leftie as I get older and have shunned my military past. Just my two cents. Fuck trump and fuck ICE.

    • Hanrahan@slrpnk.netEnglish
      34·
      17 hours ago

      Active military deployment turns people into fucking ghouls that are incompatible with society

    • 7101334@lemmy.world
      61·
      23 hours ago

      They aren’t ghouls, they’re victims. They can be, and often are, victimizers as well. Most people join the military because they’re broke and desperate. Have some class solidarity.

      Now the people who join the military just to go shoot someone in the Middle East (or soon South America maybe), yeah, they can get thrown into the meat grinder.

      • unexposedhazard
        132·
        22 hours ago

        I agree, that they are also victims. Ideally they would get the help they need, but realistically thats not happening so we have no choice but distance us from them, lest we become victims too.

        • 7101334@lemmy.world
          16·
          22 hours ago

          That’s an insane and inhumane stance which could be equally applied to mentally ill / developmentally challenged people in many cases. The price of community is inconvenience. We aren’t only meant to protect and take care of people when it’s comfortable for us.

          Now if we’re talking about living with someone with PTSD who waves a gun at you or hits you, for sure, get yourself out of that situation for your own wellbeing. But there’s a lot of room between “Calling them ghouls and exiling them from polite society” versus “Avoiding becoming a victim of their violence”, especially when they aren’t all violent.

          • unexposedhazard
            42·
            11 hours ago

            Comparing vets to involuntarily disabled people is a big stretch. Most vets alive today are people who knowingly decided to go kill people for oil money. Dont bullshit me with “they didnt know better”. Nobody goes to afghanistan without knowing about the atrocities that the US has comitted there. Being poor and needing the money doesnt justify being a murderer. If you applied the same logic to ICE, people here would be apalled.

            • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
              2·
              4 hours ago

              without knowing about the atrocities that the US has comitted there

              As staggering quantity of American teenagers, at least the majority, are truly that ignorant. They didn’t have a real education and their pastor told them that brown people fuck goats and kids and the US army will help stop that.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
      4·
      23 hours ago

      Having said that, people leave our police force either mentally damaged or suicidal from the PTSD, physically broken or killed, or angry at the entire force at how they treat their resources (ie people). The goal is to retire-out, right around when you really hate the job, and have the body and mind to never look back.