They offered the ASVAB at my HIGH SCHOOL. They CAME INTO MY SCHOOL and said âIf you guys take the military aptitude test, you get free donuts and you miss the first half of the day.â They brought in hot dogs.
They brought food to a place where half of us were in poverty if not more, and they said, all you have to do is take a little test and youâll get a snack, you donât have to come in to school on time (an extra full hour of sleep that morning!). So we did. By the hundreds.
My younger brother, a year behind me in school, scored âthe highest weâve ever seen in the whole damn state, son,â and for the next. Three. Fucking. Years. They harassed him. He got phone calls from every goddamn branch of the military. People would show up at our house at random, trying to recruit him. Theyâd tell him horror stories about how much better it is to enlist than be drafted (as if thereâd been a draft in our lifetime!). They called our Mom at work. They sent recruiters to talk to our stepfather, whoâd been in the Army, to try to get a handle on my brotherâs weak points.
THREE FUCKING YEARS OF THIS.
My brother is the second child of six. My brother was thirteen by the time he had his own pillow for the first time. My brother was hungry all the time, dizzy from hunger some daysâand oh, sidenote, my mother, stepfather and father are all abusive assholes whoâd as soon hit you as look at you.
Guess what year my brother graduated?
If you guessed âMay, 2002,â or âalmost immediately after 9/11,â ding ding ding ding!
The ONLY REASON my brother didnât join the military, in the end, is that his girlfriend at the time said âIf you enlist, I will never speak to you again.â Her dad was a military man, and he was also an abusive shithead, so in her head the two were inextricable. But if sheâd said âgo for it?â Or if she hadnât said anything at all?
Something like half of the males in my fucking graduating class enlisted.
It was better than starving.
And a great number of those are dead now.
I hate the US military industry. Iâm disgusted by the things our military does. But by god I donât blame our veterans for what was done to them.
Rich people donât enlist.
The ones who join the military are the ones who are hopeful that for once theyâll know that theyâre getting a meal, not just today but tomorrow too.
titsay
gracieabrams
turnnoffyourmind
theartofmadeline
baratheonpilled
tangentwithtanner
origamiaround
dailybridgerton
