Whats Wrong With Wanting to Join?

[Beckalina]

Hi there,
Read your coment/article yesterday and agree that many poeple are anti-military and try to press their personal opinions on others. Recently I've been making plans to join the CF as a cook in the regular army. While researching the career at school some students made rather negitive coments, some of my family are upset that I'd even consider a career in the forces.
Maybe someone out there can tell me why people are so negitive about cooking food for hungry hard working people, how is a career with the forces so horrible and wrong when it does so much good?

 

[George Wallace]

Although there are many people in Canada who don't understand the Canadian Military, there are some who have emigrated here from War-torn countries, or countries with Dictatorships or similar types of governments, where the the military were an oppressive and ruthless tool to suppress the population.  Naturally their views of what a Military is are going to be skewed along those lines.  They look at all militaries as being bad.

 

[DG-41]

There's an analogy that Col Grosseman (he of On Combat and On Killing) uses that I really like. It goes like this:

Most of the people in the world are sheep - not in the "stupid, easily led, can't think for themselves" sense, but rather in the "will never harm another soul in their entire lives" sense.

The majority of the people in the world are utterly harmless. Most will never even witness, personally (movies and TV don't count) an act of real violence. The very concept of violence causes them real physical and emotional distress.

Unfortunately, there are wolves in the world who prey on sheep. Some of them are forced to by circumstance... but some actually enjoy it. They prey on sheep because they can, and because it is fun.

Happily, there are also sheepdogs; people who oppose the wolves and protect the sheep. That's us.

Outwardly, the sheep like the sheepdogs. But inside, a lot of sheep have a hard time dealing with the fact that a sheepdog and a wolf look a lot alike and use similar methods. Inwardly, they wish that the wolf *and* the sheepdog would file down their teeth, stop barking, and start eating grass - because ALL violence is scary and upsetting, even when it is used to defend sheep.

Sometimes too, sheepdogs lose their way and start acting like wolves. The sheep are afraid that within every sheepdog lurks a wolf waiting to get out.

The longer it has been since the sheep have seen a wolf, the more they wish the sheepdogs would just go away, settle down, and act like sheep.

But those of us called to be sheepdogs, we know that if we start trying to be sheep, we give the wolves an edge - and the wolves are always there. So we stay sheepdogs, even when the sheep treat us like WE, and not the wolves, are the threat.

Any would-be sheepdog must resign him or her self to the fact that the job is truly thankless, and that usually the only people who will really understand what it is you have (or will) accomplish are other sheepdogs.

Let the sheep bleat. At least they are safe.

DG

 

[Sig_Des]

DG,

That's an awesome analogy. It gets printed and posted.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Sig Des,

Look around this site. The Col Grosseman "sheep' analogy was posted verbatum, complete and in it's entirety about six months ago.

 

[Sig_Des]

Sig Des,

Look around this site. The Col Grosseman "sheep' analogy was posted verbatum, complete and in it's entirety about six months ago.

I must have missed it, wouldn't you think? 

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Just saying the whole thing is there if you want to look for it.

 

[Sig_Des]

Just saying the whole thing is there if you want to look for it.

Fair enough, thanks.

 

[Tebo]

Having just spoken with a young man interested in joining the infantry I came upon another reason why young people often face resistance from those they trust most - the family.

When a child is leaving the nest, everyone is a little apprehensive about how they will do.  Even moving to attend school in 'the city' is enough for most parents to suggest attending a community college in a less dangerous environment.  And hey, they're right.  A lot of kids can be a little naïve about some of the more nasty sides of society.  It's the equivalent of when parents just can't find it in them to take the training wheels off that first bike.

So when the word 'military' is mentioned, most parents will suddenly see their child poised to relocate anywhere in Canada for training followed by deployment to a dangerous part of the world.  Letting go of the stewardship of a child is difficult enough if they're moving 60km to attend school, the disconnection the military poses is frightening.  

What the young man I spoke with discovered was that it was more his familiy's fear of losing touch with him as a son and brother that fueled their apprehension, not a dislike of the military or what it does.  Once he had differentiated the aspects of the job from the concerns about seperation, he was able to talk out the relationship points with his family.  After which he found that a much of the negativity towards the profession was there to disuade leaving home in such a decisive manner.  So for anyone meeting resistance from loved ones about possible enrollment, be sure to address the fire first, not the smoke.

And for MY mother:  "Yes I know it's not that cut and dry.  No mother in her right mind checked off 'infantry' on the 'ideal profession box' for their child.  Still if people can be proud of firefighters and paramedics, they can certainly be proud of the present day Canadian soldier."

 

[Hoover]

They are so negative about it because our job is to put lead on target. Most normal people are negative about our task at hand as well... us in the military are not affected because we have been trained by those who have been there and us ourselves have already gone or are on guard to go and know the consequences of ill-action..