Alexander Vindman: Coming forward ended my career. I still believe doing what?????s right matters.

[_Temp. Admin.]

Shades, I'm curious. How did you arrive at this opinion? Research? Experience? Gut feeling?

I'd say it was probably research in the form of experience. I was in the Marine Reserves--infantry--for five and a half years, but for two of those years I was on a mission, so only three and a half of those years count. Then I did a lateral transfer to the Army National Guard where I spent two years in counter-intelligence and one year in linguistics.

[_moksha]

I said that if he had endured a career as an enlisted Marine, then a little bit of so-called "bullying"--in the form of Trump and his allies merely blocking his hopes for advancement, of all things, especially when Trump and his allies are soon to be gone anyway--wouldn't have intimidated him at all.

I wonder if the whole Trumpian perversion of justice got him down? Like his whole belief system had been shaken by this pathological liar occupying the role of Commander-in-Chief and committing a high crime and misdemeanor to get reelected. Then the miscreant was punishing him for complying with a request by Congress to tell the truth. What's a non-Marine to do?


Perfume Nov 7, 2020

[_Morley]

Shades, I'm curious. How did you arrive at this opinion? Research? Experience? Gut feeling?

I'd say it was probably research in the form of experience. I was in the Marine Reserves--infantry--for five and a half years, but for two of those years I was on a mission, so only three and a half of those years count. Then I did a lateral transfer to the Army National Guard where I spent two years in counter-intelligence and one year in linguistics.

Thanks for putting yourself out there and responding, Shades.

Your background is about what I thought. I'm in no way denigrating your experience, but this is an N of one, based on five years in the reserves. Your own personal anecdotal evidence seems like pretty thin gruel to be basing such sweeping and damning snowflake assessments on.

Honor could not have put it better:

Most Marines I interacted with while in the service had enough time and experience behind them to see the cult for what it was...while also believing it was built on some element of truth. Gotta love Marines.

[_Temp. Admin.]

Your background is about what I thought. I'm in no way denigrating your experience, but this is an N of one, based on five years in the reserves.

My transfer to the National Guard caused me to incur three more years, so to be precise it was was actually 8 & 1/2 years (minus the two for a mission, so effectively 6 & 1/2 years) in the reserves. But my time in the Army allowed me to compare conditions in that service vs. conditions in the Marines. Let me tell you, it was an education.

Your own personal anecdotal evidence seems like pretty thin gruel to be basing such sweeping and damning snowflake assessments on.

Here's what I wrote: "If he'd been an enlisted Marine, he'd have spent his entire 21 years, six months, and 10 days of active military service enduring nothing BUT a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation by superiors." Is that statement correct, or is it incorrect?

Honor could not have put it better:

Most Marines I interacted with while in the service had enough time and experience behind them to see the cult for what it was...while also believing it was built on some element of truth. Gotta love Marines.

I'll be the first to admit that the culture the Marines impose on you is very, very cult-like. And yes, some of us see right through it, while others have no resistance whatsoever--like the black plague to a medieval European--and are completely assimilated. Regardless, I don't see how that impinges on the truth or falsehood of my above statement, though.

[_Morley]

Your own personal anecdotal evidence seems like pretty thin gruel to be basing such sweeping and damning snowflake assessments on.

Here's what I wrote: "If he'd been an enlisted Marine, he'd have spent his entire 21 years, six months, and 10 days of active military service enduring nothing BUT a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation by superiors." Is that statement correct, or is it incorrect?

You implied or said that Vindman was a snowflake and if he'd served as an enlisted Marine he wouldn't have been a snowflake. No?

[_Morley]

Shades, your formulation, as I understand it:

career Army, Jump Wings, Ranger Tab, combat, Purple Heart = snowflake
any enlisted career Marine = never a snowflake

Based on your eight-and-a-half years in the Reserves, two of which you spent on your mission in Japan.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Hey, Shades. Out of curiosity, what did you find was different with Army culture versus Marine culture? I worked with a lot of other services when I was in a JSOC environment and there seemed to be this kind of thing going on:

Air Force - Chill, almost bordering on don't give a crap. The fighter pilots were very elitist. The transport people were awesome. The Combat Controllers were operator as “F”.

Navy - Loose and personable. Almost like civilians, but they did their jobs well. Seabees were amazing, but kept to themselves.

Marines - Very cloistered and pt'd like maniacs. This applied to them all, service support, intel, didn't matter. It felt like it was almost an 'us against the world' culture. I never really made friends with any Marines except when they got out, and then they were very cool.

Army - Mixed bag depending on unit and leadership. A sort of Jack of All Trades culture that trended toward terseness, but never too over the top. I dunno. I'm biased.

Coast Guard - I never interacted with them.

- Doc

[_honorentheos]

I'll be the first to admit that the culture the Marines impose on you is very, very cult-like. And yes, some of us see right through it, while others have no resistance whatsoever--like the black plague to a medieval European--and are completely assimilated. Regardless, I don't see how that impinges on the truth or falsehood of my above statement, though.

I think the answer is in here.

[_Temp. Admin.]

Shades, your formulation, as I understand it:

career Army, Jump Wings, Ranger Tab, combat, Purple Heart = snowflake

No. My formulation: "I made the difficult decision to retire because a campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation by President Trump and his allies forever limited the progression of my military career" = snowflake.* Which, I have no problem admitting, is utterly out of character from what you'd otherwise expect from "career Army, Jump Wings, Ranger Tab, combat, Purple Heart."

*I hereby give you permission to begin understanding it this way. You know, just like I originally wrote to begin with.

[_Temp. Admin.]

Hey, Shades. Out of curiosity, what did you find was different with Army culture versus Marine culture?

That's an excellent question; thanks for asking.

Marine culture was all about making life as miserable as humanly possible for one's underlings, and deriving sick, sadistic pleasure from it--possibly unconsciously, but there it was. Marines are neurotically rank-conscious, to the point that having one extra stripe causes less evolved people to assume that they're naturally "better" than someone with one fewer stripe. And the power that that environment confers is very, very intoxicating to those less distant from their Neanderthal cousins. Individuals who subconsciously sense that they are, or would be, powerless and--dare I say--losers in civilian life practice their idiosyncrasies to full effect in the Marines as a compensation method. You know, "small penis" syndrome. The net effect is that the junior Marines who are less brainwashed see through this B.S. and don't bother to re-enlist, while the simpletons and the sociopaths for whom this environment is tailor-made stay in and rise up the ranks, becoming the selfsame people you DON'T want to have as leaders.

A long time ago, I thought of the two words that perfectly differentiate the Army from the Marines: "More cerebral." In the Army, the focus isn't on deriving a sense of satisfaction over wielding unethical power over one's underlings; the focus is on accomplishing the mission, whatever it might be. They get the job done; they aren't laser-like focused on ensuring that their juniors are as miserable as possible in the process.

Yes, I realize that this post will provide plenty of grist for Morley and honorentheos to pounce upon, but I wanted to answer your question with the proper amount of clarity and leave NO room for misunderstanding.