• 10 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 12th, 2023

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  • The US military is actually surprisingly decentralized, with a lot of leeway and authority given directly to NCOs, and officers routinely getting ignored, circumvented, or subjected to malicious compliance if they even order something considered unreasonable, much less illegal. Also see: fragging. Malingering. Mutiny. Desertion. And the worst nightmare - Insider Threat. So much of the military runs purely off of trust, faith, and compliance to words on a page.

    You think Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was actually fully complied with? Sentries already fall asleep while at their post, willfully, without needing to have any excuse other than being tired or disliking the watch officer. Roving patrols routinely miss rounds, don’t actually pay attention or inspect anything, and practice what we call “blazing logs”, that is, writing down “all conditions satisfactory” without actually looking at the conditions. Maintenance also gets blazed all the time - technicians just straight up not doing the required maintenance and writing down that they did, substituting unauthorized materials, or half-assing the maintenance. Paperwork just gets “lost”, or never gets signed, never gets filed, never makes it to the intended recipient, just because the admin secretary doesn’t feel like it. Information isn’t entered into a system, including disciplinary or otherwise disqualifying stuff, because the admin or command likes you or needs you.

    Purging the upper brass won’t do anything to circumvent or “fix” any of that, it’ll make it worse, because it’ll incentivize the servicemembers to do it even more. The E-4 Mafia will straight up disappear when needed, entire supply chains will stop cold. Separation and disciplinary paperwork will just not get sent.




  • Orders already routinely get ignored, it just doesn’t get reported or logged. Maintenance isn’t actually done as written, or in the periodicity specified. Corrective maintenance isn’t actually done correctly, substitutions aren’t actually authorized properly. Gauges aren’t actually read, valves aren’t actually checked, and the sentries are neither alert nor roving. The IDs aren’t actually checked and the guard just waves people through unless there’s an inspection going on and the supervisor is there.

    That’s not even getting to the officers sweeping all this under the rug to look good on evals. Or the commanding officers ignoring stuff to get the ball rolling faster than the next commanding officer, to get that promotion. Equipment failures don’t get reported, personnel issues are just covered up - especially when everyone knows that so-and-so technician is doing this unauthorized vice, but we need said technician so nobody says anything, including back in Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. No, sir, I don’t know where the flamboyant individual is, probably doing the extremely essential maintenance only they are qualified for, sir. Definitely not in the parts locker with another individual of the same sex, which I’m standing in front of to prevent you from entering.

    Whoops, looks like the gender and sex record of the individual had a glitch at some point, must have been IT and Admin again, amirite? Well, the system says he is and has always been a man, sir, says it right there in the computer.




  • He doesn’t understand just how decentralized the military command structure is, and the enlisted-officer relationship that has existed for a very, very long time. Just because anything is written in a regulation and a high-ranking officer with a good idea fairy perched on his shoulder says something or orders something doesn’t mean it happens. Or that the report back from down below is actually true. Officers that actually rise up through the ranks understand that they, too, should sleep with one eye open if the enlisted do not approve.



  • Joining mutual aid groups, coops, triple-checking that you don’t have any subscriptions you don’t absolutely need and doing your best to just use FOSS (it’s free!) instead for the sake of your own limited paycheck, triple-check that you’re taking advantage of the free programs and resources available to you like libraries and buy-nothing collectives, try growing a bit of your own food in used jars and buckets, encourage your children to also take advantage of the free resources they might not even know are available to them and ways to save even more by simply reusing every last bit they can if they aren’t already? Get to know your neighbors if you have any time left in your day, parents of your kids’ classmates? I don’t know your situation - none of these might be realistic for you - but those are some of the free ways I could think of off the top of my head for preparing.