Kyle - I went in during a really big unemployment crisis in 2011. I was young and had no idea what to do with my life and thought I wanted to see what the Army is about despite reading all the famous war novels warning against it. I really just wanted to try it and go and have the experience. They were offering a bonus to linguists and going to study languages in Monterey CA seemed nice. And it was nice and it was difficult and at the end of it I could speak Korean. Well, Kim Jong Il died at the time and the army asked any native Korean speaker to switch to a linguist job and they’d promote them. So I finished school and since everyone had been promoted into the slots above me, my only chance at promotion was to switch jobs. Lol. Hard to explain but that was the first sign it was a shit show. Then I was assigned to fort hood which is a terrible place to be. Then I worked the Afghan mission in spy planes or remotely with drones. I met a lot of good people who are my friends to this day, but you quickly realized all the missions didn’t really matter because at the time no one could tell you why we were even in Afghanistan. I knew I wanted out so used my security clearance to do more Intel work when I realized that everyone knew the war was a failure and we just had to keep going through the motions. See documentary: hypernormalisation. We all knew it was a sham and kept going. I realized I wanted no part it in it, quit, went home and became an RN and got my masters degree with my GI bill. All that killing and death and hard work for a mission everyone knew didn’t matter.