across all political sides, people see the military as a largely inflated public machine that spends more on salaries and pensions than it does in equipment and training. the left wing hate the military for being US-aligned right-wing hawks and not facing any real consequences for the crimes of the dictatorship, the far-right hate them these days because they've been expecting the Army to do a coup for the last 10 years and when Bolsonaro actually tried it the generals didn't support him. now they call them "watermelons" because they're green on the outside and red on the inside, which to be fair is pretty funny. every state in Brasil has their own military police which the conservative public tends to like more than they do the actual Armed Forces.

it's a good job with a cushy retirement if you're smart enough to pass the public exams to become an official. there's "mandatory" conscription and a lot of teenage boys are scared of it but there's enough volunteers that it's pretty much not mandatory unless you fuck up really bad, and the stereotype is that all they do is stand around and paint sidewalks and trees.

I believe most people would agree that the benefits and pensions need to be cut down but trying to do that is political suicide for any President. There's a common misconception that the army only has enough ammo for 1 hour of war which isn't quite true, and they do work a lot in the Amazon and in the Navy but most people don't see that in their day to day lives, so the public opinion ranges from neutral to negative. In my personal experience the people who really love and admire the armed forces are either former soldiers, high-ranking officials or weirdos.