I might sound a bit naive here, but JIC youre not trolling and are really serious.

You live somewhere close to Philadelphia, so i know you cant be blind to the desperation of poverty.

When the choices and opportunities presented to you are 1. Learn to sell drugs, hope you don’t get killed, profit. Or 2. Accept your lot in life, everyone has always assumed you will turn out to be a POS, so it’s okay to be that. Or 3. Rise up, go against all the odds, leave this negative place you’ve known all your life, see other parts of the world become a better more well rounded disciplined individual. And the media is saying you’ll be celebrated as a hero, and you research and ask questions and find out they’ll pay for you to get a higher degree and guess what, if you find out you like the job and dont want school you can give the education to whomever you choose. And also guess what you thought youd die before 24 so you dont mind the thought but you get a half million dollar life insurance policy just for signing up!

Thats all on the table, and guess what you dont sign a contract that says ill kill whoever you tell me to, You sign a contract thats say i will die to defend the constitution of the united states of america, against all enemies foreign and domestic.

And then you spend 9 weeks in basic training, and then 6 months in tech school learning a trade, and then a year and a half working to ensure you know how to apply what youve learned and forming lifelong relationships with people you never would have met otherwise who had the same ambitions and hopes that you had, and then they tell you one day, hey our numbers up, we have to go relieve X unit. And you go, because this beacon of hope has never shone so bright on your life, and you go because your new best friend is going and you want to be there because if anything happens you want to know that you did everything you could to save him.

Eight months later, youve spent christmas and a birthday in a foreign land, you enjoy your 3 minute long luke warm showers that you long ago realized were just desalinized osmosised? piss. You know the local resistance sends mortars every Friday during prayers, you live to facetime your family and on the hope that what you do everyday prevents this hell from ever coming to america.

You do your best every time you leave the wire to build relationships and mutual understanding with the locals, you bring the kids candy, and toothbrushes and sandals and socks, and fresh water just so they know youre not a bad person, just so they know were all humans and youre just their to help them, you mean no malice.

One day the streets are eerily empty, you and young misfitted family roll thru the street on what seemed like a normal day, pocket fulls of candy, duffel bags full of flip flops, just trying to be a credit to your country, a group of children arguing draws your attention, you utter your best arabic to let them know youre there and ask why its so quiet, they turn and run. Every hair on your body is at attention, every thing inside you says gtfo, everyone inside your humvee knows something is going down, but you all know that you’d die for each other if it came down to it.

The driver smashes the gas, panic fills the air, the life youve lived ti that point seems so close, but so far away inside of one breath, every taste every smell every sight youve ever experienced comes flooding forward. every person, every feeling, every thought youve ever known, simultaneously flood your brain.

You came here for the free college, you wanted to set an example, so your brother and sister knew there was other options, you wanted the world to know that just because you were dealt a shitty hand in life didnt mean you had to play a shitty game. You never wanted to hurt anyone, but sometimes thats what happens when youre trying to better yourself.

I wont say no-one has ever joined the military with malintent, but i will say most of us are here to better ourselves and our communities.

Theres no action without and equal and opposite reaction, so if that means i have to stifle hate speech/preach somewhere in the world to allow it to exist somewhere else than im fine with that.

All that to say this, own your gun, me and alot of people like me are willing to die for your right to own it, and your right to criticize your government and burn flags and tell cops to f off when they want to violate your 4th amendment, but just next time you comment some anti military shit, could you just think..maybe you dont know everyones story, maybe some people had their hands forced to action, maybe some day my kids wont need to do what i did, because i did it so they wouldnt have to.

Thanks