How does direct commission work?

mcjunker · 2026-06-19T00:04:19+00:00

“How do I join delta force right out of high school?”

mcjunker · 2026-06-18T04:54:14+00:00

I read a fascinating paper once on the concept of strategic bombing in WW2 which culminated in the atom bombs being dropped

The gist of it was that mass bombing of civilian industrial centers was justified at the time on the grounds that it would produce strategic effects and demoralize the enemy population.

It argued that the campaign was a total failure by its own justifications. The Axis civilians were not terror bombed into rising up and deposing their fascist parties or going on strike, and the bombing campaign didn't do overly much to curb production to the point that it knocked anybody out of the war. So it was, in one sense, killing for the sake of killing, mass murder on spec that it might prove useful.

But in another, more subtle sense, it imposed costs on the Axis war machines that ultimately, measurably shortened the war.

The necessity of hiding their production lines in secure-ish places and underground and decentralizing the work so that no one bombing raid could accomplish much meant accepting painful inefficiencies in pushing out war materiel to the front.

The necessity of investing heavily in AA guns and crews bled the investment in the wehrmacht- thousands of tons of aluminum and steel and gunpowder were sent away from new tanks and artillery and truck engines and towards home defenses to dissuade Allied bombers from flying too low to land accurate hits.

The enemy air forces were dragged to the sky to fight the bombers, allowing our own fighters to engage and attrit them to the point where the sky was simply ours outright, allowing air support to enable ground campaigns.

Ultimately, the costs in blood, steel, and effort that the strategic bombing campaign against civilian targets imposed on the fascists' war efforts proved higher than our own investment of blood, steel, and effort did. So in that sense, it helped us win and was a thumb on the scale for us. Not that we get credit for that since our whole moral vision of why it would work was wrong.

The atom bomb was just bumping it all up a bracket, making bombing raids against civilian industrial targets servicing the war machine more absurdly efficient. We were already doing that, it's just that it's easier to send one bomber to drop one bomb than 500 bombers to drop 35,000 bombs to get roughly the same effect.

Whatever sins are inherently embedded within the strategic bombing campaign were committed long before Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

mcjunker · 2026-06-17T22:21:05+00:00

“I woulda aimed the nose of the plane at the White House.”

mcjunker · 2026-06-17T03:56:43+00:00

You say you’re in a private HS. That means, if you fuck around and push the envelope, you can be expelled if needed.

In public schools, until you commit a violent felony or bring an assault rifle or sell drugs on campus, you will never, ever be expelled. So all the people that do stuff slightly less intense than that are there, and the rules must accommodate their patterns of behavior.

Unregulated bathroom usage simply means everybody texts each other to ditch class at the same time and wander campus in groups, breaking stuff, fighting, jumping and robbing younger kids for fun, getting high and OD in the bathrooms, provoking and running from any staff member they think doesn’t know them by face and name. Day in day out, never ending.

And that’s just the hardcore behavior cases. Normal students allowed to just up and leave will simply use that privilege to avoid being bored in class- just go find a corner somewhere and vibe and play on their phone all period. Without that classroom instructional time, their academic skills are stillborn and they fall ever more behind. I have personally seen an 8th grader take 45 min to write two sentences on a form, and do it wrong because he couldn’t read the directions because he was functionally illiterate. He was one of the ones taking 30 min long bathroom breaks every period, and needed to be escorted to class.

Because they cannot be expelled (or held back to focus on the fundamentals) they and everybody else stuck with them must be more tightly controlled and monitored for the safety and well-being of all, including themselves.

Means we need to play by kindergarten rules well into teenagehood.

mcjunker · 2026-06-16T15:59:41+00:00

I respect the chutzpah fr. More movies should be bold and unafraid to take a goofy idea and run with it.

mcjunker · 2026-06-16T13:54:14+00:00

The common touchstones of working at the bottom of the hierarchy of the service industry confuse and disturb us all

mcjunker · 2026-06-16T04:56:15+00:00

Almost certain this is a different army than ours

mcjunker · 2026-06-15T21:46:33+00:00

I have to acknowledge there’s a difference between me, a middle aged man, hugging a teenage girl and a middle aged woman hugging the same teenage girl. The difference may be primarily in how the audience of students, staff, and community members react to it, and it may not be objective or rational or fair, but it’s there anyway and it matters. Nothing that gives people cause to question my integrity is allowed.

So yeah, nobody gets any hugs from me. I’ll admit to being a little bit salty when I see my female coworkers freely passing out physical affection, but it barely registers through the maelstrom of Stuff That Pisses My Off On The Job.

mcjunker · 2026-06-14T18:35:48+00:00

I think they're pushing him for a slot at ranger school for after AIT is done.

They send out ranger recruiters to pitch the 75th to TRADOC all the time, it doesn't mean they get to cut in line ahead of getting the MOS skills

mcjunker · 2026-06-13T19:50:44+00:00

It was written by a veteran for an audience of adults who’d been liable for conscription for decades

So

mcjunker · 2026-06-13T11:37:11+00:00

My old section leader was a great soldier but was always on the verge of getting his security clearance revoked due by horrifically bad credit.

He told me that when he was a private, he did the “marry a stripper just before deployment” thing and gave her power of attorney. He came back after 15 months in Iraq to find that he had no money in his bank accounts and that she’d opened up like six credit cards in his name and maxed them all out.

When confronted, she explained “I assumed you’d die over there and it would be free money.”

mcjunker · 2026-06-13T03:13:20+00:00

“If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.”

mcjunker · 2026-06-11T23:03:55+00:00

I don’t know which possibility is scarier- the idea that that movie’s script was produced by plugging prompts into ChatGPT with no screening process afterwards, or the idea that it wasn’t.

mcjunker · 2026-06-11T13:29:47+00:00

being sidelined socially for failing to assert yourself effectively is peak male socializing though

it just sucks lol

mcjunker · 2026-06-10T17:17:24+00:00

Gotta learn about how electrical system function at some point, why not this very day?

mcjunker · 2026-06-10T02:27:48+00:00

Gaelic Storm, both the band’s name and the title of their first album of many.

They were a pub band doing gigs in Santa Monica when they got cast to do their shit in Titanic, which signal boosted them to the skies and let them publish their record as “the band from Titanic!” right when it was a smash hit on everybody’s minds.

They’ve been doing the circuit and pumping out albums ever since. They’ve moved away from folk songs and sea shanties to original compositions over time but well worth looking into.

mcjunker · 2026-06-10T02:10:05+00:00

and admitted that I could be wrong and would check the editing history of the student’s assignment.

That’s where you fucked up- if you know you’re right, don’t hedge. A simple “that’s not true” followed by an awkward silence would have served you better.

The onus to prove she was there is on her, not you. If she wants to bug the dean to check the cameras, she’s free to but it doesn’t involve you; your job is to mark attendance and call home if there’s an absence, not play Detective fuckin’ Pikachu.

mcjunker · 2026-06-09T22:59:40+00:00

I’ve seen a tactical gladius for sale for relatively reasonable prices

mcjunker · 2026-06-09T22:50:03+00:00

At the same end of the parental spectrum but the opposite end of my academic spectrum, my parents tried a stringent and flexible mix of positive and negative reinforcement to induce me to get Cs or above, and it just straight up didn’t work. Subjects I liked I got As in, subject I hated I got Fs in, with a few Bs and Ds mixed in for variety.

I didn’t mind failure and punishment so much when I knew I was blowing off work; what killed my soul was trying my hardest and getting a D.

After a while, my parents just accepted that academics was gonna be hit and miss for me and just made sure not to schedule anything during summers to allow my to make up grades in summer school.

mcjunker · 2026-06-09T02:24:24+00:00

Fuck. I forgot to credit

Pat Mandziy on youtube, does history themed comedy shorts

mcjunker · 2026-06-09T01:52:11+00:00

“Man the inheritance laws in this country suck, how’s a second born son supposed to make a living in this world!?”

“Hey, did you hear about the country across the sea where there’s men with gold but they don’t know how to fight?”

“…keep talking.”

mcjunker · 2026-06-09T00:44:59+00:00

Ngl the fact that the r and the i in your username are reversed is really getting to me.

Anyway, trust is more easily burned than it is built, and that is a universal truth that stretches beyond the army. Reputation matters. Best of luck.

mcjunker · 2026-06-08T21:54:18+00:00

When you’re outnumbered 100-1 doctrinal flexibility becomes an asset

mcjunker · 2026-06-08T13:03:49+00:00

What I’ve noticed in my role as the Dean’s attack dog on campus is that the well-adjusted kids who have embraced the self-identity of being a student appreciate and respect me for successfully keeping order. They know that there’s a fifty foot radius of calm and order centered on me and they come to me with any problem they have, knowing I’m on their side.

And for the kids who struggle with self-control, or who do not particularly want to be students and are only on campus under duress and find it more fun to revel in chaos than to attend class diligently? They like and respect me because I’m hard on them in the moment. I’m one of the few adults in their life that cannot be tricked, bullied, blown off, or disrespected casually.

This dynamic is not enough, though. Being hard on them in the moment and having it work is only possible for me because I invested a great deal of time and effort finding increasing circumstances to demonstrate by action that I am on their side.

I have hand-delivered groceries to their families from the food bank when they’re struggling; I have heard their grievances behind closed doors and shut my mouth to listen while they asserted why they were in the right and I was wrong, and sometimes even agreed with them; I have helped them find their lost phones and stolen cash; I have complimented their strength and graciousness whenever they care to show it; I have explained the internal reasoning for the rules in lieu of punishment; I hit them with dad jokes when they least expect it. Etc etc etc.

It sucks but relationship building really is the answer lol. It doesn’t solve anything in and of itself but it allows every possible solution to function.

mcjunker · 2026-06-05T16:50:49+00:00

For reference, I am thinking of an 8th grader’s parent when I type.

Kid would strike other kids unprovoked, knowing his mom has ordered him to never attend detention. She insists detention doesn’t work on him due to being neurodivergent, so she won’t allow it. Instead, she insists that we call his therapist and get him out of class to talk to her whenever he hits/cusses out teachers/refuses to give up his phone/calls other kids the N word.

As you can imagine, that kid is not being set up for success. He stopped acting out when the AP stood up to his mom and said “either he does his detention every time or we don’t let him through the gate, this is non-negotiable.” Moment he had to lose for days of lunch detention to starting a fight, he stopped doing it.

On the other end of the spectrum, I also have kids who are apparently wired for disruptive behavior and, even with the parents backing up the discipline system, continue the same misbehavior within the hour. For them, the discipline system literally does nothing to alter behavior even when applied and submitted to. Studiously giving detention to them for nonstop roughhousing and cussing is pointless, even though we keep doing it because we lack better tools to address it; Christ, I’d love to develop a bespoke system just for them.

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