What a shitty grandpa.

I’d bet abuse in his past. Not that it’s an excuse, but it’s so much easier to follow the path you know. I grew up in it and decided to break the cycle. I only learned much later that my step father was abused as well. My sister hasn’t dealt with it. She’s always angry. She’s always yelling. She’ll argue instead of deescalate. I did it at first, but I realized I was perpetuating exactly what I didn’t want to. I was making myself depressed and physically sick for days after an argument. Luckily, I realized it pretty quickly.

Abuse and trauma are a blanket in a war zone. The war zone (the world around you) is chaotic and unpredictable. Abuse and trauma is familiar. You know it. You know it isn’t safe, but you know what to expect. So you stick with it. Leaving that is hard. You have to leave the warm blanket behind. Trudge through the unknown chaos of that war zone, and find your way out. You want to go back to that blanket. To the predictable. The path out isn’t even totally for you, and you know it. It’s for the next generation.

I feel bad for his kids. They’re not going to get any type of mental health care until they’re adults. I’d bet that “therapy is for pussys” and “Only women cry” is his household motto.

My son’s girlfriend is in the same predicament. Her step father is military. Her mom is a detective. Her step is the abuser. Her mom lets it happen. She’s 18 and graduates this year. Yet they read every social media message. They track her on her phone through an app. They yelled at her to get a job, or she couldn’t play softball. They read all of her bank statements and grill her on what she spends of her own money. Then, he turned around a month later and said she needs to spend her time off filling out scholarships. She’s their full time babysitter to her sisters, who are treated well by step father because they’re his own legit kids.

My son is so frustrated because he doesn’t know how to help. I’ve been helping coach him on how best to help and be there for her. I do what I can to communicate that she’s a good person. They can’t read IG photos so I’m constantly sending funny faces back and forth with her. She’ll come here with him for lunch as well and I’ll give her a hug when I sense she needs it.

We’ve offered up our home if she wants to move out. She won’t, and I understand it, she’s stuck a bit, but it’s there. They’re moving after she graduates. She said she’s not going to visit them on holidays. She’s welcome here. I’d bet they’ll wonder why she doesn’t visit. People like that never understand why. She’s going to have to get her own car ASAP too. They’re using that as leverage over her. I told her we’d help as much as we can. Even if it means we co sign.

I see this behavior in the military a lot, and I think it’s because it attracts people that don’t see a way out. Even if they think it is for altruistic reasons as a kid, the root cause is just wanting out of the home. Out of that situation. It isn’t until years later that they truly, hopefully, realize why they went in. Many won’t though.

Then you get into the actual military. It’s a bunch of high school kids with responsibility. Good leaders? Rare. Those higher end crazy weird assignments, like SG would have been? Those breed the worst because they usually attract the worst.

“Here, Lippyballscacker will train you on this.”

Wait, Lippyballsacker? Wtf?

“Yeah, his supervisor was hanging in the building and remembered he had to pick him up at the last minute from the airport. One guy asked him what the new guy’s name was. “I don’t know, Lippyballsacker or something.” That name stuck.” - actual story from my time in aircraft maintenance

When they guy left, he was gloating the name wouldn’t follow him. One of the maintenance supervisors had contacts at the new base. The name followed him.

We also had a fuck up who was good at taking tests, so he made rank fast, but was an absolute moron. Didn’t realize he had to put his manual truck in gear or set the brake. Always had to repeat lefty loosey every time…out loud. Walked right through an antenna on the bottom of the plane. Didn’t skip a step.

They show the military way too organized and disciplined. No. Bunch of blind leading the blind.

Watching Live PD last night. Guy runs on a motorcycle. They have the area surrounded after he ditches. They’re looking for him and one cop spots him. He commands the guy and he’s complying. He’s almost on his knees and another cop spots him. He ran, full on run, and leapt onto the guy that was almost on his knees. The other guy that was commanding jumped on him after that as well. Guy wasn’t resisting. Guy was complying. Guy had hands in the air. Guy wasn’t reaching for anything.

Cop after: “He ran and we didn’t know what he was capable of. So we tackled him and restrained him.”

It’s absolute cop wank material. All of it. The majority of the time they are way over reactive and then try to justify it all. They have that disclaimer, but then most of the time they never really follow up with info, or proper info. “Guy was booked on blah blah.” Ok, but was he actually convicted? Was he found guilty, or did you just over react and your “oh I totally for sure smell weed” was bullshit. I’m fucking sick of seeing that too. How many times has jackass said that only to find…nothing.

I think he may need a presidential golden poop knife.

I’m a vet. I’m unsure why the DoD hasn’t put a stop to this yet. There have been clear violations of this oath by elected officials. At the very least, letting Elmo wreck shit.

We have a problem though. The retired boomer vets, and some younger ones, voted for this. Conservatives tend to be the ones that raise their hands. They seem to have forgotten the oath and think that all of this is A OK. They’ve been guzzling the kool aid. Hell, my base still shows Faux “News” at the base hospital on some TVs. Even though a base commander banned news channels during COVID.

Those of us that do recognize this as a violation of the constitution do not number enough to do anything. Rising up involves getting rid of the entire GOP, plus multiple billionaires, multiple media moguls, SCOTUS, lower court appointees, appointees of many other government agencies, and on and on. It isn’t something even a couple thousand can accomplish. We saw this with the attempted coup on J6.

What we’re doing is making sure we’re armed enough to defend ourselves in case of a civil war, or violence from the lunatics who still think this is all fine and good while we scream towards fascism. I hate this. I wish I could go do something. With every fiber of my being I do. My nervous system is fucked. I can barely leave the house many days. Especially in the winter when the cold shoots pain and fatigue through the roof. I can defend my own, probably my own neighborhood if it came to it. That’s about the extent for me.

I live in a place with a bunch of these nut bags as it is too. There is a crazy trump church in my town with heavy ties to a christian nationalists extremist group. It’s the largest church in the small town. Those people concern me. There is a crazy guy 2 houses down from me that thinks the local base dropped COVID on us with the tankers. I think I broke the gerbal wheel in his brain when I told him I’ve seen them inside and out and there isn’t anywhere to even put a “bag o covid”. We had a major wildfire hit and he blamed the firefighters for not flying in heavy smoke, at night and in super high winds. We’re talking 70mph+ gusts and 45 sustained. There are some that still have trump/pence signs up. That’s the type of crap I’m working with. Many are vets as well.

I get how it looks from the outside. We’ve been claiming that our firearms are for exactly what is happening. Thing is, those that support this. Those that voted for this, have the vast majority of firearms in this country. The last statistic I saw was from 2022 and republican firearm owners numbered nearly 2x democratic owners. That didn’t even count the amount of firearms owned. That percentage is the same for individuals who live in a home where firearms are present. The left has slowly been arming up due to increased violence from the right against the left, but we’re in no position to rise up.

If the right does end up realizing that they fucked up and need to finally rise up with the left, then you’ll see it at a local level first. Other countries poke fun at us for not taking vacations because we don’t have the days or money to do so. Yet they expect us to travel across country, with absolutely no guarantee others will be there, to maybe get a shot off at 1 person? It’s over 2500 miles for me to get across the country. That’d take me at least a week and a half. I wouldn’t even be able to do that solo due to the medical issues. People can’t afford to do that. So the local level would be the target. Local congressmen (most of whom live in DC over half the year as it is). Local senators. State capitals, provided they’re red states and are following suit with the fed govts.

This got long, I’m sorry for that, but this is a much more complicated issue. I seriously don’t think people realize just how fucking far it is to get to DC. Just how useless it would be without some serious backing by the right and the military, or at least enough of the military that remembers their oath and don’t fire on us. That combo could hold off the cops, but remember as well. We’re dealing with police who are militarized now. They’ve been eating up old military equipment for at least a decade now. Some even have old APCs. They have no qualms over shooting everything all the way down to your dog just because it looked at them funny.