1,868 words 
I joined the United States Marine Corps a little under 3 weeks after 9/11. I had planned to join anyways but the attacks sealed the deal as far as motivation goes. Looking back, even with the benefit of hindsight I still feel like overall I did the right thing for the right reasons. Sure, as I would realize later, I was actually signing up to serve a Middle Eastern nation’s interests, primarily. But the reflexive volunteerism and instinctual hostility toward a racial & civilizational outgroup were both healthy and proper. If given the chance, I’d probably do the same thing over again. I wouldn’t want to abandon the friends I made along the way and overall it was a unique, wild experience.
Times have changed however. I write this on the morning of January 20th, 2025 when Donald Trump is due to be inaugurated for his second, non-consecutive term as President. Last night he held a victory MAGA rally in which a part of his speech was dedicated to the pledge of restoring our military to something to be proud of, rather than a DEI social engineering experiment. Trump showed a video contrasting the famous Gunny Hartman from Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket with some of the various TikTok trannies who now infest the US military. Trump claims, along with his Secretary of Defense pick Pete Hegseth, that they will root out the “woke” from the military.
To the young lads especially: Don’t fall for it.
Joel Davis recently hosted a Space on X which I briefly participated in. One of my questions to Joel was whether there was some sort of cultural norm that could be leveraged to punish our enemies and advance our political goals. I used the examples of homeowners simply walking away from their mortgages during the 2008 housing crisis. Conservatives were beside themselves at the time because people were willing to just take the seven year credit hit instead of struggling to make payments to jewish bankers on worthless mortgages. I also raised the peculiar cultural norm among the Zoomer generation of not bothering to get a driver’s license soon after turning 16. Something that was highly valued among teenagers of every preceding generation. Joel’s answer to my question should have been obvious: “If they wan’t us to go to war”.
Later that day I saw a post from one of these “sheepdog” type accounts encouraging young Americans with few prospects to join the upcoming Trump era military. On January 15th the account BowTiedRanger posted the following to X:
If you’re a young man who doesn’t come from a wealthy family, Pete Hegseth’s DoD under a Trump presidency might be the best play to lift yourself out of the life you were born into. You only need to enlist or commission as an officer for one term to qualify for benefits (GI Bill, VA Home Loan, etc.), so you can be in and out before Trump leaves office.
Here we see the appeal to purely mercenary motives. Now, I know quite a few people who joined because it indeed was more lucrative than sticking around their hometown trying to compete for minimum wage jobs with the rest of the locals. And don’t get me wrong, currently I’m all for looting the regime and “dem programs” for all they’re worth. However, in a healthy country these would be secondary considerations next to duty and patriotic feeling.
I highly doubt Trump will get us into another pointless forever war. Some may disagree, but he’s been very consistent about avoiding more unnecessary wars that don’t serve a single American interest.
This is probably true but there’s no telling what the future holds. The China Virus is the prime example of this. An unforeseen event that dominated the last year of Trump’s first term. Who knows what could pop off in the next four.
I’m willing to bet Hegseth will do a good job with gutting the military of the rot that currently makes it triple vaxxed, effeminate, and gay. I’m especially confident this will be the case in special operations units.
This is tenuous at best. There was already plenty of “woke” baked into the military coming out of the Obama years that Trump did absolutely nothing about. Hegseth himself during his Senate confirmation hearings said he wasn’t seeking to re-institute Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and that he was fine with female participation in some combat roles. Hardly anything to get excited about.
The experience wouldn’t come without drawbacks. A peacetime military is a lot of drill & ceremony and training with no culminating firefights or combat deployments to look forward to, which kinda sucks.
This directly contradicts what Mr. Ranger said earlier in the post about “pointless forever wars”. How exactly does it “suck’“ to not get deployed to some shithole to spread pozz and babysit retarded nons? How about our guys not get sent to die for Israel and corporate oligarchs for once?
But the guys you’d meet and experiences you’d have (fast roping, breaching, etc.) would still be solid. You’d also get in good shape (especially if you went the special operations route).
OK. We get it. Jeez. You were a high-speed low-drag SAD SOG BMF sin-eater (h/t Sturgill Simpson). God bless you. Thank you for your service. The Black Rifle Coffee and Nine Line t-shirt are in the mail as we speak.
The benefits outweigh the drawbacks (assuming Hegseth is even somewhat effective). Serve one term and get out. Leverage the VA Home Loan to buy a house with 0% down and start building equity. You can also buy up to a fourplex, live in one unit, and rent the other 3 with 0% down. Use your GI Bill to either get a degree or learn a trade that you can use to get a job or start a business. Not saying it’s for everyone (it’s not), but it could be a solid option for those looking to avoid the corporate rat race while also avoiding unnecessary debt.
This assumes that doing this very thing isn’t participating in the rat race. It’s unavoidable regardless of your career or education choices unless you check out completely. Avoiding college debt and buying a home could be done just as effectively by staying at home with the parents and stacking loot for a few years. Same rat race, but way less risky.
I have trashed the military quite a bit in recent years because of the direction it’s gone. But truth be told a countless number of us veterans have enjoyed wild success after the military, and most of us would attribute that success to the opportunities opened up to us because of our military experience. I know far more multimillionaires who put more weight in my experience as Ranger than the fact that I went to an elite law school or was an investment banker.
If someone has what it takes to become an elite soldier, then they already have what it takes to be successful in whatever endeavor they pursue. There are some things that you pick up in the military that certainly come in handy in civilian life, but those who apply these skills in the real world would’ve more than likely acquired them anyways.
Young white men refusing to join the military is the one absolute leverage point Americans have against the regime on the Potomac. The culture that has developed around this refusal should continue, indeed deepen, despite the installation of a Trump/Hegseth administration. Until real changes are instituted across the board, our lads should sit at the house.
Precedent
Gaddius, back in his “spreading democracy” days.
After the Vietnam War the United States military was notoriously fucked up. During that unpopular war, the DoD resorted to dropping the minimum intelligence standards and recruiting literal retards into the ranks. These were known as “MacNamara’s Morons”. After America’s retreat in the 70’s, morale was at an all-time low and disillusionment at an all-time high. The quality of recruits dropped drastically to where enlistment to avoid jail or prison became a common practice. It wasn’t until the early 90’s after the Reagan Era’s optimism set in, that the public (mistakenly) believed our leaders would take our own side in foreign conflicts and that military service would once again be a noble endeavor.
This would last until our troops and citizens learned once again that we’re expected to wage wars we’re not allowed to win, for everyone else’s interests but our own. A Trump presidency with Hegseth as SecDef promises a long awaited return to an America First foreign policy and a normal military culture. Our lads should wait until these promises are actually delivered on before they consider signing their lives away for at least a few years.
My Requirements
Below is what would be non-negotiable preconditions for enlistment if I were signing up today:
- A total disentanglement with the Middle East and Israel: American boys should never again be expected to deploy to the desert, to fight this or that desert tribe on behalf of a single desert tribe that is hostile to our national interest abroad and subversive to it domestically.
- A complete ban on trannies forever: It is a national disgrace that mentally ill weirdos are allowed and encouraged to prance around in the same uniforms that our ancestors bled and died in. It must be written into the enlistment and commission contracts that any weirdo shit is grounds for immediate discharge. It should also be written into the contracts that if a future chief executive changes this policy, then an enlistee can terminate their service with an honorable discharge then and there.
- Women in support or administration roles only: Truth be told there’s really no reason to have women in the military at all. But if there are to be, they should be sequestered to occupation fields and roles away from anything having to do with combat. Before someone enlists they should be notified whether their MOS has women in the chain of command or not.
- Don’t Ask Don’t Tell: DADT was at one time considered a “progressive” policy. Before then, queers would just be discharged. DADT let queers serve as long as they kept it to themselves. I consider this to be the proper policy. Queers have always been and will always be among us, even in the military (especially the Navy). Requiring them to keep it to themselves promotes a culture of respect for normal behavior.
- The reversal of The Great Replacement: Why should anyone be expected to serve a regime that actively dispossessing them of their homeland? This is the primary reason to abstain from military service. Until the numbers and culture are going in the right direction.
In the military the day begins with reveille and ends with taps. Taps is a pretty somber tune that is also played at military funerals. That’s fitting for how much destruction the woke rot has wrought. But the great thing about an essentially fascist institution like the military is that it can be turned around in no time. So the lads are holding all the cards in this regard. They should sit at the house until things are in order.
This article first appeared on Gaddius’ Substack. It has been republished here with permission.
10 comments
A beautiful essay, Gaddius.
I sincerely hope that everyone with a young white man or woman in their life will share this article with them, to try to keep them from making the colossal, maybe even fatal, blunder of joining any one of the US military’s branches.
I read recently that over 200,000 Afgans immigrated to the United States since the war.
They fought them over there so they could live amongst us over here.
the neocon war hawk mantra:
Invade the world; invite the world.
We must totally reject neocons.
Gaddius, good and timely advice for White, young lads considering a hitch in the Volunteer military. But to be brutally honest, the military sets the terms, not a new recruit. Let’s wait and see what really happens. Trumps full cabinet is not yet installed.
Since you brought up Vietnam War, perhaps you should mention that we fought that war with a Conscription draft army. That is a huge difference than we have today. If nothing else, Vietnam proved that America could not effectively fight an undeclared, unpopular war with a conscript army. Hence the military overhaul that gave us the punching power of the Desert Storm Army of the 1990s. Fast forward to 2020s and we have the Gay Brigade painting George Floyd murals on the walls of Kabul.
Gaddius
Are you familiar with the “ Jannisaries” the Turkish Islamic Ottoman Empire s elite troops ?
they were White and
celibate slaves
how do you compare them to is soldiers now
Are you familiar with the “ Jannisaries” the Turkish Islamic Ottoman Empire’s elite troops ? They were White and celibate slaves How do you compare them to soldiers now?
They were less than what Machiavelli thought about mercenaries, which was not high. Their only advantage as a warrior caste for the Sultan was that they had no “legitimate” offspring so would have had trouble establishing a rival political dynasty. Contrary to popular belief and Game of Thrones trash, the Janissaries were not eunuchs.
Modern Professional and Citizen armies drilled in French and Prussian methods dating from the 18th century are outstanding.
🙂
It seems obvious to us but this topic and the conclusions drawn here must be spread far and wide.
I graduated in June ‘01 and enlisted late July. Six weeks later 9/11 happened and away I went, sucked into something I couldn’t truly comprehend. I believed the narrative. How could I not? We had no access to opposing views. The televisions in the chow hall were perma-tuned to Fox News and the color coded terror threat levels and Bill O’Reilly yelling about them dang liberals.
I took for granted that race and nation were one. Sure, we had the blacks and a smattering of others but America was white. Duh.
My first doubts crept in after reading an article in one of the smut mags being passed around. In the waning days of the invasion we were stopped north of Baghdad somewhere between Samarra and Tikrit. While manning an LP/OP on the rooftop of a three story house we had commandeered I came upon the article describing U.S. relations and double dealing in the Middle East but most specifically Iraq. It was the first time I saw the photo of then current SecDef Donald Rumsfeld happily shaking Saddam Hussein’s hand in the 1980’s. Besides the chaos and violence of invading and overthrowing another nation, we suffered no serious casualties. We’d eventually board ships out of Kuwait City and sail through the Indian Ocean before enjoying a week in Sydney, Australia. As a still somewhat naive 20 yr old I found it a bit odd that there were a significant amount of orientals and dot Indians in Australia. They spoke with Australian accents so they had clearly been there for some time. I failed to draw the proper conclusions that are so obvious to us today. We then set sail again. Next, we stopped in Tonga for three days. I was one of the unlucky few to march in a parade celebrating the 85th birthday of their enormously fat king on the 4th of July 2003. During our free time engaging in alcohol abuse on the island we thought it funny to see these obese jungle people driving tiny Suzuki suv’s blaring Fitty Cent’s new debut album. Again, I didn’t think much of it. I just wanted to go home. Our final port of call was Hawaii. Of course I was aware that we were now “in America,” but it certainly didn’t seem it to me. We’d finally return stateside in early Aug ‘03. We thought the war was over.
About six months later we were sent back to Iraq. A little older and smidge wiser, I quickly began to question the mission. We had our first casualty in the spring of ‘04. I was in Fallujah when our American mercenaries were killed, burnt, and strung up from a bridge. All hell broke loose. At about this same time the photos of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib were released. The fighting intensified. Najaf, Nasariyah, Sadr City, and Ramadi among others became hotspots too. From the summer into the fall we were split into platoon size units. Mine was ordered to patrol the far western border region between Iraq, Jordan, and Syria. Things were pretty quiet out there. I wanted to be where the fighting was worst but I was also a bit relieved to be out of it. The first major national elections took place in the summer. I remember conversations under starlit skies with my Texan friend about how the Arabs were incapable of forming a “western style democracy.” I would later come to think, “if I can figure this shit out on my second tour as a lowly 21 yr old Corporal, how in the hell can our leaders be so fuckin stupid?”
We returned to Camp Pendleton, CA just before the Bush v Kerry election. It was my first opportunity to vote but I instinctively didn’t care for either candidate so sat it out. Bush won and proceeded to attempt to lease some of our ports to a private/public business conglomerate from some Arab gulf state. I don’t remember which country but it struck me as treasonous behavior. I was now a Sergeant and gearing up to deploy for my third tour. I went home on leave during the summer of ‘05 and while at a friends house I saw Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 film. I implicitly didn’t like or agree with his leftist slant but found it difficult to disagree with many points made regarding the Bush administration and its foreign policies. I returned to my unit after my little vacation back east and promptly informed my command that I would not be reenlisting. I didn’t tell them why, not out of cowardice but I felt that I’d be contributing to a lack of morale amongst the boys who had no choice but to go back again. I was a stellar young Marine. A lifer. Nonetheless, they were shocked. But as guilty as I felt about leaving my unit right as they were set deploy I just couldn’t do it anymore. I no longer believed in the mission. At all. And besides, I had done my time with honor and distinction. I was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps and returned home to the east coast. A month later I was informed that my old squad was hit in an ambush. My replacement, the new squad leader was wounded along with three of my guys and one killed. I felt terrible. I felt a begrudging appreciation for Michael Moore.
As I was finishing my first year of school in the spring of ‘07 I was one of the 2,500 mostly NCO’s who received orders from headquarters Marine Corps stating that I would be returning to active duty and returning to Iraq! Despite everything I’ve just detailed I felt that I had made a commitment and would once again fulfill my duty. Fortunately, my orders would later be gunked up in the bowels of Quantico and I received a reprieve of sorts. I ended up NOT having to go back to active duty and Iraq for the neocons’ Surge of troops in 2007/08.
I’ll spare you the details and simply say that I’m doing well but I can never recover the lost time or the lost opportunity due to decisions made by our “elites” and those who control them. In the ensuing Obama years the anti white institutional rot would set in further and further. I, like many of our young men, was artificially held down. I’m still paying the price in terms of bodily wear, financially, career and associated social status etc as a result.
In summation, I cannot recommend any young white men, let alone white women, to “serve” in the U.S. military. I’ve told friends and family with teenage boys that under virtually no circumstances should they encourage or allow their sons to join the military. If the person I’m speaking to seems a bit above basic normie-tier awareness I’ll go further and inform them that it’s my opinion that in this day and age any white parent whose child feels that their best option upon graduating high school is to join the military that they have failed as a parent.
Thanks for reading
I used to regret not enlisting back when I had a chance. Now I realize I dodged a bullet – literally!
I am going to have to respectfully disagree with the author and some other veterans of the psychic wars.
Although my military experience comes from the Cold War, over forty years ago, I can barely understand Nationalists who eschew military service. That is pretty fundamental to nationalism and statecraft itself, and always has been.
Yeah, I was totally against people signing up for the First Gulf War, after 9/11, and especially for Junior Bush’s phony Weapons o’ Mass Destruction hoohah.
Papa Bush was rightfully not reelected in 1992 after thinking so globally (he coined the term New World Order) that he took orders from his handlers and deliberately failed to remove Saddam from power in 1991.
The Second Gulf War was Neoconservatism laid bare, and I was amazed that Junior Bush was not impeached outright for the WMD lie. (The Left is not as anti-War as they might pretend.)
Here is a link to some pithy comments that I made for Memorial Day back in 2009. I used to get triggered by so much plastic flag-waving (LINK).
The Forever Wars are wrong mainly because they are not in the National interests of the United States, not because Sergeant Hartman can make the doughy boys cry.
Anyway, President Trump showed that he was going to resist the Neocon agenda and the Forever Wars, which he did in his first term. In his second term, he is taking an even harder America First tack (so far). We will see.
To me, what Nationalists need to learn is how to leverage basic institutions and statecraft and not “boycott” it somehow. That will accomplish nothing. Though we are not millionaires, we need to become the leadership elites. That means we have to learn all kinds of Leadership. That is how revolutionary change moves forward. That is what White people need to win again.
I am not saying that you have to join the military or to be prior service ─ you have to follow your own conscience as a human being ─ but not engaging with the State, and not learning to leverage the law and governmental institutions, will gain us nothing. Nothing.
The future is not an Amish village ─ and quite frankly few of you have ever started a diesel tractor with a blow torch at 40 degrees below zero in the shade in order to plow the road to get the neighbor’s sick kid into the emergency room where they have the modern medicine on tap.
My immeditate ancestors could make horseshoes on a primitive forge. That is not something that I will ever be able to do. We have our own issues. Modern life may be a little harder to negotiate than the graveyard shift at Walmart and playing vidya.
I am not a “bootstrap” enjoyer. I understand that my generation maybe did not teach the best life skills to the youth as they should have.
Just tell me, what other professional options does a normal young guy have these days to get out of his Mom’s basement playing Call of Duty, with “pornography and KFC,” besides joining the service? We would not even be talking about this if it were not a serious problem.
I encourage young people to quit Shake Shack and join the military to get some life experience and some marketable training if they can’t afford to go to trade school or college without taking out student loans.
The only thing I regret is not getting more military training and other experience already at my disposal in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. I was promoted to Sergeant (E-5) at age 22, but at that age I just could not imagine life ahead twenty years and getting a military retirement to be used in my dotage. Now I am wondering where the gray hair came from.
I also recommend that men (especially) learn military discipline and how to fire a damn gun. It is not a one-size-fits-all dilemma either.
The Boy Scouts, the Civil Air Patrol, and the U.S. Army are all excellent institutions with good Leadership histories. Maybe Trump can walk back some of the DEI and LBGTQ-wtf and make these organizations viable for young people again. Some of them do take girls. Boo Hoo.
If you do join the military, just don’t join for a Grunt MOS. That is a huge takeaway from my advice!
You do have to do a little better than your average Darkie on the ASVAB test in that regard, so don’t neglect your studies. If you can’t do that, stick with shift manager at Wendys. Girls will find you ten times more attractive if you can hold down a job and learn some life goals.
Young people have many options in the modern military that can almost guarantee that you will not wind up low-crawling in a rice paddy somewhere and dodging the heavy stuff.
All life is dangerous. Capisce?
From my own experience, you can easily get killed or crippled just crossing the street on your way home from school.
Trump is walking back the DEI crap, but they had heavy-handed “race relations” indoctrination already when I was in the service. White people should need never be intimidated by anything.
One of the things you learn in the green machine (or should have) is how not to be discombobulated by a very loud Darkie wearing a “brown round” on his head. (Yes, I would send them all back to Africa to strut around like peacocks, but we don’t live in a perfect world.)
We can talk about it some more. This is not meant to be a lecture or condescending. But I do think it’s a debate that should be had.
🙂
Despite my comments above I do somewhat agree with your sentiment. There’s no easy answer. It’s more of a case by case scenario. I saw quite a few guys end up worse for their ware either mentally, physically or both, from their time in uniform.
I agree that if one were to join he should only do so with the understanding that he must use the military at least as much as it will use him. This level of big picture consciousness will not exist in the mind of a naive and patriotic 18 yr old white kid of, at most, middle class background. He must either stumble into a valuable technical MOS in whatever branch of service or have an older, wiser mentor advising him. I did not have that and even if I did, would likely have ignored said advice out of a yearning for adventure and danger and a sense of patriotic duty. I found the danger and adventure but the patriotic duty remained allusive. I ultimately realized it was all a lie. The whole damn system is a lie.
A few guys I knew 20 years ago are still in today, senior enlisted and commissioned. They seem to be doing well. I haven’t had much contact with them over the years but by all appearances they seem to be completely ignorant of the realities that we here take for granted as true. I doubt my conscience would have allowed me to remain in uniform once I became even half as aware as I am today. I also doubt I’d have been able to stomach the Obama years of women being pushed into our boys’ only club and Lance Corporal Shitbird showing up to the Marine Corps birthday ball with his “husband.”
The guys I knew who were selfish enough to use Uncle Sam to get ahead in their careers and gain personally from it, were not in possession of the traits which would eventually lead them to be reading a webzine such as this or have much of any well thought out political understanding let alone racial consciousness. Today, they’re either normie-tier shitlibs or at best flag waving conservatards.
If I’d have become a lifer I’d be approaching a 25 year career and pension. I’d certainly be better off financially but I could also be nothing more than a forgotten name on a KIA plaque at the local little league ballpark or perhaps my parents would be fortunate enough to have a stretch of highway named in my honor. I can see it now, Gunnery Sergeant JoeBlow Highway. Ultimately, I’m thankful I got out when I did.
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