Their recruiting offices were set up directly across the street from my daughter’s high school right next to the Burger King where all the seniors went to lunch.
Shady as fuck
They also exclusively target lower to middle class areas because rich people have options, and the capitalist oligarchy love that poverty to cannon fodder pipeline.
Which is conveniently the real reason they are trying to ban abortion. Because poor kids without options are easy to recruit as cannon fodder
I think you give pro choice and religious nuts too much credit.
If you’re still believing they’re religiously motivated you’re exactly where they want you.
The idiots who vote are religiously motivated. The ones with power want cheap labor.
Also a huge reason the GOP is so against student debt forgiveness. Can’t give poor people an option beyond joining the military if they want to go to college.
I remember one of the ® Congress critters saying as much a few years ago, but I can’t find the source. I think it was one of their complete imbeciles.
Interesting…
So is the alternative to kill people in the womb based on the possibility they might end up joining the army at some point in their lives?
The alternative is to not convince fools that fetuses are people just so that they’ll create more soldiers.
Fetuses aren’t people? When does that happen exactly then?
You’re just making a fool of yourself.
Oh ok. I noticed you didn’t answer. It’s not a trick question unless you’re a fool.
After you have committed to having the baby.
Yes, fertilization is indeed codifying this commitment to start a family. See, common ground!
If they truly cared about “all life” they would be pushing food programs for kids in schools, and persue free education.
But educated children don’t end up in the military… Quick cut those programs!
Republicans pull out a Bible and read whatever chapter slightly resembles the doctrine they want to push, and conveniently forget all the rest. And their voting base laps it up because they’ve never actually read a Bible themselves either.
You’re right. We’re better off killing them in the womb to prevent any suffering they may have.
They target a lot of wealthier neighborhoods as well. Lot of failsons that can’t get into a good college because of their shit grades, but a couple years in the army as an NCO means they can get into a decent school afterwards.
Yeah, there are special divisions for fortunate sons, who get fancier barracks and light duties away from harms way. We know because George W. Bush served his military career in one in the Coast Guard.
Why do they always send the poor?
Why don’t presidents fight in wars?
You depend on our protection, yet you feed us lies from the tablecloth
The one in my town is right next to GameStop.
Isn’t there a law against people who take advantage of kids being near schools?
I went to highschool and university in the US - I was lucky that I got a scholarship and that covered pretty much all my tuition costs.
But I had a friend, one year older than me, who joined and served in the US army for something like 2 years just so he could get his university costs covered and to save some money for living expenses.
It may not be intentional, but the high cost of higher education is an excellent recruiting tool for the US military.
The poverty draft is very real. Usually it’s for enlisted who have no other prospects. But I was in that same boat in college. 2 years in ROTC before something made me realize I was not going to enjoy military life and dropped it.
I went to school in a dirt poor place. Like half of my graduating class joined the military. Recruiters were in the halls like every week. Yeah, it’s absolutely intentional.
It may not be intentional
Nothing is unintentional.
Wasn’t there some tweet of a US general that said to not get rid of high college costs because they would get less soldiers signing up?
Totally not intentional, I’m sure.
Yes. It was. Now days most jobs offer to cover college. I want to know how they benefit because I don’t get it.
They get relatively cheap, more educated workers for at least a short time. And they’re often able to keep them at a cheaper salary than hiring someone with the same education. A (proactive) promotion that doubles your salary from $35 to $70k a year generates a lot of goodwill, even if that education and position would usually start at $90k.
Also people who “go to college” that work pays for don’t live on campus, so the company is only on the hook for tuition, and not room and board. And it’s often not full time. It’s worth $10k/year for all that.
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It’s creepy that they’re allowed to text children without their express consent. Assuming that this is a real text exchange and that OOP didn’t wilfully give the recruiter their number earlier.
When I was a senior in high school back in the 2000’s I got multiple cold calls from Army recruiters. I have no doubt that they’ve moved on to texting, and that this is legitimate.
Yep. Cold calls, emails, texts, whatever they could get their hands on all through my senior year in high school and at least my first two years of college. Not to mention their tables in the high school cafeteria, at robotics competitions, my engineering university’s job fairs. Don’t remember how I got them off my back, I might have just aged out of their main target cohort, but my mom likes to talk about how she told them she was pregnant (because she was lol) and they never contacted her again. Do with that information what you will.
So they’re old enough to decide to join the military but not old enough to handle receiving an unsolicited message on social media?
Recruiters start working you long before you’re old enough to join.
We usually call that grooming.
Recruiters groom children to kill.
Yup. I graduated high school at 17 and they were after me those last two years, at least. I was told I could have any job I wanted in the Navy due to my test scores. It was flattering and tempting.
Why didn’t you pick like Fleet Admiral and then decommissioned all the ships before promptly quitting?
We were all told we could have any job because our test scores were high. Come to find out that was a lie and while they might look at what you want to do, they’ll put you where they need you.
I guess they probably do now because like 90% of high school grads have or did something that makes them ineligible to join and if they want more recruits they need to get students to not do things that make them ineligible and that might mean reaching out more than six months before they’re old enough to join.
90% would be ineligible? how come?
The largest reasons are lack of physical fitness or criminal convictions
Also recruiters can’t or don’t want to recruit teens on ADHD or mood meds. If you can’t be an effective fighter without medicine they don’t want to find that out in the middle of a fight.
They did when I was in school and that was like 25 years ago
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You can join the military before you can drink. This country doesn’t make sense.
At least you can’t get drafted before you’re old enough to vote anymore.
It makes perfect sense when you remember that the worth of human life and ethics aren’t factored in when people decide how the country works.
It’s not about “handling” anything. Not sure how you inferred that from my post.
Are you okay with army recruiters having your child’s cell phone number without their express consent?
When I was in high school our home phone number was published in the phone book and military recruiters called it a few times when I was getting close to finishing high school.
I’m not giving my kid a cell phone if I think them having it would endanger them. If unsolicited phone calls endanger them they shouldn’t have a cell phone. They should know what information shouldn’t be given out to strangers over the phone, on a call or via message. They should know how to block numbers and recognize calls that are best left to voicemail, &c.
Sounds like you support actual grooming.
This is Facebook messenger or instagram, either way public profiles
Not really any better. Soliciting (presumably) high school students via their phone or via social media is fucked up.
Point being the text exchange doesn’t require consent, as the profiles are publicly accessible. Nothing to do with whether it’s right/wrong.
The comment you responded to said it was “creepy”, not that it wasn’t allowed. That it’s allowed doesn’t make it any less messed up, and looking to argue semantics in this discussion and divert it onto trivialities just paints you as sympathetic to the practice or actively looking to aid it.
So, exactly what you’re doing right now?
Calling out your bs diversionary response. This one too. And at this point I will stop engaging you and recommend everyone else do so as well, as you have illustrated wonderfully that you’re not interested in actually discussing anything meaningful.
I’m going to college right now and I’ve been getting messages from recruiters lately. They literally text me from their work numbers now.
Not that it matters too much but it looks like Instagram or Facebook direct message
Back in the early 2000’s I had a recruiter call my house asking for me, creepy AF.
Seeing the army recruitment at comic Con always skeeves me out. I see them talking to 16-17 year old socially awkward kids who don’t know any better. Really predatory.
Really predatory.
It’s interesting that the US has not signed the international agreement against child (<18 yo) soldiers - solely so that the US armed forces can sign 17 yo recruits.
I just thought the Comic-Con would have been a terrible recruiting ground. The military want people that follow orders. They actively discourage intelligence.
Military brat here, half the soldiers I meet are massive nerds and the other half are goobers (meatheads, guys with no prospects, guys who always wanted to be in the army). Take that as you will.
Also a military brat, I find your 50/50 split suspicious.
My own observation is 80/20 giant nerds to goobers. Varies between service branches though - higher for air force, about this for navy, a little lower for army.
They don’t though. Certain jobs don’t need you to be a genius, but the military really wants all the smart people they can get.
And yeah, when you’re in, it’s about 50:50. You’ll meet some of the smartest, generous, friendly people you’ll ever know. And you’ll meet some aggressive, angry, stupid knuckledraggers too.
The US military wants all the smart people that they can get because they don’t have any working for them.
I can almost guarantee you wouldn’t even score high enough on the Asvab to qualify for the most difficult jobs in the military.
Some of us are dumb enough to know that whatever IQ you have, joining the military industrial complex killing machine for our capitalists overlords is morally bankrupt and dumb.
And many of us grew up in such dire straits that despite our awareness of and disagreement with the military industrial complex, the system of desperate circumstances left us with few choices, and certainly none better. The military provides training and educational opportunities that will pull a person right out of hopeless poverty and give them half a chance in life. Everyone has their price.
For my part, I rationalized it by deciding that I would prefer people like me to join up rather than right-wing nutjobs, and if I did, then that was one slot that a nutjob wouldn’t fill.
I’m amazed at how humans are able to rationalize the evil that we do. The reason you were in such dire straits is a byproduct of militarism and capitalism. You were aware enough to recognize this, and still chose to be an accomplice. There is no ethical military. None . From the janitors to the Generals, if you contribute to the machine you are part of it.
The military isn’t all bad. Our role in WW2 was pretty righteous. What we do with Ukraine is helping to fight evil.
As much as we’ve screwed up Iraq, it’s hard to say if they’d have been better off staying under Saddam.
Helping South Korea and defending NATO is pretty good.
I see some National Guard in here. Helping Ruby Bridges get to school was good work. The National Guard often swoops in to help in natural disasters.
Half our Navy is made up of giant, floating hospitals.
Serial killers aren’t all bad either. They keep the homeless population in check and Ted Bundy was a leader in his community. /s
The military is like the “orphan crushing machine.” No one asks why it exists. We’re just supposed to accept that it’s necessary. And in some ways it is. But shouldn’t we strive for a world without a need for military.
Some might say, “well, that’s what America is doing. It’s the strongest military to maintain peace.” But this logic is flawed. When your military becomes so big, it’s never going to dissolve itself when necessary for peace. It becomes a power unto itself.
Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex but we didn’t listen.
I guess that is WIS vs INT
Well, fuck me I just found out I’m stupid
Socrates would say that’s a good first step.
Marine huh?
LoL mkay
Right, cause fucking weebs are known for their superior intelligence and independence in the face of authority.
I knew two people with mechanical engineering degrees who couldn’t even make it through nuclear engineering school to work on submarine and carrier reactors, the military isn’t made up of 100% dumbass infantrymen.
Throw 'em into boot, they either get ground down to follow orders or beat/shamed out. They’re terribly good at psychological manipulation.
As far as intelligence, they know how to play the room now. They’ll put you wherever you’re best. They have a hell of a lot of tech now and aren’t as keen on putting contractors in harms way. If you’re better off as a grunt, you’re a grunt. If you’re skilled labor, they’ll find a way to make you useful.
Not to say you should or shouldn’t join. Skilled labor makes a hell of a lot more money other places.
I still fondly remember my friend Bob Niederider from high school in the '80s. One day an Army recruiter came to talk to our history class, and at the end he asked if anybody had any questions. Bob raised his hand and said “yeah I have a question: does napalm still stick to kids?” I didn’t really appreciate this at the time - and the recruiter certainly didn’t, either.
What was the response?
It was basically the scene in Full Metal Jacket where the Marine commander grills Joker about the peace sign and “Born to Kill” on his helmet.
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Army recruiters in your school that somehow use social media to contact you?
Institutionalised creepiness.
Wait until you see “career day” at school.
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I wasn’t going to join anyway, but the military recruiter who came to my school in the 90s ensured I wouldn’t enlist.
He ended literally ended every phrase or clause with “'n stuff.” And I do mean literally. Every phrase or clause.
It went like this:
“If you wanna join the army 'n stuff, you gotta get fit 'n stuff because basic training ain’t easy 'n stuff but if you start getting fit now, you’ll do fine 'n stuff.”
For 45 fucking minutes.
I’ll go against the grain here.
I joined not long after high school because I wasn’t gonna be able to pay for college, not that I was a good student anyway.
Spent most of my 4 year Air Force enlistment in the UK doing what I wanted - sysad, basically. Never deployed.
Got out and worked for increasingly higher pay and now I make $250k+ without a college degree.
I remember when the Xbox 360 came out, I was in high school.
The army brought a Ford Excursion that looked fresh off the Pimp my Ride show, with a huge flat screen that flipped down out of the back, 4 huge subs, and the current football game playing.
You could only play the Xbox if you signed up.
School recruiters are basically practicing pedophiles. They disgust me. They:
- hunt for vulnerable children, who might be more prone to complying due to trauma or disability or even just recent social happenings or baseline teenage angst
- try to talk to them one on one so adults won’t interfere
- entice them with treats or games or other such things
- try to convince the kids to agree to do something they don’t yet understand
The SOP of a school recruiter and that of a practicing pedophile are so similar that I wonder how many of the latter are created after someone has been the prior simply due to how the job demands you to operate and consider the kids as just resources… or how often the prior becomes a career path for the latter simply to justifiably increase their access to children.
Back in the late 2000s, I got pulled in to the office in high school because I told the recruiter visiting the school that he was a massive piece of shit and needed to stay away from me and my friends if he knew what was good for him. I said this after he sat down near me and, idk, tried to bond? By calling my female friend that left “a real hottie” and tried poorly to insinuate I could probably seal the deal if I was a hot army boy. Baseline revolting statement from an adult to a child for one, I’m gay for two, she was lesbian for three… so I said what I said and apparently my words were sufficiently hurtful that he ran to the admin to cry about it and I got told off because that kind of language and sentiment is unacceptable towards someone “just doing their job” at the school. They found no issue at the time with his ingratiation technique, though I never saw him again.
Everything about your story is just wow. It’s the exact sort of story you hear in gay bars in the city the rural folk flee to
And yeah I can’t disagree with your points. Recruiters are actively seeking kids out to get them traumatized or killed. Good on you for telling one off
Wow what the fuck
Man that is creepy. Some “I have candy in my van” vibes.
Literally an idiot trap
I’m surprised they didn’t have America’s Army running there. That used to be a great game.
What in the actual fuck
The recruiting office near me has a huge portable climbing wall.
I remember mowing the lawn at home in the early 2000s when an Army recruiter pulled up and tried to get me to sign up. We lived in a cul-de-sac, so he was clearly there for me. I was 17 at the time.
The older I get, the more creeped out I am that they showed up unsolicited and talked to me without one of my parents present.
I remember a recruiter coming up to me, trying to shame me.
“Don’t you love your country?!” He shouted. This was after 9/11 too, and being brown, I didn’t say what I wanted to say because i was 17 and was absolutely sure this guy would beat me up.
After 9/11 I had people telling me to look less Muslim so I wouldn’t be targeted by crazy people. At the time, being brown and having a beard made you Muslim, which in turn made you a terrorist.
Sadly all the branches have one at the schools. I made the mistake of taking the ASVAB test in high school to get out of class, scored well and was hounded by all of these guys. The marine recruiter showed up at my house carrying a CRT TV/VHS combo to try and convince me to join lol
Marine got a workout that day
This was in FL too, this guy walked the walk I guess.
It was required in my school to take the ASVAB. If we missed we’d face repercussions. I purposely answered questions wrong-- not all of them because it would look too obvious, but I apparently still scored high enough that they still considered me. I got my results in class, we had someone from the military come speak with us and try to get us to sign up, and even text messages.
Shit was so fucking annoying.
I asked a friend of mine from where I used to live if she had to take it and she asked me what the fuck I was talking about.
I mean, shit, I guess when you live in a state that is known for having awful levels of education they figure they can shove you in the military instead.
…Or football.
What score do you think is the cutoff to not be called?
My guess is they call you regardless of score and use the score to decide how to make the sell. They need all levels of people to stand in front of bullets and maintain a base/outpost.
This is a good theory. I scored high on the ASVAB and recruiters would call me telling me I’d have an awesome technical career in the military where I’d get to play with James Bond style gadgets. I just so happened to be a bit of a nerd, but I still told them to fuck off.
It would make sense that they tailor the recruitment process to kids based on how they score on the ASVAB, and the score doesn’t really matter. I wouldnt be surprised if they just use the lower scoring kids as some sort of cannon fodder.
Or it’s about money for the university degree they know the kid wants but can’t afford. There’s all sorts of angles and I would guess they have a standard pitch based on score, location, estimated socioeconomic background.
I mean. At least that’s what I would do if I were in charge of recruitment.
That’s actually what I’m thinking, too. “Oh, you scored between this bracket? Your code name is ‘Meat Shield #1947288’. No, it doesn’t mean anything. Stop asking. Now get out there champ. Make 'em proud.”
I’m old enough that we didn’t really have those technical things when I would have been enlisting (early 90s). But even then I remember our guidance counselor telling us, “You’ll get 5 calls. One from each branch, all asking you to enlist. You can just say no.”
We all took the ASVAB, as I recall - it replaced a class period. For some reason, I remember the room I took it in, so I’m pretty certain it replaced a language class (German, in my case - it was a small, windowless room, though I did have a study hall in the same room one year). When I met one on one with the guidance counselor, he looked at the ASVAB and said, “Well, you’re qualified for every job in the military, but you’re probably not interested.” Then we talked about other careers and college.
Now that I think about it, that dude did me a world of good on several occasions. I wish I could find him and thank him.
Hilariously the Infantry isn’t where the really low scores usually end up. You actually need to be a certain kind of smart to do that.
The score matters as far as what jobs you qualify for, and it also tests different aptitudes. For example, two people could have the same overall score (say a 70), but one person could show mechanical aptitude and be pushed toward a Machinist position, while the other could do poorly on mechanical but do well in electrical stuff and become an electrician.
They also don’t want to waste their smarter people as basic grunts or cooks, so a higher ASVAB score can mean you’re less likely to get the job you want if, say, you score 90+, but always wanted to be a chef. If you have a specific job you want to go in for, you basically have to get it in writing that you’re joining for that job, otherwise you’re at the mercy of the “needs of the {branch name}” - you will be what they need most that you’re very good at.That’s not true. If you want to go combat arms with a high score they just have you sign a letter of intent for Green Berets or Rangers. If you fail off that you go to a normal infantry unit. “Grunts” actually have to be pretty smart. It’s a Hollywood thing that all the grunts are just cannon fodder. Our Army runs, in combat, on millions of decisions made by Corporals and Sergeants with teams of 4-6 people under them.
They do present you with all the other jobs you could do though.
I did say if you have a specific thing to get it in writing. If you sign a letter of intent, that is getting it in writing. Plenty of guys in my boot camp got told they could go do X job in the Navy but ended up getting a different designation during boot. This was back in the mid 2000’s so it may be more standard to have the LoI but at the time plenty of us did and plenty of us didn’t. And for my job, I only got to join “the nuke program” - we got to give a wishlist for which rating but it didn’t mean much. I got the rating I wanted, but several guys wanted Electronics Technician and ended up as their last choice - Machinist’s Mates. And I’ve met some decently smart infantry, but I’ve also met plenty of infantry that were (affectionately) window lickers. More seriously though, the ones we joked around with about being window lickers aren’t actually stupid, they were just average guys, just not as quick as some of the other vets in the group (the Marine vet embraced the crayon eating jokes). I’m sure they were fine at their job though, and they followed orders well which is probably the most important thing in a soldier or sailor.
Different services, different ways I guess. I was early 2000’s too but in the army. And you knew most of what you were doing before you went. For example Infantry was known, but not rifleman or mortarman. And they could only deny you if you didn’t qualify. Over qualified wasn’t a thing. (My dumbass was over qualified for the infantry)
My highschool had the same thing, they made it sound mandatory but a handful of us found out they couldn’t force you to take it. So yea while 99% of my classmates took it the 5 of us got to sit in a empty classroom and wait it out
This sounds worse than sitting through a time share presentation.
But better than a friend trying to get me to join their downline.
Joke is on you; they left all the kids that made perfect scores alone. They knew they couldn’t convince them to join.
How else are they going to help you leave the state? Teaching you math?
When I was in school we had to take it but the recruiters also passed back the results. So even if you didn’t want to join it was supposed to be useful information about what you’re good at doing.
Ironically they may have tried harder because you scored low. The phrase “Asvab Waiver” exists for a reason. And there’s very few people who couldn’t drive a truck or something useful.
Yeah, we had to take it in school as well. Since I had no interest in dying in Iraq, I just filled in bubbles at random. Still got phone calls and mailings aplenty begging me to join the military. They even mailed me a video game that the Army made, though I never played it so I don’t know how bad it was.
Was it Americas Army? I played that when it released. Not bad. I’m not a fan of shooters, but it was at least interesting to see a game that had an honest attempt at making it as “real” as possible.
The sniper mission was the only thing I didn’t complete. It had one mission where you had to sit and wait for up to 48 hours real time before you could take a shot at your target. Neat concept, but totally impractical for a game.
Americas Army stunk bad on release, but was pretty solid by the time that it got to 3.0.
Recruits are trained on the engine used in ARMA by Bohemia Interactive. I played some of the scenarios on Operation: Flashpoint (which featured cold-war operations in the late 1980s).
Eventually, when I got hit, I assumed I was dead, and occasionally be surprised that I’m not, in fact, falling over, and am still alive and still have functional parts.
But yes, the most effective way to play seemed to be to hide in a bush and wait for minutes (hours if necessary) for the enemy to cross your firing line.
I guarantee you recruits are trained in the nearest forest. There’s edge cases where using a video game can be useful for testing new tactics with veterans. But recruits are looking for the basics. Like what does a platoon wedge look like in a forest versus the grass.
War games are really useful for officers trying to plan things. That way they don’t need to pay for thousands of people to deploy to special training areas to figure stuff out. But even then it’s open to misuse, like when Rumsfield decided light infantry was a dead concept.
That tracks. I knew the Arma engine was used for training in the US Army and USMC but I didn’t know where it fit in.
So you just made something up?
An equivocative question. Are you law enforcement?
America’s Army was actually really good because of how realistic it was with respect to tactics
You probably got more phone calls because you scored low. Most recruiters aren’t’t exactly looking for the cream of the crop. They prey on desperate individuals who have no other choice.
if you still have that game it might be a good fit for the internet archive
If it was an fps it was probably decent, they have access to the top Secret specs of war machines.
Which then was leaked on the War Thunder forums.
I’m from Kentucky and never had that, so idk.
Texas?
Close. Alabama
My dad had to sign up for service in the military in Britain in the late 1940s when he turned 18. He never told me exactly how he got out of it (I suspect he pretended to be gay), but he did tell me about the “intelligence test” he had to take which sounded very similar to the cognitive diagnostic test Trump brags about. He said it was stuff like-
Which of these doesn’t belong: Square, circle, triangle, elephant.
He finished it in about five minutes, asked if he could leave, and was told he had to wait until everyone finished or an hour had gone by. Apparently, by the end of the hour, there were people around him really struggling to finish.
Whats ASVAB
I don’t know what it stands for, but it’s basically a test for recruits to ensure they meet the basic levels of intelligence required to serve. ASVAB
Thank you!
War is lame. It’s just a bunch of people killing each other while the real people in power sit in comfy chairs watching it all unfold. Can we just all get along?
Oh wait, you have oil? Oh, um, he hit me first. 💥🔫⚔️🛢️💯
Yup. Although it’s not generally 1 per school. More like 1 per 10 schools. No different than job recruiters for any other field.
It’s pretty fucked, honestly. They regularly posted up in the lunchroom at my school, recruiting students with promises of scholarships.
We didn’t get text messages like this, but I’m not surprised to see it. I do wonder how they get the numbers though. Is it just data broker bullshit or is the school system selling out their own students’ information?
My college definitely gave out student contact info to the ROTC/National Guard recruiters. I got more than one unsolicited text exactly like the one in the OP throughout college.
this is Instagram I think, so maybe just be name
So stalking highschoolers via social media. That’s somehow worse. Yeesh.
I’d argue that its not as bad. socials are public, phone numbers are not. don’t mean to defend them, they shouldn’t be messaging minors in any capacity without explicit consent
Socials being “public” doesn’t mean every single thing about the person is publicized (though, I admit, it could be depending on the person). If this is Instagram, afaik there’s no “I go to X HS” bio-line option, so unless the user explicitly lists it themselves, that suggests recruiters are analyzing their posts to connect them to a school, and/or linking them to other users they already know. That is explicitly worse, imo.
I mean school could have given them a list
idk there’s no point arguing what’s worse, they’re both bad and should not happen
For one, you literally started this argument. Second, schools giving them a list doesn’t make it better either.
I will agree it’s all bad, though. The sheer impudence to do anything like this is just awful. “Hey child! I know you never asked for this discussion, but do you wanna fight and die for a military system that will use shady af data acquisition just to pose this shitty question to you? We can give you an education that should be affordable to anyone but absolutely isn’t. You’re probably poor right?”
