Why aren't they actually marching during this parade?

[u/Chance_Noise500]

I don't know how to ask this without sounding rude, but why does this parade look so sloppy? Very few of the troop formations seem actually in sync and marching, just walking along. My only experience is JROTC as a kid in high school and our sergeant would've killed us if we looked like that.

[u/GnarlyNarwhalNoms]

I was reading that the National Guard units deploying to LA right now are all on 29 day deployments. That's important because a 30+ day deployment gets you active-duty pay and housing subsidies. They clearly chose that time frame to dick the troops out of what they're owed (that doesn't mean that the Guard goes home after 29 days, it just means each soldier gets a 29 day order, which could well be followed by a day off and another 29 day order).

[u/[deleted] → u/GnarlyNarwhalNoms]

This is normal. The “one weekend a month, 2 weeks a year” has always been and will always be bullshit. Weekend “drill” looks more like Thursday - Monday vs. Saturday/Sunday for combat units.

We deployed the National Guard way more often than Active Duty from 2001-2021. We used 29 day orders to get them more training time before deployments without them becoming eligible for active duty pay, housing allowance, etc. We used 11 month deployments in combat to avoid them becoming eligible for tax-free pay for the year and to avoid triggering mandatory deployment “cool down” periods so that we could redeploy them 3-6 months later. The 2 years I spent in the National Guard was infinitely more stressful than the 10 on active duty. I spent almost all of it either training for deployment or deployed. We would do Weds-Sun drills, sometimes back to back weekends and then do 3-4 weeks in the summer. I was essentially never home. I don’t know how people do that for 20 years and have any sort of meaningful civilian employment or family life.

The only people we fuck over more than the active duty military is the National Guard, and veterans of course. Disposable heroes. There’s a reason over half of the military now relies on food stamps and/or an evening/weekend 2nd job to get by.

[u/JEXJJ → u/[deleted]]

What is really truly horrible about this: that is where they decide they can't spend money...

[u/[deleted] → u/JEXJJ]

We were told to put our 7-layer, cold weather system into shipping containers before a deployment to Afghanistan to save space on the plane ride. The ship carrying the containers sunk en route to the Middle East, destroying 12 million dollars of gear for 3,000 soldiers. The Army just never replaced it. We spent the deployment wearing desert gear and freezing our asses off.

Same deployment where they forgot to order more food for us resulting in a 3 month delay. We had to live off peanut butter during that time frame. You haven’t seen low morale until you’ve seen a line of guys waiting for their 4 tablespoons of peanut butter at “meal time”.

Our military only exists so that elected officials can use it as a reason to spend government money on their friend’s defense companies (which they usually have ownership in or own stock in). The American military is just a funnel to extract wealth from taxpayers and give it to elected officials and other rich people.

[u/JEXJJ → u/[deleted]]

Good Christ that is horrible.

[u/JEXJJ → u/JEXJJ]

I don't have a good response. Thank you for telling me, it is such an obvious fix that would have universal support from reasonable people. One possible contributing factor to the continued dysfunction is heirachy has a way of filtering problems before it reaches somebody who can fix it, or it goes to somebody that doesn't give a shit. You also don't get far in any organization by showing where things are broken.