Don’t blame the soldiers.

The State is deploying National Guard troops on community members to defend ICE. I said nothing about assigning blame to anyone, but now that you mentioned it, I will emphatically blame National Guard members who follow this disgusting order. Otherwise, I don’t care about assigning blame to anyone at the moment.

It depends. No, the war isn’t your fault. These troops in California being commandeered by the feds aren’t immediately the bad guys.

But if they’re told to shoot at a bunch of protesters, and then they do, well then they’re suddenly the bad guy.

Don’t expect that to make a difference. Only 199 were tried at Nuremberg.

I dont think so, but If you think it has, contact JAG. Went to lookup if they have hotline, CAL GAURD JAG was apparently a trending search…

no hotline but front desk # for CAL GAURD JAG is 916-854-3505

not the same thing but UCMJ reports and legal questions are JAG’s bread and butter

Gastrointestinal.

Well actually: “It was originally an initialism used in U.S. Army paperwork for items made of galvanized iron.[2] The earliest known instance in writing is from either 1906[3] or 1907.[2]” Also later on re-interpreted as “government issued” etc. but I guess today it just means US army soldier

General Infantry. I believe it’s a classification in the US Army, but it basically just means soldier.

For completeness, Glycemic Index. In this case General Infantry though.

Apparently, it originally stood for galvanized iron based on the Wikipedia links shared elsewhere in this thread.

General Infantry

In military/national defense contexts, it’s usually referring to General Infantry

I think it is actually generally short for “Government Issue” as a kinda a reference that they are government issue like everything else in a soldiers life

Without looking it up I think it’s government issued. Or that’s what I learned or made up as a kid. Probably wrong.

Buddy, where have you been the past 20 years? The kids who were boots on the ground are now in their late 30s and 40s, and many of them are staunchly anti-military thanks to their experiences.

The US military runs one of the largest propaganda campaigns in the world, from Hollywood movies and TV commercials to Raytheon funding colleges and recruitment officers walking the halls of high schools. Their entire thing is tricking impressionable young kids into doing the dirty work for the wealthy. When I was in college, the seniors in the game design program were working on a VR boot camp scenario in Second Life that the army wanted to take with them to schools as a recruitment tool.

But no war like the culture war, I guess.

All people are born ignorant to their material circumstances and the conditions necessary for them. Disadvantaged folk often have a more difficult path out of that ignorance. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs provides some insight into why: one rarely has capacity for deep introspection when they’ve been deprived of basic needs.

The US Military (among others) purposefully recruit more heavily in economically depressed areas. This has been true for decades. These two facts are correlated. Couple this with American Exceptionalist propaganda which created the myth and social elevation of the American Soldier as the ultimate freedom fighter / patriot and maybe you can sympathize with those who enlist.

My point is not that individuals should be excused from being taken to task for their actions. Nor is it that all those who enlist are duped into it. It’s this: people are rarely lost causes, are often unguided, and live unexamined lives. So when confronting anyone: their personal context matters. When I’m struggling to find empathy I look to Daryl Davis. When we encounter ignorance, hate, and bigotry, we are right to oppose it. Always. How we do so should be conditioned, and possibly tempered, by the fact that we ourselves are ignorant to the context of the neighbors assigned to oppress us.

Do not dismiss out of hand the power of speaking to reason and empathy in the face of violence and hate. Take them to task with the intention of educating a lost comrade. We must defend ourselves when the need arises but, prior to that Rubicon, we ought to acknowledge that were it not for circumstances outside our control so too could we have remained ignorant and been persuaded toward hate.

There is no more stalwart an ally than one who has been given the tools to free themselves from chains they were sold as armor.

Maybe this is libbed up, but someone here probably knows a national guard volunteer, at least some of whom probably don’t want to go out and fight their fellow community members for ICE.