it may be a meme, but I have a lot to say about it, as someone who is the guy in the top right, in the military. the caption is "a big thank you to all our essential workers putting their lives on the line," and I have a strongly mixed opinion on it.
My physical life will never be on the line. Never got deployed, never saw combat. My job (network technician/training dev) rarely does the former and will basically never do the latter. Other jobs and branches see threats to their physical lives more often, positions such as infantry, munitions, or what have you—people out on the front lines.
Yet the aspect of my life I'm putting on the line is my mental life. Couldn't have been poorer than at any other point in my life. The military may have developed my career more than anything I've ever done before as a civilian, and it gives me benefits too both as active duty and in the future as a veteran, but it comes at the incredible cost of my mental well-being. I was happier in general before the air force, and now I'm not. I have anxiety. I have lost personal freedom and the luxuries of civilian life, like having complete freedom over my appearance and behavior. My personal identity conflicts with the military, even—i cannot be myself as much as I would like.
Sacrifice. That's the handle. I'm so tired of sacrificing so much. Sacrificing the choice of where to work, where to live, do the job I want, be close to family, have long hair, have a big beard, treating everyone indiscriminately. What's that last one? Because of your rank, because of that one square in the center of your chest, you are automatically treated differently. Tech sergeant? Airman? Chief? Captain? Whatever it says, you will be judged, viewed differently, and treated in special ways, whereas I personally would like to just treat everyone as more or less the same and no more special than anyone else.
The culture. The people. The red tape. The paperwork. Formalities, technicalities, rules, regulations. I was okay with the whole military thing when I enlisted about 3 and a half years ago. It all started to gradually wear me down by the 2.5 year mark, a year ago at the end of the year 2023. so, now what? continue putting my life on the line.
