This is clearly a well-thought-out and researched post, one that comes from a place of deep introspection. You know why I'm such a cynical and bitter asshole? 'cuz the only logical response is Fundamentally? We have a volunteer army tasked with preserving empire that relies on adults at their youngest whose understanding of the tasks they face is obfuscated as a matter of course and there are people who funnel volunteers into the process through all approved means. Here's the thing about shitty systems. Every single operator within that system can be working from the purest motive. Lawful Good all around. And we still end up with the neighbor's kid, who thought he was learning how to fix helicopters and ended up guarding the stockade. We still end up with the kid I met on a Reddit field trip who thought he was learning to translate Arabic but ended up waterboarding folx on Diego Garcia. We still end up with Marissa who went from running 10ks to walking with a cane because her drill instructor didn't believe that she'd fucked up her knee until he saw the x-rays. It's that whole "banality of evil" thing. Arendt's point was that if you do nothing, evil wins. But when deciding what to do, what are you looking for? The thing that makes you feel the most virtuous? Or the thing that changes the most? Most people don't realize that nobody is the bad guy in their own movie. We're all shining superstars saving the world one day at a time. If you can figure out how your bad guy can be his own superhero, you're a lot closer to understanding how to align his crusade with your own. My parents were violently, virulently anti-military. Joined the Peace Corps to get free of Vietnam. Wrote angry screeds about my uncle, who did two tours in Korea and then had four kids to feed and the Navy told him they needed help building dams in the Southwest and within six months he was a SeaBee in Da Nang. That's definitely one of the things that kept me out of the military. But it's done some friends some real good. It's done some friends some real bad, for sure but it's also done a lot of good. We have a military. That's not going to change. It needs to be staffed. And until we switch to conscription, there will be recruiters (and if we switch to conscription Empire is Over). If it's a system that favors unethical behavior? I mean, yeah. It's going to attract the unethical. Or, those willing to put up with an unethical system. But I think we agree that it's not a black and white situation. I don't like the system that recruiters exist in because it incentivizes the exact behavior they're accused of by people who serve.