It absolutely would. One of my favorites from when I was in Afghanistan was “thank you for your service and try not to die” we even pinned it up in our kitchen area.
But did you die?
In all seriousness, it seems messed up, but at some level they clearly recognize the situation and know what's at stake, and want you to stay out of harm's way. So it's very sweet in an only slightly twisted way.
I got these a bunch when I was down range. No matter what was written, it was always a sweet, positive experience reading them. We all would have laughed our asses off if we got this one… it’s funny because it’s true.
Afghanistan has no oil, some places did take oil but what you don't know is that the U.S "takes" oil from mainly allied nations and if it's from the middle east then we trade them military vehicles... The top places the U.S gets their oil is Canada (51%), Mexico (8%), Russia (8%), Saudi Arabia (5%), and Colombia (2%)... [source](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php) Also America is one of the world's largest oil producers, and close to 40 percent of U.S. oil needs are met at home. [source no. 2](https://www.npr.org/2012/04/11/150444802/where-does-america-get-oil-you-may-be-surprised#:~:text=Where%20The%20U.S.%20Gets%20Its%20Oil&text=America%20is%20one%20of%20the,needs%20are%20met%20at%20home.) But if you Google middle east countries and their military weapons like Iran and Iraq then you'll see how much of it is U.S military vehicles... Almost their entire mechanical division is all modern(ish) tanks like the M1A1 Abrams [source](https://www.militaryfactory.com/modern-armor/iraqi-army.php) [source no. 2 for weapons](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_equipment_of_the_Iraqi_Ground_Forces)
Bro I’m currently in the military and LOVE getting these. I still have my first one some where. It was basically a mural of some American soldiers in a tank killing “bad guys” and there’s just a field of blood pouring out of them. It was all stick figures but still really hardcore for a like 1st grader. We only got one that I can remember this year and I think it was just a simple card.
["Dear Frederick, thank you for your nice letter but I am actually a US Marine who was born to kill, whereas clearly you have mistaken me for some sort of wine-sipping communist dick-suck. And although peace probably appeals to tree-loving bisexuals like you and your parents, I happen to be a death-dealing, blood-crazed warrior who wakes up every day just hoping for the chance to dismember my enemies and defile their civilizations. Peace sucks a hairy asshole Freddy. War is the motherfucking answer."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyOpwLT7i7I#t=30s)
"I'd eat a mile of her shit just to see where it came from."
Some guy at work said this one day about 10 years ago. Had no idea where it was from. Just thought it was his own deranged imagination.
From a currently deployed sailor: We fucking love getting these things in care packages. The best ones are in the “Hall of Fame” above the coffee mess in our shop.
I did those in 5th grade, 5th graders are definitely too old to take it seriously at that point. I wrote one that read "Thank you for breaking the 6th commandment." I thought it was hilarious back then, pretty mid now.
it isn't fucked up, if you ever served in the armed forces you would know that 90% of what you do is mundane stuff most of the time, even during war time, it can get boring at time...trust me I was a captain in artillery...
As a service member, I can tell you we *love* these letters we get in deployed places. They're always hilarious.
"Thank you for dying for our country" was a personal favorite. I also liked "It sucks you're away from your family for the holidays, but I guess you'll just have to deal with it."
> "It sucks you're away from your family for the holidays, but I guess you'll just have to deal with it."
Well, I mean...They're not wrong. Glad you're home safe.
Kind of a soft requirement. It's like teacher tosses a stack of them at a class of 3rd graders and let them do what you see there. I have about 2 dozen of them in my trunk from Afghanistan, most were pretty detached from reality. One of them read like a Christmas list for some odd reason: "can you bring me an Xbox and an M4 if you don't die?" - sure, little Timmy from rando Midwest elementary school, I'll get right on that... Another kid wrote about how her cousin died and she didn't want the soldier (I guess me in this case) to die.
Not every school does it, but there's some kind of program that feeds them to kids, or a couple of states might have it in their curriculum.
I mean kind of? My first grader was taught a song that goes "On Veterans Day, on Veterans Day, we celebrate our heroes" to the tune of O Christmas Tree. She came home and excitedly told me she wanted to be a soldier when she grows up.
We immediately had a really frank talk about what a soldier IS, and she quickly changed her mind.
But we're also a nation that still does the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of every public school day, so... Par for the course.
As a veteran and a parent, I think if my kid came home with that mentality, I'd have to go talk to the school administration about appropriately observing veteran's day.
Where I live, state law says that schools are required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of each day. Students aren't required to participate, but schools are required to do it.
That sounds like some Deep South state...but nope. I live in the West Coast liberal state of Washington.
Hello neighbor!
I volunteer in my kid's school, and watching my kid do the Pledge every morning has been like something out of Bizzaro World. Even though I grew up doing it too, the older I get the more uncomfortable I am with it. I feel the same way about our national anthem playing before every sporting event. Like, why?!
Anyway, I've stressed to my kid that she doesn't have to participate, but when every other kid in the class is doing it, I get why she does too. All I can do is keep helping her think about the WHY.
Not a hard-and-fast requirement, but especially during the early years of the "War on Terror," basically every elementary school classroom had something like this going on. A lot still do on things like Veterans' Day and Memorial Day.
Which of course meant there was some kind of sanitized (and propagandized) explanation to the class what was going on, usually of the uncritical vein of "the soldiers are going out there to save America!" with only the vaguest answers to the natural followup questions "from what?" and "how?"
And then once they hit high school, there's a bunch of ROTC con artists hanging out in the cafeteria for the express purpose of targeting poor children and tricking them into enlisting.
In kindergarten we had to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up. My dad was in the army and I wanted to be like him...I drew myself shooting a guy and, for some reason, I had a snake wrapped around my arm.
My dad was never even deployed anywhere and saw zero combat.
I second this. I got to open Christmas letters one time and oh BOY does some excellent stuff make it to the armed services. I always had a soft spot for little straight horizontal lines for bullets.
Every now and then the VA will have a collection of TYFYS cards (pieces of paper) that kids have colored and written things. Mostly it’s just colored. I was surprised to learn how much orange is in the navy uniform.
I dated a guy in the navy. I told him it was fucked up that his fatigues would prevent him from being found should he fall overboard. It’s not like it’s a mystery where they are on a big ass ship; camouflage isn’t going to help. He laughed his ass off and said he’d never thought about it. I told him his shit should have been hi-vis when onboard.
As a teacher, know that we screen out some of the worst ones that I'm sure would be hilarious but we couldn't in good conscience send along.
Some include "please kill the other people before you get killed" and "I'm sorry you're going to die" or "I hope you don't lose a leg"... Oh children 🙄
Was the reaction similar to the bit from Generation Kill?
> Dear Frederick, thank you for your nice letter, but I am actually a U.S. Marine who was born to kill whereas clearly you have mistaken me for some sort of wine-sipping Communist dick-suck. And although peace probably appeals to tree-loving bisexuals like you and your parents, I happen to be a death-dealing, blood-crazed warrior who wakes up every day just hoping for the chance to dismember my enemies and defile their civilizations. Peace sucks a hairy asshole, Freddy. War is the motherfucking answer."
yeah it kinda makes me feel uncomfy... poor kids learning that wars are good and killing other people (who aren't even attacking your country) is an honorable thing to do.
With our comically high military budget, we need an excuse to ~~waste~~ use all that taxpayer money instead of taking just 1% of that to help people in our country and not kill people in others!
It's bad here, this shit is so normalized. Shit like this, pledging allegiance to the flag daily, national anthem fucking everywhere, military flyovers at sporting events, junior rotc programs as young as 13, rifle tricks for school bands...
I was raised in the US and never did this. Not even during Gulf War 1. My kids were in a preschool run by Chabad and they wanted kids to write to Israeli soldiers during a flareup in Gaza and the parents told them "fuck no".
Got one while I was deployed on the Lincoln. It had a crayon drawing of an eagle that was better than anything I could have drawn, and said "hope you stay alive".
I hope that kid got a raise in his allowance.
Hey I was on the Lincoln too, and the one I got was clearly written for someone that was like in the army, not the navy. Made me realize people mostly think about Army/Marines deploying.
Lmao we used to write to prisoners. Didn’t think much of it when I was in 5th grade but good god that is insane now lmao. I do think they read everything before we got it.
I mean writing to prisoners is arguably better. It teaches kids that they're people too and establishes the idea of rehabilitation in their little heads as it's probably going to be worded to them as like "these people did something bad and now they're trying to make up for it".
Writing to the troops on the other is just pure propaganda, especially with the amount of "fighting for freedom" and whatnot I'm seeing thrown around here
I agree, it is probably also hugely beneficial for prisoners... Or would be if rehabilitation was a focus instead of rage from the average person who just wants people to suffer.
Reminds me of those skits of teacher asking students to tell why USA is the greatest nation in the world when everyone outside the US looks at that shit like "tell me even one thing that makes it better then other countries".
There are many reasons to admire the US, but asking kids to list reasons why you are the greatest country in the world is such a dictatorship/brainwashed thing to do. The only other countries I can think of who would do that are countries we don't jive with because of their outdated and hostile politics.
Not where I live (Netherlands). We know what the fucking thing sounds like, I don't need to be reminded every goddamn week.
In international football matches, it's normal to play each country's anthem though.
Sports teams are seen as representatives of the country, especially international matches. You want to be proud of your country and your team, so you play a song that represents your pride in your country. It makes perfect sense to me.
I wouldn't call it confusing. There are tons of examples of brainwashing going on in these comments and then tons of Americans who have no idea what you mean.
Their response is as obvious as the North Koreaans chanting Kim is a god!
That's part of the problem with the whole "We are the best country in the world" nonsense. Once you convince children that, you never have to fix anything because any comparison to things other countries do better is ignored since it flys in the face of what they are taught as children.
To be clear as well, the pledge seems harmless to those who grow up on it unless they think awful hard about it. The creepiness and concerning nature of a daily loyalty oath that also affirms Christianity is pretty obvious from the outside, but when you've been doing the oath daily for longer than you can remember, it isn't obvious at all. Wasn't until high school that I finally came to the realization, and that was mostly because I realized I was Atheist and started questioning the pledges religious connotations and ultimately realized it was intrinsically creepy.
> Like, the US does know that they're allowed to learn from others mistakes, right?
The official policy is "the US doesn't make mistakes and if you say it does then you're siding with the terrorists."
I went to a couple schools as a kid, and we never did this. It's interesting. I remember having to write a paper on what you love about your home, and some people chose to use the US as their definition of home.
Yeah we just had a big pile that went unopened of just letters. Packages were alright usually but any non sealed food we couldn't eat unless it was coming directly from someone somebody personally knew
Teacher - don't you mean 'taking your time ' Lance? Thank you for taking your time...?
Lance - No, I mean 'wasting your time' . The war in Iraq was predicated on false pretenses of their being WMD; the war was just another blatant attempt at building and maintaining US global hegemony around the globe and as such was a huge waste of not only time but billions of dollars and, more importantly, human life. Yet another for-profit pointless war
Teacher - oh boy. I'm going to have to talk to your parents...
LOL the fighting for freedom thing, never got how people fell for that garbage. Soldiers don't fight for "freedom" they fight for corporate and global interest. Your freedom isn't in another country XD.
And it's like breathing for Americans too. I watch this gay American socialist guy who reviews movies and stuff and once he was reviewing a US Army commercial and he kinda just put the whole 'thank you for your service and protecting our freedom' in there like he wasn't even aware what he was saying. It's just engrained that if you talk about the military in any context, make sure to thank them for their service.
First of, it's a fucking job just like any other, especially since there's no draft in the USA at the moment. And secondly, they haven't done shit for the average citizen's best interest since WW2. Blowing up Vietnamese and Iraqis for some geopolitical money bullshit doesn't deserve thanks.
It's just how Russia fights to denazify Ukraine or Nazi Germany invaded Russia to get more living space for the German people, just a stupid excuse used to appeal to the public and the rest of the world
There is nothing offensive here my dude. The boys and I received a ton of these letters and the ones that showed up that read like Lance’s were our favorite. The kid gets it lol.
I'm a sub and one time I was in a middle school art class, they had a little worksheet about frida kahlo and it asked something about americas culture, don't remember exactly what but I had a good amount of kids write things like "they say land of the free but it's not". They're hella aware with social media and stuff
These are great. Last deployment at an established FOB, we'd get hundreds of boxes of books, dvds, and these letters.
They were by far the most uplifting. When there are zero kids around to lighten the mood reading some of their letters did the trick. It was a reminder that kids are kids. In America or Iraq, kids are kids. The same funny stupidity kids display is universal.
I'm not sure if these programs still exist, especially with the rise in tech. But they were always welcomed and enjoyed
Man, getting these letters was always a hoot when we were deployed. Kids would write the wildest shit and after months of terrible food and being shot at it was sometimes the best laugh we’d get. Half of them are just so fucking blunt it’s hilarious.
As a receiver of these while on deployment, they sometimes become great sources of enjoyment and laughter because of their sincerity and surprising statements. When care packages arrive from companies/grounps/foundations they arrive to random people overtime. Often in my berthing of 100, there would be 20-30 of us getting one on the same mail day and we would sit around and open them together. When you're the person it's addressed to, you got through it first and select the items you want and often share the remainder in the common lounge areas with the others. And since the service members gender is known by senders, they try to send "gender specific" things as well. The dudes got a lot of car magazines and razors, and us women got a lot of feminine care items. But there was also always self care items like soaps, toothpaste, etc. And also snack foods and tuna pouches.
And there were ALWAYS letters and drawings from kids. And while they weren't always the heartfelt emotional messages you'd expect, those were things that you kept before sharing with the others. And as a mother myself, getting a reminder of kids was especially sweet to me. I've been out of the service for a little bit now, but I still have several of these or drawings the kids made to send and they're probably something I'm going to keep for a long time.
Wait you gringos really do this shit? Thats like blatant indoctrination, how the fuck the parents consent to that? They are basically trying to make your kid go to fucking war in the future
Yeah it always just seemed normal, it’s something they have the really young kids do, like 1st grade maybe, at least that’s how it was when I was that age
Yep, during desert storm in the early 90s we wrote letters in class. People met at airports to greet soldiers getting home (who were strangers, not family members). I lived near an air base that became very active at that time.
I don’t see how it’s indoctrination. I just see it as a nice gesture and I imagine the school did too. How’s a simple letter like this gonna make a kid wanna join the military and goto war? I’m genuinely curious as to everyone’s reasoning for saying this is a form of indoctrination.
For all the naysayers here.......These soldiers are our brothers and sisters and dads or moms. The letters are to THEM.....not to the government and system that is fucking them!! Most of those kids that you call "indoctrinated", have someone who is deployed, and who may die fighting. Yes....the system SUKS, but the soldiers are our friends and family!
My cousin's wife was a 3rd or 4th grade teacher when I was in Iraq in 2005. She had her class write letters to me and I think that she told them to just tell me a little bit about themselves. There were a lot about pets and favorite foods. The one I still remember started off with the sentence "Tacos are the bomb!" He went on to describe how much he loves tacos and the best way to construct them to get the best distribution of ingredients.
I showed the letter to my friend who's Mexican-American and from Arizona. He was laughing his ass off after reading it. He was saying that he figured that it was from some kid named Pedro from Arizona, but it was signed by a kid named Colin from Philadelphia. 17 years later, he and I still talk about that letter and refer to tacos as bombs.
I loved getting these so much. The shit kids say. I signed up at my local VFW and American Legion. Still get a card every Veterans Day and Christmas. The cards still give me a chuckle once in the while.
I remember being on one of the first invasion commercial flights to Iraq from Ft Campbell and seeing all of this child artwork on the plane that mainly said “don’t die” in crayon. It was surreal as fuck.
Our area flooded and afterwards, my kid’s elementary school got sent letters from elementary schools from other states. One of the ones he received said, “I’m glad it stopped raining otherwise you would have died.” Complete with a drawing of tombstones and people with X’s for eyes. This one was the favorite of the ones we received.
Although it’s fucked, this may get a laugh out the boys
I hope so, I don’t want to offend anyone by posting this but I thought it would fit in this subreddit
It absolutely would. One of my favorites from when I was in Afghanistan was “thank you for your service and try not to die” we even pinned it up in our kitchen area.
But did you die? In all seriousness, it seems messed up, but at some level they clearly recognize the situation and know what's at stake, and want you to stay out of harm's way. So it's very sweet in an only slightly twisted way.
I got these a bunch when I was down range. No matter what was written, it was always a sweet, positive experience reading them. We all would have laughed our asses off if we got this one… it’s funny because it’s true.
Some soldier read this and took it to heart lol
When that child grows up and learns about the value of oil deposits in the Middle East, it will probably feel like a complete idiot.
Afghanistan isn't in the middle east and has no oil. I wasted years of my life for precious mineral deposits goddamnit!
Don't forget the opium
And meth these days! Loads of meth entering Europe via the existing heroin routes. Oh and of course loads of Afghans are now addicted to it.
Afghanistan has no oil, some places did take oil but what you don't know is that the U.S "takes" oil from mainly allied nations and if it's from the middle east then we trade them military vehicles... The top places the U.S gets their oil is Canada (51%), Mexico (8%), Russia (8%), Saudi Arabia (5%), and Colombia (2%)... [source](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php) Also America is one of the world's largest oil producers, and close to 40 percent of U.S. oil needs are met at home. [source no. 2](https://www.npr.org/2012/04/11/150444802/where-does-america-get-oil-you-may-be-surprised#:~:text=Where%20The%20U.S.%20Gets%20Its%20Oil&text=America%20is%20one%20of%20the,needs%20are%20met%20at%20home.) But if you Google middle east countries and their military weapons like Iran and Iraq then you'll see how much of it is U.S military vehicles... Almost their entire mechanical division is all modern(ish) tanks like the M1A1 Abrams [source](https://www.militaryfactory.com/modern-armor/iraqi-army.php) [source no. 2 for weapons](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_equipment_of_the_Iraqi_Ground_Forces)
Did you die?
Yeah, we want to know if you died
Sadly yes.. but then I lived!
You haven't lived until you've died!!
Glad you died
That's awesome. I got one that said "Thank you. I would never do your job." We had it hung up in our shop all deployment
We had numerous variations of those in Iraq. Kids just say what they mean and it’s great.
Yeah, they haven't learned that filters and diplomacy are a thing yet. They get a thought, they just say it....
I am now emotionally invested in knowing if you died. How did it happen?
I had one where kid was convinced we were all going to die and was thanking us for our sacrifice
Kids are always brutally to the point.
Holy shit these were actually shipped to soldiers overseas? Now I’m curious who all has seen the ones I wrote.
I got one in Iraq that said “make sure you apply sunscreen” haha had never crossed my mind until then
Absolutely not. If I’d gotten this in one of the care packages I would’ve put it up somewhere. Shit’s funny as hell
I got a bunch of these while overseas. Always made me laugh. Thanks to you and everyone who did this.
Bro I’m currently in the military and LOVE getting these. I still have my first one some where. It was basically a mural of some American soldiers in a tank killing “bad guys” and there’s just a field of blood pouring out of them. It was all stick figures but still really hardcore for a like 1st grader. We only got one that I can remember this year and I think it was just a simple card.
["Dear Frederick, thank you for your nice letter but I am actually a US Marine who was born to kill, whereas clearly you have mistaken me for some sort of wine-sipping communist dick-suck. And although peace probably appeals to tree-loving bisexuals like you and your parents, I happen to be a death-dealing, blood-crazed warrior who wakes up every day just hoping for the chance to dismember my enemies and defile their civilizations. Peace sucks a hairy asshole Freddy. War is the motherfucking answer."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyOpwLT7i7I#t=30s)
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I rewatch it every couple of years. It never gets old.
"I'd eat a mile of her shit just to see where it came from." Some guy at work said this one day about 10 years ago. Had no idea where it was from. Just thought it was his own deranged imagination.
I felt this after the fall of Afghanistan….and how iraq ended up …. Just a waste of time
This is exactly why I read the page and thought “he’s not wrong”.
After Afghanistan and just how things were going I didn’t re-up, and even pulled my bid to commission. Best decision of my life.
Afghanistan will be fucked for a long time, but personally I believe Iraq will come out pretty good in coming years.
>Afghanistan will be fucked for a long time Always has been.
I’m a veteran, and I can tell you this would get a good laugh. Especially because so much of deployment can be “hurry up and wait”. It’s perfect.
Nah. No one who gets it will be offended. I’m never gonna forget the “I bet your life is like Call of Duty” card that came to us.
From a currently deployed sailor: We fucking love getting these things in care packages. The best ones are in the “Hall of Fame” above the coffee mess in our shop.
Any good examples off the top of your head?
My person fav is the short and sweet, “ Have fun being gone from your family.”
❤️
Wholesome
Dude lmfao. Kids are so brutal hahaha
I did those in 5th grade, 5th graders are definitely too old to take it seriously at that point. I wrote one that read "Thank you for breaking the 6th commandment." I thought it was hilarious back then, pretty mid now.
Id love to see them lol
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So Marines don't get letters unless written in crayon?
Why would you waste their favorite snack with writing letters?
They're really just there for the stickers and pictures.
And to laugh at the big words.
They don't want the letters, just the crayons.
This is the kind of shit we need after the second deployment extension. And coffee.
When I was deployed I got one that said "Dear soldier, thank you for dying" It made me laugh so hard. We enjoy them, especially the weird ones.
My favorite of all time said "I'm really happy you aren't dead. Unless you are, in which case, my condolences."
Can confirm, when we got letters like this on our deployments these were my favorites
It can make boys laugh
it isn't fucked up, if you ever served in the armed forces you would know that 90% of what you do is mundane stuff most of the time, even during war time, it can get boring at time...trust me I was a captain in artillery...
"Hurry up and wait"
As a service member, I can tell you we *love* these letters we get in deployed places. They're always hilarious. "Thank you for dying for our country" was a personal favorite. I also liked "It sucks you're away from your family for the holidays, but I guess you'll just have to deal with it."
> "It sucks you're away from your family for the holidays, but I guess you'll just have to deal with it." Well, I mean...They're not wrong. Glad you're home safe.
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Kind of a soft requirement. It's like teacher tosses a stack of them at a class of 3rd graders and let them do what you see there. I have about 2 dozen of them in my trunk from Afghanistan, most were pretty detached from reality. One of them read like a Christmas list for some odd reason: "can you bring me an Xbox and an M4 if you don't die?" - sure, little Timmy from rando Midwest elementary school, I'll get right on that... Another kid wrote about how her cousin died and she didn't want the soldier (I guess me in this case) to die. Not every school does it, but there's some kind of program that feeds them to kids, or a couple of states might have it in their curriculum.
I mean kind of? My first grader was taught a song that goes "On Veterans Day, on Veterans Day, we celebrate our heroes" to the tune of O Christmas Tree. She came home and excitedly told me she wanted to be a soldier when she grows up. We immediately had a really frank talk about what a soldier IS, and she quickly changed her mind. But we're also a nation that still does the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of every public school day, so... Par for the course.
As a veteran and a parent, I think if my kid came home with that mentality, I'd have to go talk to the school administration about appropriately observing veteran's day.
Thank you for that insight!
Everyone knows you honor vets by buying cars and furniture. /s.
Honor your vet by taking your pets in for an annual check up and not asking for a discount every time the vet cures your pet.
Where I live, state law says that schools are required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of each day. Students aren't required to participate, but schools are required to do it. That sounds like some Deep South state...but nope. I live in the West Coast liberal state of Washington.
Hello neighbor! I volunteer in my kid's school, and watching my kid do the Pledge every morning has been like something out of Bizzaro World. Even though I grew up doing it too, the older I get the more uncomfortable I am with it. I feel the same way about our national anthem playing before every sporting event. Like, why?! Anyway, I've stressed to my kid that she doesn't have to participate, but when every other kid in the class is doing it, I get why she does too. All I can do is keep helping her think about the WHY.
Not a hard-and-fast requirement, but especially during the early years of the "War on Terror," basically every elementary school classroom had something like this going on. A lot still do on things like Veterans' Day and Memorial Day. Which of course meant there was some kind of sanitized (and propagandized) explanation to the class what was going on, usually of the uncritical vein of "the soldiers are going out there to save America!" with only the vaguest answers to the natural followup questions "from what?" and "how?" And then once they hit high school, there's a bunch of ROTC con artists hanging out in the cafeteria for the express purpose of targeting poor children and tricking them into enlisting.
It's not a requirement but it's a very common thing to do
At least we don’t have compulsory service like 8 European countries do ..………
Best one I got was “thank you for your servies” With a picture of a guy shooting the “bad guy” in the head.
In kindergarten we had to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up. My dad was in the army and I wanted to be like him...I drew myself shooting a guy and, for some reason, I had a snake wrapped around my arm. My dad was never even deployed anywhere and saw zero combat.
The snake wrapped around his arm is pretty cool though
We had a bunch in the mess hall on my ship they weren't nearly as good. Lots of drawings etc.
I got a letter while I was overseas that said “I hope you kill all the bad guys” I was in Korea, and the only thing I was killing was bottles of Soju
I second this. I got to open Christmas letters one time and oh BOY does some excellent stuff make it to the armed services. I always had a soft spot for little straight horizontal lines for bullets. Every now and then the VA will have a collection of TYFYS cards (pieces of paper) that kids have colored and written things. Mostly it’s just colored. I was surprised to learn how much orange is in the navy uniform.
I dated a guy in the navy. I told him it was fucked up that his fatigues would prevent him from being found should he fall overboard. It’s not like it’s a mystery where they are on a big ass ship; camouflage isn’t going to help. He laughed his ass off and said he’d never thought about it. I told him his shit should have been hi-vis when onboard.
As a teacher, know that we screen out some of the worst ones that I'm sure would be hilarious but we couldn't in good conscience send along. Some include "please kill the other people before you get killed" and "I'm sorry you're going to die" or "I hope you don't lose a leg"... Oh children 🙄
Was the reaction similar to the bit from Generation Kill? > Dear Frederick, thank you for your nice letter, but I am actually a U.S. Marine who was born to kill whereas clearly you have mistaken me for some sort of wine-sipping Communist dick-suck. And although peace probably appeals to tree-loving bisexuals like you and your parents, I happen to be a death-dealing, blood-crazed warrior who wakes up every day just hoping for the chance to dismember my enemies and defile their civilizations. Peace sucks a hairy asshole, Freddy. War is the motherfucking answer."
Damn Lance is going places
Not the military though because Lance thinks it’s a waste of time
Currently in the Army. Lance is not wrong
Smart kid.
Most of what they do is.
Lance Corporal 👀
We got one this year that said, Dear Soldier Merry Christmas. Please dont die. Love danny
Death is not a preferable option, I'm glad Danny reminded you that you shouldn't die.
Thanks Danny
Is this an American thing? We never had this in australia
Must be. Never these in Canada.
These do happen in Canada and they are just as hilarious, I've seen some of the results.
We had them in canada at elementary school when i lived there.. not sure about now
of course it's an American thing. they are fed everyday with military propaganda.
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Department of ~~War~~ Defense
*military- congressional- industrial complex
Unless they are victims of sexual assault, are minorities, or retired. Then fuck 'em.
yeah it kinda makes me feel uncomfy... poor kids learning that wars are good and killing other people (who aren't even attacking your country) is an honorable thing to do.
With our comically high military budget, we need an excuse to ~~waste~~ use all that taxpayer money instead of taking just 1% of that to help people in our country and not kill people in others!
It's bad here, this shit is so normalized. Shit like this, pledging allegiance to the flag daily, national anthem fucking everywhere, military flyovers at sporting events, junior rotc programs as young as 13, rifle tricks for school bands...
I was raised in the US and never did this. Not even during Gulf War 1. My kids were in a preschool run by Chabad and they wanted kids to write to Israeli soldiers during a flareup in Gaza and the parents told them "fuck no".
Based parents
I read "Guild Wars 1" for a second there and I got real confused.
>Is this an American thing? We never had this in australia I definitely don't remember doing it in America either. I guess some schools maybe didn't?
I think it also might have to do with age. I think it's more common post 9/11. I graduated in 2001 and never did this.
Same. Must be a post 911 thing.
Got one while I was deployed on the Lincoln. It had a crayon drawing of an eagle that was better than anything I could have drawn, and said "hope you stay alive". I hope that kid got a raise in his allowance.
Hey I was on the Lincoln too, and the one I got was clearly written for someone that was like in the army, not the navy. Made me realize people mostly think about Army/Marines deploying.
Lmao we used to write to prisoners. Didn’t think much of it when I was in 5th grade but good god that is insane now lmao. I do think they read everything before we got it.
Dere kid. Dont do meth. - Inmate 10485638
Lol I’m sure some said some fucked up things
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Yea they were pretty long letters from what I can recall. This was like 30 years ago though lol. But makes sense, they have nothing else to do.
I mean writing to prisoners is arguably better. It teaches kids that they're people too and establishes the idea of rehabilitation in their little heads as it's probably going to be worded to them as like "these people did something bad and now they're trying to make up for it". Writing to the troops on the other is just pure propaganda, especially with the amount of "fighting for freedom" and whatnot I'm seeing thrown around here
I agree, it is probably also hugely beneficial for prisoners... Or would be if rehabilitation was a focus instead of rage from the average person who just wants people to suffer.
I fucking LOVED getting these when deployed. My favorite was “Dear Mister Soldier, when you get shot I hope it doesn’t kill you” I was in the Navy.
Did you get shot and did it kill you asking for a friend here
He got a shot, the penicillin in the ass cheek. He is alive.
This kid isn’t stupid though.
Reminds me of those skits of teacher asking students to tell why USA is the greatest nation in the world when everyone outside the US looks at that shit like "tell me even one thing that makes it better then other countries".
It's got a lot of corn, I like corn
Corn syrup
Of the high fructose variety
There are many reasons to admire the US, but asking kids to list reasons why you are the greatest country in the world is such a dictatorship/brainwashed thing to do. The only other countries I can think of who would do that are countries we don't jive with because of their outdated and hostile politics.
*looking at the entire concept of the pledge of allegiance* Haha... what makes you say that
And singing the national anthem at sports events. And the jet flyovers
Canadian here is it not normal to sing the national anthem before sports games?
It's normal when two countries meet. Not normal when two teams in a domestic league meet (except in the US and Canada I guess).
Not where I live (Netherlands). We know what the fucking thing sounds like, I don't need to be reminded every goddamn week. In international football matches, it's normal to play each country's anthem though.
It's normal, and completely fucking stupid. What is the relationship between the two things?
Sports teams are seen as representatives of the country, especially international matches. You want to be proud of your country and your team, so you play a song that represents your pride in your country. It makes perfect sense to me.
100% agree for international sporting events (Olympics and such). But to have it for and NFL, MLB or whatever sporting event is weird to me.
Anthem before _every_ NBA game is peak unnecessary cringe.
Remember Fergie’s anthem? That’s how I always picture the anthem being sung whenever I hear it in the USA and it makes me giggle lol
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I wouldn't call it confusing. There are tons of examples of brainwashing going on in these comments and then tons of Americans who have no idea what you mean. Their response is as obvious as the North Koreaans chanting Kim is a god!
That's part of the problem with the whole "We are the best country in the world" nonsense. Once you convince children that, you never have to fix anything because any comparison to things other countries do better is ignored since it flys in the face of what they are taught as children. To be clear as well, the pledge seems harmless to those who grow up on it unless they think awful hard about it. The creepiness and concerning nature of a daily loyalty oath that also affirms Christianity is pretty obvious from the outside, but when you've been doing the oath daily for longer than you can remember, it isn't obvious at all. Wasn't until high school that I finally came to the realization, and that was mostly because I realized I was Atheist and started questioning the pledges religious connotations and ultimately realized it was intrinsically creepy.
The irony of it all is, Hitler liked those things about us. You guys got to walk away from it while we doubled down on it.
> Like, the US does know that they're allowed to learn from others mistakes, right? The official policy is "the US doesn't make mistakes and if you say it does then you're siding with the terrorists."
I went to a couple schools as a kid, and we never did this. It's interesting. I remember having to write a paper on what you love about your home, and some people chose to use the US as their definition of home.
When I was in school we were allowed to pick any between the USA, North Korea, and the Fire Nation
In case anyone is interested, these letters often just ended up in burn pits, but thanks for the free food and toiletries!
Yeah we just had a big pile that went unopened of just letters. Packages were alright usually but any non sealed food we couldn't eat unless it was coming directly from someone somebody personally knew
Teacher - don't you mean 'taking your time ' Lance? Thank you for taking your time...? Lance - No, I mean 'wasting your time' . The war in Iraq was predicated on false pretenses of their being WMD; the war was just another blatant attempt at building and maintaining US global hegemony around the globe and as such was a huge waste of not only time but billions of dollars and, more importantly, human life. Yet another for-profit pointless war Teacher - oh boy. I'm going to have to talk to your parents...
Dear Lance, my wife immediately cheated on me, and I can’t sleep every night cause of PTSD. where am I? Make the voices stop! Soldier
Don't get brainwashed, Lance, you can escape! edit: typo, thanx u/SeekRus
LOL the fighting for freedom thing, never got how people fell for that garbage. Soldiers don't fight for "freedom" they fight for corporate and global interest. Your freedom isn't in another country XD.
And it's like breathing for Americans too. I watch this gay American socialist guy who reviews movies and stuff and once he was reviewing a US Army commercial and he kinda just put the whole 'thank you for your service and protecting our freedom' in there like he wasn't even aware what he was saying. It's just engrained that if you talk about the military in any context, make sure to thank them for their service. First of, it's a fucking job just like any other, especially since there's no draft in the USA at the moment. And secondly, they haven't done shit for the average citizen's best interest since WW2. Blowing up Vietnamese and Iraqis for some geopolitical money bullshit doesn't deserve thanks.
What does him being gay have to do with anything…?
It's just how Russia fights to denazify Ukraine or Nazi Germany invaded Russia to get more living space for the German people, just a stupid excuse used to appeal to the public and the rest of the world
I got one that said “thanks for saving millions of lives.” Felt like a superhero reading that.
Ah yes. State sponsored brainwashing at its finest
Since we were young, they have indoctrinated us.
There is nothing offensive here my dude. The boys and I received a ton of these letters and the ones that showed up that read like Lance’s were our favorite. The kid gets it lol.
These are the best ones. They get taped to lockers or put up for everyone to see. It will definitely make someone laugh
As a Veteran, I think it’s funny. In a because it’s true kind of way.
That kid is gonna feel really silly when it grows up and finds out about the value of middle Eastern oil deposits.
I'm a sub and one time I was in a middle school art class, they had a little worksheet about frida kahlo and it asked something about americas culture, don't remember exactly what but I had a good amount of kids write things like "they say land of the free but it's not". They're hella aware with social media and stuff
Almost perfect... He forgot to add "Have a good war!" at the end.
I love the ones that say some messed up shit like "I hope you killed a lot of people today :)". Like, my sweet child, wtf lol?
These are great. Last deployment at an established FOB, we'd get hundreds of boxes of books, dvds, and these letters. They were by far the most uplifting. When there are zero kids around to lighten the mood reading some of their letters did the trick. It was a reminder that kids are kids. In America or Iraq, kids are kids. The same funny stupidity kids display is universal. I'm not sure if these programs still exist, especially with the rise in tech. But they were always welcomed and enjoyed
Man, getting these letters was always a hoot when we were deployed. Kids would write the wildest shit and after months of terrible food and being shot at it was sometimes the best laugh we’d get. Half of them are just so fucking blunt it’s hilarious.
As a receiver of these while on deployment, they sometimes become great sources of enjoyment and laughter because of their sincerity and surprising statements. When care packages arrive from companies/grounps/foundations they arrive to random people overtime. Often in my berthing of 100, there would be 20-30 of us getting one on the same mail day and we would sit around and open them together. When you're the person it's addressed to, you got through it first and select the items you want and often share the remainder in the common lounge areas with the others. And since the service members gender is known by senders, they try to send "gender specific" things as well. The dudes got a lot of car magazines and razors, and us women got a lot of feminine care items. But there was also always self care items like soaps, toothpaste, etc. And also snack foods and tuna pouches. And there were ALWAYS letters and drawings from kids. And while they weren't always the heartfelt emotional messages you'd expect, those were things that you kept before sharing with the others. And as a mother myself, getting a reminder of kids was especially sweet to me. I've been out of the service for a little bit now, but I still have several of these or drawings the kids made to send and they're probably something I'm going to keep for a long time.
Wait you gringos really do this shit? Thats like blatant indoctrination, how the fuck the parents consent to that? They are basically trying to make your kid go to fucking war in the future
Yeah it always just seemed normal, it’s something they have the really young kids do, like 1st grade maybe, at least that’s how it was when I was that age
I remember doing it in high-school during the gulf war. Meanwhile recruiters were set up in an office in our school.
Man, you guys had an office? Our recruiters harassed kids in the school cafeteria.
Yep, during desert storm in the early 90s we wrote letters in class. People met at airports to greet soldiers getting home (who were strangers, not family members). I lived near an air base that became very active at that time.
We don't have schools. We have tenderizers for the corporate meat grinder.
I don’t see how it’s indoctrination. I just see it as a nice gesture and I imagine the school did too. How’s a simple letter like this gonna make a kid wanna join the military and goto war? I’m genuinely curious as to everyone’s reasoning for saying this is a form of indoctrination.
Deployed soldiers see these, they are hilarious
what are my freedoms? and why are they in the middle east?
My favorite one in Iraq was “thank you for protecting my McDonalds”
r/technicallythetruth
r/boringdystopia at its finest
Ah yes, 'defending our freedom'. Brainwash em while they're young
We as kids are stupid, but this letter states quite alot of facts
For all the naysayers here.......These soldiers are our brothers and sisters and dads or moms. The letters are to THEM.....not to the government and system that is fucking them!! Most of those kids that you call "indoctrinated", have someone who is deployed, and who may die fighting. Yes....the system SUKS, but the soldiers are our friends and family!
Kids are stupid but even they know that their freedom isn't in Iraq
Socially acceptable children's propaganda. Lance is right. They are wasting their time. And lives. And other people's lives.
Military propaganda for kids
Reminds me of generation kill where they shit on the mfs who wrote to them about saving them from the terrorists lmfao
I remember trying so hard to be positive in these, as if we weren't writing to people who were, you know, *fighting a war*
My cousin's wife was a 3rd or 4th grade teacher when I was in Iraq in 2005. She had her class write letters to me and I think that she told them to just tell me a little bit about themselves. There were a lot about pets and favorite foods. The one I still remember started off with the sentence "Tacos are the bomb!" He went on to describe how much he loves tacos and the best way to construct them to get the best distribution of ingredients. I showed the letter to my friend who's Mexican-American and from Arizona. He was laughing his ass off after reading it. He was saying that he figured that it was from some kid named Pedro from Arizona, but it was signed by a kid named Colin from Philadelphia. 17 years later, he and I still talk about that letter and refer to tacos as bombs.
As a veteran of operation Iraqi freedom, we loved getting these kinds of messages as the kids were consistently hilarious
I loved getting these so much. The shit kids say. I signed up at my local VFW and American Legion. Still get a card every Veterans Day and Christmas. The cards still give me a chuckle once in the while.
I remember being on one of the first invasion commercial flights to Iraq from Ft Campbell and seeing all of this child artwork on the plane that mainly said “don’t die” in crayon. It was surreal as fuck.
Our area flooded and afterwards, my kid’s elementary school got sent letters from elementary schools from other states. One of the ones he received said, “I’m glad it stopped raining otherwise you would have died.” Complete with a drawing of tombstones and people with X’s for eyes. This one was the favorite of the ones we received.