The Generation Lost to War
Millennials have been sacrificed on the altar of capitalist boomer greed, we must not let Gen Z get used for this as well.
I'm so sick of fucking war. I turned 18 in 2000, graduated high school the following summer, and 3 months later, the US entered its first "forever war" of my adult life, in Afghanistan. "It would be easy," they said. Over quickly and then back home once justice is done.
A year and a half later, we launched our second forever war in Iraq. "It would be easy," they said. Over quickly. Barely an inconvenience.
I've lost count of the number of former classmates who couldn't get into or didn't want to go to college who enlisted to serve. None of them returned home without permanent scars, either physically or mentally.
Over the weekend, the US launched strikes on Venezuela and we woke up to the news that the US murdered 80 people in the country and kidnapped its leader, Nicolás Maduro. President Trump bragged that the US would run the country, before Secretary of state Marco Rubio walked it back, clarifying there would not be any further invasion of Venezuela by US forces.
It was easy, they claimed, no need to worry about the future!
This Venezuela thing might not turn into another Iraq-style quagmire but it seems likely that Trump will launch us into another foolish forever war before he leaves office. On Sunday, Trump met with reporters and threatened (I wish I was joking): a second strike on Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, Iran, and Greenland.
I'm so tired of this shit.
My country has been in a foreign war for 20 of the 24 years since I've graduated high school. Though the US government has become quite skilled at minimizing the impact of these wars on the general public, no other graduating class in American history has had to endure so much war in its first 25 years of adulthood.
Elder millennials are America's war generation and we're paying the price for it. According to a recent Yale study, just over 14% of veterans aged 22-49 have suffered from PTSD, compared to just 4.9% for veterans over the age of 50.
With no other global hegemon to challenge our military might, the US has appointed itself the world's police force, swooping into conflicts wherever we see fit, with our greedy capitalists eagerly swooping in behind our frontlines to suck up resources and exploit the local markets and labor force.
We see that in action here in Venezuela, where Trump has already promised the country's massive oil reserves to American oil companies, and a junket of Wall Street capitalist leeches are already set to travel to the country to look for investment (read exploitation) opportunities.
It's all so exhausting. I don't care that the effects of these wars are reduced to the equivalent of background noise for the average American life, we have so many problems at home that need fixing and yet most of our national wealth is devoted to this endless war machine on behalf of greedy capitalists.
Not to mention that 10-15 years from now, conservatives will have a national freakout over the presence of Venezuelans, or Mexicans, or Colombians, or whoever we're striking now, who fled their country to come here for safety.
I don't care how "successful" any of these operations are or how much cheerleading the press is doing for war, we have to put a stop to this shit. It's not macho or a show of strength or whatever. It's just Baby Boomer greed on the backs of millennial and now Gen Z troops and the pour souls in these foreign lands who are getting bombed to hell.
Find an anti-war protest, call your elected officials, tell them no more war. No more blood of innocents, no more exploitation of foreign lands and treasure. We've all had enough.
Someone with the guts to stand up to all of this, please run for president.
Thank you so much for reading! Happy New Year!
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