Are we 12 years old here? Go pick fights elsewhere.
Deltarho -> sounds like you were a good LCPO. Can I get a khaki perspective on my point? (I.e. bad sailors are made, not born?)
First of all, I don't think you've read enough of my previous posts to make such a bold statement about me or request my backup. But because you asked...
Your assertion is both true and false.
I always thought that a perfect doctorate paper could be, perhaps should be, written about the the relationship of the military environment compared to the home of origin of the military member. My gut says one thing, but I wonder what true research would find.
That said, I had sailors that I believe were born and bred to fail in a military environment. According to me (without the purposeful research to back me up), these military misfits come from what most would call a Leave It to Beaver home environment--no extreme stressors: parental alcoholism, marital affairs, mothers or fathers with bipolar disorder, pregnant teenaged sisters, etc.
The antithesis of this would imply that those who can tolerate the military environment come from a home environment where diversity was present; moreover, lifers choose the military environment because of the steady diet of extreme stressors that mirror what they grew up with. In these extreme cases, the persons have adroitly honed and adapted their living skills and coping techniques in morbidly dysfunctional homes. It follows that a subsequent absence of dysfunctional environments obviates these life skills, which creates unbearable anxiety. These poor souls cannot cope without the continuous dysfunction and stress that triggers chemical reactions to their brains, keeping it in steady state or in equilibrium--so to speak. Are you sorry you asked yet?
So, whether a bad sailor will be made depends on the character and moxie of the individual sailor. According to me (without the purposeful research to back me up), some need only an excuse to whine because of their pampered and coddled upbringing. Yet, some never whine, confident in the knowledge that steel sharpens steel; they have a pilot light that diversity never seems to blow out.
To sum it up. According to me (without the purposeful research to back me up), if someone can tolerate the military and chooses to get out with less than 20 years, he or she probably came from a typical home environment that falls well within the best part of a bell or Mae West curve (wink, wink; nudge, nudge; say no more) for experiencing diversity or adversity. The extremes--no adversity and associated stressors or mass amounts of dysfunction and stressors will probably mean he or she may not cope or he or she stays in for the long haul, respectively. The variables for the former case are character and moxie.
What are you made of?
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The preceding was the opinion of the poster and does not express the blah, blah, blah .
