A controversial opinion on LinkedIn.

The truth shall set you free.

The number of veterans who took premature retirement because they could not stand the military life or got bored or bugged (or buggered) or felt stagnated or victimised or envious (of their classmates from school who were doing so much better) or were superseded or missed their boards or were frustrated and thought civvy street had better career and personal opportunities, but who keep posting and liking posts daily on LinkedIn about how ‘the military life’ is superior to the civilian one and has, intrinsically more value, is more patriotic, more ‘macho’, more desirable, more aspirational, with more opportunity for self-development, and worth living more than any other, with zero sense of irony, hypocrisy, or cognitive dissonance is not to be scoffed at.

And please don’t bullshit me that it was some other reason than the ones listed above; I know enough veterans, indeed from my own circles of friends and family, to know the truth that 99 out of 100 believe what I articulated, though you might point out that you alone are an exception, which is fine, since I only speak of the general populace and not of exceptionally brilliant and obviously reasonable person like you, out of the thousands who populate social media with their gyaan. Not you though. You are an exception. You are the shits. The outlier. You are not one of them. I speak of others. Not you. You are the 1 out of 100 from my sample size. Of course.

Ladies & gentlemen who are former soldiers, you are free to join and to leave the military as per the rules and regulations of the service. You are free to like or dislike some and/or all parts of it. You are free to think of opportunities for yourself and growth for your family rather than sacrifice your entire life toiling away at a cause, even if paid a salary. You are free to serve the flag and then, one day, decide that you have done your fair share and want out. You are free to criticise your service in private and eulogise it in public. You are free to live your own life. Indeed, you are free to be a hypocrite too, like all of us are in some way or form at some or all the time, especially with our life choices. You are not alone in this. Civilians do it all the time.

But you know, the military life is in your past. You lived it. You enjoyed it (I am presuming from your posts and likes). But you also left it. For reasons that are best known to you. Valid reasons. Reasons no one has any right to judge you for. All I ask is you not to expect us to be idiots who think you were somehow forced to leave and find civvy street so suffocating that all you can think of is how good the military life was, and all you can talk about is how superior military people are as compared to the civilian riff-raff. You are, of course, free to keep pretending and act as if the truth does not matter. I cannot stop you.

That said, I am free to call out your bullshit, like I do for other professions as well. You can take it or lump it. Stop by and abuse me or scroll on. But know that this kind of nostalgic hypocrisy about ‘the military life’ gets on everyone’s nerves after some time. Give it a break once in a while. You’re embarrassing yourself. And the military life you left behind. Just breathe.

P.S: This is not just for social media. Generally, in life, please stop obsessing about your past. Unless you satisfy one or both of these conditions: (1) Your past is so glorious that nothing you, or anyone else, can do not will top it; and/or (2) You are so old that there is nothing of your present or indeed, the potential future, that is or will be worth talking of. As I said, it is fun to listen to your stories. But after a while, it gets boring. And embarrassing. For both, the listener and the narrator. As for me, I am scrolling past your posts and likes now; however, since I have a connect myself with the military (and a deep one at that), I thought I’d just say it out loud, in case someone is listening, and sees why I had to say this. Peace out.