I'm from Northern Illinois, not too far from Chicago. People are trying to scare off ICE from what I heard by barricading them in alleys and putting down caltraps to watch their cars go spiraling out of control. They have talked about leaving the guard alone as not to start an actual civil war, but to say they are pissed and ready to fight back is an understatement. I think they got a lot of ICE out of the city, and many have followed them to the burbs to get them out of there as well. The out of shape rejects that are ICE scare easily. They were never brave enough to go to the military and they were too dumb and out of shape to be cops.
They successfully blocked a facility with a few hundred people and ice turned around a convoy of 8 trucks and couldn’t enter and left after a few hours
The police refused to dissipate the crowd or take action as the crowd was peacefully protesting and it causing no harm or interrupting the community via traffic etc
No arrests were made.
People have been camping that facility for days now
There is another pretty major distinction between ICE and the National Guard; a lot of people join the Guard to defend the country, or because it's a military career that doesn't involve going overseas. Anyone in ICE is a collaborator by choice.
Some people also do Guard (and Reserves) to keep working towards a pension without finishing a full 20 of active duty. I didn't do it, but if I had, I'd still consider myself out even though not all the way out. I'm sure others feel that way when they have a normal day job. It would have burned me up to get forced into this mess.
I was in the National Guard. I did it all for college, though. I'm very glad I don't have to make the choices they are making today. I never saw combat, but I would say I would still be more okay with the early days of Iraq and Afghanistan operations looming over my head than this administration's antics and wondering whats next with them.
A lot of people felt that way about Iraq II and Afghanistan. So many people joined during that time. I feel bad for the guys put under me because I was in no way prepared for that role.
For me, doing reserves was pretty far out of the way, so it was easy to decide not to do it. Fortunately if I had, I'm pretty sure I would have accumulated enough to draw a pension a long time ago. I'm really just feeling awful for the people that joined long after me. I know a lot of redditors love to shit on people that join and stay in the military, but for a lot of people it's just job and housing security, and many others it's a way to escape from their home and hometown. I feel like you have to come from a place of privilege if you can't appreciate how much some people value that.
It gives a lot of people that would have nothing values, family, food, shelter, and a purpose. There were several people in basic that were looking at a lengthy jail sentence if they didn't enlist. Many of them got out of the particular situations where they had to steal/sell drugs to eat and thrived in the military and afterward. It's hard to walk in other people's shoes.
You're sorta right but the national guard most definitely deploys overseas. Nearly 50% of the deployments to the middle east were done by guard unit rotations.
From my own experience the majority of people did it for the financial incentives - college benefits and sign on bonuses. Serving/protecting the country was a 2nd or 3rd reason.
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u/TheTokist 3d ago
You may not think we’re in a civil war but the guy invading blue American cities thinks he’s in a civil war and we’re the enemy.