By Tommy Acosta
What does it take to partake in the production of weapons that kill people by blowing them to bits?
Reading the news on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s upcoming visit to an American munitions company got me wondering on how the workers and everyone else involved in the production of 155 mm shells fired from howitzers that can kill from 20 miles away, deal with their conscience.
What do they tell themselves to make their jobs justifiable? Do they ever think while making or packaging the ordinance about the people that are killed by them?
Are their dreams ever affected by what they do? Do they ever consider for a moment the havoc their labor creates?
Maybe they feel they are fulfilling their patriotic duty? That they are doing their bit in stopping the communists from taking over Ukraine before they can get to us and destroy America.
Even battle-hardened soldiers at the front line who must kill or be killed suffer from the deaths they caused, whether in the name of freedom or not or simply because they are stuck there and must kill their way out.
And there are those, thousands of miles away, who order invasions and bombings, sometimes of civilians. And let us not forget those who ordered the thermonuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where tens of thousands of civilians, men women and children, in their beds sleeping, were incinerated in a blinding flash.
But back to those factory workers building those shells. They are not making the decisions on who to bomb and when to do it. It’s just job. A well-paying one and quite secure as long as wars persist. But they, nonetheless, are participating in the killing of fellow human beings. No matter how small a part they are playing.
According to reports the U.S. has up to now supplied Ukraine with approximately three million of these shells.
Production has ramped up. so America’s own stockpile is not depleted. Which means workers are working even harder to meet the demand, which is paid for of course by U.S. taxpayers.
Then there are those stock market wizards that invest heavily in the production and sale of ammunition and all kinds of machines that kill.
Do they at any point reflect that they are profiting greatly from financing death?
Or are they comforted by the thought it’s their patriotic duty?
One needs to walk a mile in their shoes to know first-hand the kind of person one needs to be, to be a part of death’s industry.
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31 Comments
You left out the munitions going to Israel, 3rd party Purchasers like Saudi Arabia, NATO and UN Peacekeepers and multinational forces engaged in the Global War On Terror.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/saudi-arabia-is-the-top-buyer-of-u-s-weapons/
Providing weapons to the Country directly where 9/11 was planned and manned is insanity. Providing weapons to Ukraine as minimal support against Russian Aggression and Expansion not so much. And yet war is insanity no matter who is involved.
https://apple.news/AoI_JD3pLTp-Gl_qj7SRFGw
The problem isn’t Billy Bob making $18 an hour making HE rounds for Howitzers or any other weapons platform. The problem is the wealthy owners of the facility Billy Bob works in. People do all sorts of jobs they don’t like everyday all day but only the wealthy profit from it. Follow the money not the worker bee for answers. I worked for the UK’s version of Raytheon making components for military aircraft. It was a job not a calling.
“It was a job not a calling”
That’s how being a grunt is for most GI’s. For some it is a generational calling. For some it is a means to be a full blown sadist and for others it is a means to help others. But take away the toys and money that creates them and those means fade into sticks and stone warfare vs mini gun toting robo dogs and 2 billion dollar each not so Stealthy Stealth Bombers (ask the Serbs who shot one down with ease). Take away the money grift that PMC’s and civilian support company CEO’s like DICK Cheney and Erik Prince(ss) who made TRILLIONS off of US Taxpayers with wars they started so their grifting companies Blackwater, Kellogg Brown Root, LOGCAP etc. could line their greedy criminal pockets charging taxpayers to do the job GI’s are paid to do. Their logic is that by then doing the menial work at 3-4 times what it cost GI’s to do, they can have more time to focus on killing. What a grand concept! For those whose pockets are lined by it. Those menial jobs should be filled by GI’s new to the military rather than being tossed immediately into a meat grinder.
I’ve seen Saudi and Kuwaiti Royal family members pay for Bradley’s and Abrahams Tanks with briefcases loaded with USD on a US Military Base in Europe. It’s that easy to get US Military weapons and equipment. And let’s never forget Iran Contra where US operatives working for Good Golly Ollie North and Ronnie Raygun illegally stole US Military weapons from US Military Bases in Europe to illegally give to Iran and illegally sell to the Contras!
Things really do go bump in the night! But not without the blessings of the GOP and big money!
Don’t forget-Putin Invaded Crimea and Ukraine proper without justification. Zelenskyy is only doing what the leader of a country should do to protect its citizens and its sovereignty. Trump and his brain dead followers see it the other way around because Trump very clearly prefers dictators to democracy and his sheep does as he says!
https://apple.news/ARG1QIJyJS3-_NAjHNPyRog
There is a war going on right here in the US of A! Citizens with military grade weapons killing innocent men, women and especially children en mass. And yet the manufacturers who market these weapons get away with washing their hands of responsibility for THEIR weapons. They are balls deep in Politicians pockets especially ill Douche who proudly defends them and the National Regurgitation ASSociation and their dark money from shadow lobbyists.
Weapons of war have NOT been meant to be owned by civilians since our Revolutionary War era in which the US Colonies were under siege by a foreign invasion and we did NOT yet have a Standing Arm. But we do now and have had since that time. So the lamé misinterpretation of the Constitution excuses for maintaining weapons designed to kill as many people as a single shooter can and do so as rapidly as possible is absolutely ludicrous to say the very least.
If there’s shame to be had by workers in the weapons manufacturing sector it should be that they are indirectly and directly responsible for the dozens of US citizens on a daily basis. That aspect of their work is NOT part of National Defense. Rather it is part of what is eroding our Democracy and our National Defense by expediting what our sworn enemies like Rusher and Chyyyna intend to do to us all.
Very thought-provoking essay Tommy. I know I could not participate in making money from weapons of war or making bombs and guided missiles. I would never sleep at night knowing I had something to do with killing families. It’s bad enough my tax dollars are being used that way.
The author needs to get over it. War is war and weapons are needed to win them with conviction. People who are employed making weapons should be recognized for their patriotism and love of their country. We can’t win a war shooting paper clips at the enemy. Had it not been for the military industrial complex that everybody criticizes we would probably all be speaking German right now.
Dear Frenulum aka Undershaft,
you are correct in that the military industrial complex is vital to National Security. You are incorrect in assuming that it’s all “patriotic”! Many of our weapons are sold to other countries that do not align with our values as a nation such as The Royal Saudi Kingdom. Many of the weapons they produce are marketed to and used by US civilians to unnecessarily “overKILL” people and animals right here at home. Nobody needs anything more than a small caliber handgun or a hunting shotgun for personal defense or home protection. Nobody needs a Barret .50 caliber rifle, AR 15, SKS, AK 47 for anything other than a soldier on a foreign battlefield. The lame assed excuses as being necessary to use them for hunting is bullshit. You can take down the very same animals with a compound bow, you just need more skill and have to be closer to what you kill is all.
Dear Perineum aka Tom Thumb
Oh, come on now. Grow up. To quote Tommy (probably the only thing he has ever written that makes any sense), “As long as there are men willing to take what they want by lethal force and those who are willing to defend what they have by the same, there will always be war.”
That is the reality of the world. The strong take from the weak, and the weak pay the price to keep the strong stronger. That’s just the way it is. We can lament, we can cry, we can call for peace in the world, but the truth is violence rules in every single case. So, let’s not waste our time complaining about how people make money from war and death. Whether it’s on a battlefield or behind everyone’s backs, guns, bombs, missiles, explosives, drones, are big business. But, so what? There ain’t nothing we can do about it.
Well Sphincter,
we can elect sane people for POTUS, Congress and the Senate who aren’t in the pocket of the gun lobbyist or defense industry for starters. People who believe in National Defense but not personal enrichment and entitlement. That would go a long way wouldn’t it?
Well, let me put it this way, Sigmoid. You need to shirk the innocence from your eyes and colon These guys have been around since forever raping this planet and will kill anyone who tries to stop them. They have no morals, no gods, no conscience, no morality and no rules. They take what they want. They destroy on a whim and no one can touch them. That billionaire who drowned on his $40 million sail boat and his partner that got killed by a car almost on the same day thought they could f**k with these guys and were stopped like squashed insets. These people are above the law. They are more powerful than dictators or presidents or even emperors. And you will never know their names. Re-read Plato’s Cave. Think of Epstein. Get the picture?
Well Smegma Stick, I know of what you speak when it comes to evil assholes of the world. I’ve seen them on the battlefield sometimes fighting next to me. They’re war criminals and nothing less. So what’s your point that they’re here regardless of what we do? Just let it continue? That’s not Patriotism that’s ignorance.
I get the picture Mary! More conspiracy theory nonsense horse shit you spew!
The ill Douchebags buddy Epstein whom he and Billy Clinstone pal’d around with as they “hooked up” with underage captive teen girls with on Epstein island killed himself. The super yacht sank in a Mediterranean Sea Storm-(The sleek, $40 million sailing boat went down fast in a storm off Sicily’s coast on Monday morning, killing Michael Lynch, a British tech billionaire; his teenage daughter, Hannah; four of his friends; and one member of the crew.) There was no Deep State nonsense involvement other than W A-holes and MAGGOTS lying about it all after reading Rusher propaganda on Pyscho Media!
Everything is a conspiracy for you! Where’s your reality? You have none!
“These guys have been around since forever raping this planet and will kill anyone who tries to stop them. They have no morals, no gods, no conscience, no morality and no rules. They take what they want. They destroy on a whim and no one can touch them.”
And who the Fu@k are “these guys” wandering the globe since the dawn of time killing people wantonly?
Did JFK tell you this bullshit when he returned alive to Daily Plaza last year? Or was it his worm brained road kill eating nephew?
I’ve gotta know!
You are wrong Mr. Undershaft that we don’t know the names of those pulling the strings. Their names are Pilosi, Clinton, Harris, Biden, Obama, Schumer. They are the ones profiting from war, not those invisible people you claim are manipulating everything. That’s why we need Trump to drain the swamp. Clean them out. Save America. 2025 forever!
Mary you should put that drink away!
Name a war since WWII that a Republican President did not start!
Name a civilian military support organization like Halliburton or a Private Military Company like Blackwater that are/were not owned by Republicans.
Who is Pilosi ?
Only SWAMP in DC was 2015-2020 when ill Douchebag and his CRIMINAL cohorts were busy raping the taxpayerss with their non stop 24/7, 7 day a week golfing with their tiny white balls. More people in the Draft Dodging Insurrectionists cabinet were arrested for financial crimes and illegally working as FOREIGN AGENTS than have been arrested in the entirety of the Democrat Party in all it’s years since the racists Jim Crowers left and joined the GOP now known as the MAGGOT Party!
Please post links that prove the people you named in your swirl of conspiracy theorists nonsense are guilty of what you say they are. Let’s see stock portfolio’s, their names on boards or as members of any military supply or support company. Let’s see checks, pay stubs and tax returns (those things the Insurrectionist FELON won’t disclose like every other POTUS has for decades).
Please give a SITREP on those Chinese Military Battalions hiding out here in M’erica too please. I need a sad laugh.
Are you OK Ms Mary? And do you really want 2025 Forever? Most people do not.
If the people you say were pulling anything there’d be no wars ongoing. Let’s see now, who was it talking about this today-
“If I were the president, I would inform the threatening country, in this case, Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens. We’re going to blow it to smithereens,” the former president said to cheers. “There would be no more threats.”
There’d be no war with Trump in office my arse! It was also he rubbing the magic Saudi Royal Family’s Balls not Schumer, Clinton or “Pilosi”. Schumer who is a devout Jew is against what Israel has been doing to innocent men, women and children in Gaza and Lebanon. So if he had his hands in till as you indicate why would he turn down an opportunity to profit nicely off of it by encouraging it to continue. After all the longer it lasts, the more US weapons are used and more and more investors get wealthier and wealthier by the day. What you say doesn’t jive with known facts.
https://youtu.be/TwLFOM3rgq8?feature=shared
You should watch the entirety of this. You might learn something about your thought processes.
“That is the reality of the world. The strong take from the weak, and the weak pay the price to keep the strong stronger. That’s just the way it is. We can lament, we can cry, we can call for peace in the world, but the truth is violence rules in every single case. So, let’s not waste our time complaining about how people make money from war and death“
No let’s just launch all of our nukes and unleash their power upon all of our enemies right now rather than hold out hope that somehow mankind will come to it’s senses and stop investing in the madness that is our end!
Why have laws, rules and regulation since we’re just going to end up taking one another down one by one right?
That’s brilliant! Where did you come up with that? In your I give up manual?
Let’s let Putin have all of his Warsaw Pact countries back and then some. Let’s let terrorist take New York down, Let’s give up on Democracy because man is going to take a big huge dump on it all right? Should’ve let the Nazi’s take over the world too. That would’ve saved a lot of time getting to mankind’s end.
It’s all good so long as in the interim greedy scumbags profit from it all financially right? I mean we’re all incapable of changing our trajectory right? Might as well enjoy the ride down into the abyss.
Nice defeatist attitude their Mr Patriot.
“That is the reality of the world. The strong take from the weak, and the weak pay the price to keep the strong stronger. That’s just the way it is. We can lament, we can cry, we can call for peace in the world, but the truth is violence rules in every single case. So, let’s not waste our time complaining about how people make money from war and death“
No let’s just launch all of our nukes and unleash their power upon all of our enemies right now rather than hold out hope that somehow mankind will come to it’s senses and stop investing in the madness that is our end!
Why have laws, rules and regulation since we’re just going to end up taking one another down one by one right?
That’s brilliant! Where did you come up with that? In your I give up manual?
Let’s let Putin have all of his Warsaw Pact countries back and then some. Let’s let terrorist take New York down, Let’s give up on Democracy because man is going to take a big huge dump on it all right? Should’ve let the Nazi’s take over the world too. That would’ve saved a lot of time getting to mankind’s end.
It’s all good so long as in the interim greedy scumbags profit from it all financially right? I mean we’re all incapable of changing our trajectory right? Might as well enjoy the ride down into the abyss.
Nice defeatist attitude there! Mr Patriot!
Uh huh and how much have you personally profited from your stocks in these companies? I’m all for National Defense. I’m not for anyone profiting from them. I’m not for their weapons going to people and governments who shouldn’t own slingshots but they do and that is not Patriotic in any way shape or form.
“The author needs to get over it. War is war and weapons are needed to win them with conviction“
Yeah, tell that to Ukraine and Israel as their ARMED enemies ruthlessly attack them. War is war get over it BB, get over Volodymyr is your logic. Tell that to the hundred of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed with US made weapons. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians killed by US made Weapons. It’s just war and patriotism to manufacture weapons of mass destruction after all blah blah blah!
War is never good even when justified by countering aggression by armed invaders. It’s just a necessary EVIL unfortunately. And that EVIL capability gets more and more destructive every second of everyday. Look at the thermite spewing drones the Ukrainians have developed for use upon entrenched Russian troops. The US signed pacts with Russia not to use thermite weapons on personnel and yet we turn a blind eye to Ukraine. Russia has used thermobaric weapons on Ukrainian troops as well violating those pacts.
But it’s all good to you so long as your stocks in Lockheed, SIGArms, Beretta, Colt etc. line your pockets right?
If the military industrial complex was even remotely patriotic as you claim they would have spent time and money making the very best uniforms, weapons and equipment possible for our grunts who do the dirty fighting rather than sending them into war with crap while spending Trillions on Buck Rogers Bullshit! Like the Bradley “fighting machine” which is really just a sort of mobile coffin/bunker that get 0.75 miles to the gallon or Abrams Tank that goes between 1.5 to 3 gallons per mile also a coffin/bunker Stealth Bombers and Fighters that are anything but stealthy and platform mounted laser weapons which we signed PACTs not to use in war because of the inhumanity of them blinding people trying to kill one another. M’erica’s Wealthiest Civilians, Politicians, retired corrupt General Officers and even our Presidents make YUGE profits (usually in the form of illegal insider trading stock dividends)off of our National Defense Military Industrial Complex which is paid for by the middle and lower class tax payers. The aforementioned get BIGLY tax breaks and incentives for their venture capital spending while GI Joe Grunt gets crap made by the lowest bidders!
I must admit that W Bush did one right thing for the militaries war fighters following 9/11 by encouraging the military to utilize and adapt to better quality civilian made goods for the time he was in office. Grunts got some decent weapons and equipment but they also got a lot of crap to use and test while on the front lines and the supply chains were rife with corruption and theft. No President prior to or after W gave a rats ass about sending GI’s into winter conflicts wearing outdated and or summer crap. Or desert climate conflicts with woodland patterned BDU’s or Chocolate Chip shit uniforms which ghosted our grunts and made them BIGLY targets.
And NO the Orange Dump did not rebuild our military as he claims along with all of his other horseshit lies about having done more for our military and veterans than any other POTUS ever as he talks shit and slanders us all for having done what he never had the courage to do-put on the uniform! Instead he chose to party and screw the millions his daddy left him while our far less financially fortunate fought and died in the mountains rivers and jungles of SE Asia.
So yes it’s great having the worlds largest weapon’s manufacturers but it’s not great that it is also the largest corrupt industry on the planet after the Fentanyl and Cocaine industries.
Tommy did you intentionally put 155mm HE rounds in your story cover photo? They’re powerful MFer’s especially DU rounds. Did you know we have fully automated self propelled howitzers now?
https://youtu.be/EXiMyVjKYCM?feature=shared
Soon, if we don’t already, we’ll have unmanned fully automated self propelled howitzers.
We also have and have had for decades, small yield nuclear and chemical rounds for them if a conventional HE 155mm round doesn’t keep you up at night like it does even the toughest grunts on the battlefield.
We ended up basically speaking German regardless! Except for a small handful we allowed Nazi’s to escape justice, used their Scientists (who “patriotically” helped build Hitlers war machine) to develop rocketry and aircraft and then praised them as heroes, we let their POWs held stateside wander freely and even date and marry local women, we allowed their military to rebuild and become one of the biggest and best equipped in NATO and they in turn just voted in a Nazi Regime to run their Deutchesland government.
So much for not speaking German! The Nazi’s have ultimately won!
Just because you have weapons does not make one Patriotic at all!
I once worked in an ordinance factory. Nobody ever talks about what happens after the munitions are sent out. I never really thought about it. It was just another job.
I worked for Pratt-Whitney for 10 years manufacturing aircraft engine parts for military aircraft. I too never gave where they were going or what they were being used upon a second thought. Those who make firearms have to see the news and know their products are mis marketed to children and are being used to kill children right here in the US. That has to way heavy upon those with a conscience.
I didn’t know firearms manufacturers had a marketing program to children. That’s a weird Comment.
Some really crazy comments.
JB whoever you are, here’s a link to the Webster’s dictionary. Might want to use it.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/
https://vpc.org/press/manufacturer-of-ar-15-assault-rifles-designed-for-children-returns-with-new-sales-campaign/
You should learn to think before you make dumbassed statements!
“Some really crazy comments”
Really? Which of them is un truthful and non factual?
You don’t know much do you? You only have baseless opinions and lies huh? Hope you were able to sound out the words in the story JB linked to you. Want to try again because I happen to have dozens of Arms Manufacturers Ads I’d be happy to post here that clearly depict weapons and marketing of them specifically for children! Or maybe you can educate yourself on these FACTS and then report back with your learnings?
Thanks for the assist JB👍🏻