Ya know, as much shit as I give military guys for being assholes in general, just for signing up in the first place, I have to say I feel pretty confident that if there were some kind of civil unrest scenario, the large majority of them would never fire on the people of their own country.The ones that did would be so outnumbered they'd have to give it up.
Now, if they would only take that same stance on the citizens of other countries, I might even show a little respect for them.
Meh,
I run into this self-righteous attitude a lot towards military in the liberty movement. I would hazard to guess that most libertarian minded folk, unless they grew up in this way, didn't really solidify the way they feel until later in their early adulthood. But it's okay for them to be asshole statists when they were young dumb and full of cum, but not for the poor bastards that actually think they are doing something to help out other people.
I was in the Marines for almost seven years. I didn't have a blood thirsty desire to go out and murder babies, and I never did. Military join for a wide variety of reasons, but most also share the same young, naive and impressionable traits that most young people around the world do. It's cool, they like weapons, they want a challenge, some adventure, travel, college benefits, serve something larger than themselves, it's a family tradition, defend the nation, to be a warrior, nothing better to do, to gain some life skills, learn personal discipline / grow-up...all kinds. Never heard, "Because I wanted to be part of the statist warmongering machine that seeks to murder and opress anyone that stands in the way of globalist hegemonic corporate interests!" Which is what it sounds like coming out of the mouth of a lot of self-righteous libertarians.
When you spend 13 or more years in the government propaganda machine, reinforced by your family, friends, culture and entertainment, I don't know how I can expect you to, at 17 - 18 - 19, have an original thought of your own. Let alone a self-original all encompassing philosophy.
When I was in, I genuinely wanted to help people. There was no politics about it. Just be helpful, and most of my fellow Marines were the same way. When you think you're doing good and helping people, there's almost no more rewarding feeling in the world. That's about as political as it gets for most of us who were in.
But, yeah, go and malign a whole group of people because it's the puritanical and popular thing to do.
On your other point.
if there is civil unrest. I wouldn't count the military as an effective fighting force at all.
My guess is that 1/4 will look for any excuse just to get away because military life really does suck that bad.
1/4 will desert because family is more important (remember, kids just out of the house, most of them)
1/4 will fight against the government
1/4 will remain government stooges.
By no means a scientific guestimate, just going off of experience of knowing folks.