For some reason a related and innocuous post got locked.

I would like to continue the discussion / reply to the original poster.

The short answer is America: love the institutions, hate the foreign policies.

There was an article on this in Foreign Affairs.

More specifically with regard to the issue of being a marine: marines are by and large recruited young, and all undergo the same 'indoctrination'. (You *DO* follow doctrine, don't you, marine?!)

One sort of thing that occurs is that the US military industrial complex pre-prepares rationale for its servicemen, so that they can more readily participate in rational debate when the time arises. This can end up with the effect of servicemen sounding like mouth pieces for the republican party's foreign policy.

That has an effect on you which makes generalizations somewhat more plausible.

An external effect is also the uniform, which is representative of something. Marines are *not* defensive troops. They are offensive. And i guess what occurs in the mind of many people is that any marine is a wholehearted supporter of US foreign policy.

I am sorry people react badly to the info that you are a marine. I think that they are just having a knee jerk reaction which they do not consider. It is kind of air-headed of them. Perhaps you could simply state what your speciality is within the corps. That would lead to less stereotyping. you could say you are a radio communications specialist or something...

I usually like the people i meet who have travelled outside of their country.

This topic not Thai-related and thus not destined for a long life.

This topic not Thai-related and thus not destined for a long life.

Boon is correct Fanciman.

cdnvic closed the first topic because it is not related to Thailand and this being a Thai forum it is out of place.

The forum rules spell this out.

Interesting topic though