Veteran here. It’s more like: “I’m a fucking idiot, but I could use some healthcare, and that college thing sounds nice.”
Plan B was to kill myself, so I don’t feel bad about enlisting - I got what I needed from it.
You’d be amazed how few people join because of cliches like patriotism. That said, it’d be way less fucked if people could get things like healthcare and education without needing to agree to blow themselves or others up.
I left “I’m a fucking idiot” in there for a reason. Had I played my cards better in the first place I wouldn’t have been stuck weighing whether I should kill myself or put myself into that kind of ethical disaster… which probably would have ended with killing myself anyway.
Lucky for me, they made me a medic, so I never had to find out.