I don't get why some people excommunicate them for their past actions.

There are definitely a few people on Lemmy who have lost relatives or been personally fucked over by the military. I can 1000% understand why these people are not necessarily ready to forgive veterans, even ones who try to right their wrongs.

Fact of the matter is: they are not owed forgiveness, no matter how hard they try, how much work they put in, how much they sacrifice. It's that simple. Some people are just not gonna forgive you for your service. For the veterans in the chat, part of your journey has to be to learn to understand and live with this reality, and to work around it as best as you are able.

And just in general: you are never ever ever owed forgiveness, no matter what. Full stop.

To be clear: I personally think the person shown here is doing the right thing. I will be forever grateful to this guy for putting his body on the line against ICE for us like he is doing in the video. And he seems to be on a good trajectory. But that's my privileged -ass opinion, coming from someone who's never been personally hurt by veterans, someone who has nothing to even forgive him for. I.e., my view rightly has no bearing on the opinions and analyses of people who have been brutalized by veterans. So if someone else is not ready to forgive this guy, that's something we just gotta respect.

propaganda being as good as it is, aside, there is no-one alive today who volunteered for the military and is a good and smart person. i can get behind supporting drafted people and can get behind helping legal battles for people waking up and wanting to leave the mil.

but those who leave are still going to have to sit with the facts that they did a thing. i can only hope it informs their actions in the future. (ie: op)

Sadly, even 1 million doesn’t cut it. That’s the number that protested in London to oppose (the 1990’s) Iraq war. It did not make a difference. Stupid fucks still did their war mongering, for profit.