Female American Soldier - Stock image with Copy Space (Shutterstock).
The Guardian reports that posts from the White House suggest President Donald Trump’s Iran invasion looks like a scene from Top Gun or Braveheart—or maybe a video game.
But boots on the ground say something entirely different.
“Such macho posturing squares with secretary of defense Pete Hegseth’s desire to bring ‘warrior culture’ back to the military. The former Fox News host has railed against DEI, ‘fat troops’ and ‘beardos’, … and envisioned a military full of ‘the right people’ who fit his imposed standards of virility and masculinity.”
But a look beyond the White House jingo machine reveals active service members on #MilitaryTok – a subset of TikTok – are conveying “vulnerability, anxiety,” and plenty of mockery and snark over the idea of going to war in the Middle East.
One Army member preparing to deploy posted on TikTok that “all [he could] think about” was his infant child, in words that crawled beneath images of a newborn baby swinging in a chair and fetus being depicted on a sonogram.
A day after the first U.S. drone strike on Iran, ayoungwoman in fatigues posted about “[concern] getting louder as my mom watched the news yesterday knowing her daughter’s in the military.”
Also prevalent is a swathe of gallows humor as newly enlisted soldiers march off to a fight they did not see coming under a president who’d promised specifically to avoid such things.
“I took YOLO too seriously,” claims the caption from another young woman getting sworn in to the national guard “in the middle of a war.”
Still another user mouthed along to lines from the 2005 Gulf war drama “Jarhead” about being “dumb enough” to sign a military contract at 18. The caption below suggests she had signed up for the military’s housing allowance to service people.
While soldiers convey their feelings online, Trump’s military has been forced to raise the enlistment age to 42 to encourage recruitment.