[grogenaut]

How much of it is what your friend is ostensibly saying and how much of it is just the ever existent complaint about the laziness of the youth (lets face it you also sucked as a teen) meeting with the inflexibility of the aging? Aka the source of strife between generations since time immemorial?

[CapricornNoble]

Of anyone that I've worked with, he's been the most empathetic to the situations and life challenges of an 18-year old (like I said, he was REALLY good recruiter, which usually comes with understanding people well). Most of the problems are systemic and leadership failures. Even the Marines with completely screwed up personal lives and drama, he largely faults societal failures as #2 behind just generally shit decision-making (females engaging in prostitution in the barracks, depression and confusion over gender identity, Marines thinking Uncle Sam won't notice them scamming the system for pay/entitlements, etc... etc...).

Of course there has always been some baseline level of dysfunction in young adults away from home for the first time, but the trend we are seeing is that the various factors are definitely tipping towards an institutional breaking point. Even the great "spice epidemic" around 2012 didn't stress the system this badly, IMO.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/bath-salts-spice-us-military-servi...

[grogenaut]

Thanks for the reply and further details!