I agree there Ayinde, except I wouldn't say I have no sympathy for the grunts.
People have to have access to information to make informed choices. When people are getting a steady stream of propaganda (as opposed to information) from birth, coupled with the fact that the army aggressively markets itself as the only (legal) way out of poverty to people who have been mired in poverty for generations, it's easy to see how people are tempted to join the army.
At one point my younger brother was thinking about joining the US Air Force (he's married to a U.S. citizen) since he wanted pilot training and couldn't think of any other way to finance it. I told him I'd whup his a$$ if he tried to go to any recruitment center. He ended up deciding not to, and eventually got a loan for pilot school. Now my brother and me don't see eye to eye on everything but largely we share similar views. He certainly despises everything america stands for in the wider world and would sooner vomit on the commander in chief than shake his hand. Yet his desire for pilot training led him to make all sorts of excuses and rationalizations- you don't have to have a combat role, you can just pick up skills without killing anyone, etc. Yeah right. Well I was able to convince him otherwise but there are a lot of people who don't have access to nearly the amount of info he does, who have been brainwashed from an early age to respect "their country right or wrong" (despite "their country" spitting on them at every opportunity), and most importantly are in much more desperate situations than my brother was. It may be people's own fault if they fall for the slick talk of army recruiters but... it's like crack cocaine, the system is set up so that poor people will be tempted to sell it, and so that it seems like the only alternative to absolute poverty... well is the same thing with the army. Now I don't condone people selling crack, or people joining the army (selling crack might be the more honorable choice out of those two actually). But I look at the system and see the dynamics of how people are pushed into thinking of these things as "the only way out". And while I wouldn't exempt the street corner hustler or the U.S. Army grunt from responsibility for their actions, I place most of the blame on the big cocaine suppliers and on the U.S. government and army recruiters. Army recruiters are extremely aggressive and persistent in targeting young poor people (especially black and brown people) and if you are not armed with knowledge to counteract their propaganda, it is easy for people to fall into their clutches.
I think we need to be as aggressive and persistent as army recruiters are, in exposing young people to all the reasons why they should not join the U.S. military (or U.K. or any imperialist military).