Serving in the military does more harm than good.

I thank Con for his argument. Here I will provide my defence and conclude.DEFENSEC1: Risk of Injury My opponent says that only 6,000 people have died in the war on terror in 9 years. I'd like to point out that the war of terror is one of many conflicts that the United States has fought in the past 9 years. When my opponent takes the entire US military force with members who served anywhere between 5 and 45 years and counts the number of people who died specifically in the War on Terror in the past 9 years, he will get the percentage of the US military that died in the War on Terror in the past 9 years, not the total percentage of deaths. It is very difficult to actually quantify the percentage as many people have served for different amounts of time and we would need to add up all the deaths that occurred in a specific number of years. And how many years could we choose? 5 years? 9 years? 45 years? It is impossible to come up with an accurate percentage. For this reason, my opponent's statistical analysis on deaths and amputations is skewed. Regardless of my opponent's analysis, it is not just the injuries but the risk of injury that weighs down on military personnel as they go to war. This fear is not genrally seen in civilians as they go to work.My opponent's claim that the military is "relatively risk-free" is a stretch at best. Enter at your own peril! C2: PTSD Psych Central says that while 7.8% of Americans have PTSD, at least 26% of Vietnam war vets have PTSD and and at least another 21% have partial PTSD putting the total at 47%. It is difficult to accurately determine the exact number of PTSD cases, hence the different numbers from different websites. However, there is no doubt that war veterans experience higher cases of PTSD than civilians as the same website that gives both civilians and veteran's PTSD shows veterans to be higher. [1]My opponent mentions counseling available to military members but it also available to civilians. C3: Authoritarian(a) Cannot choose the warMy opponent had no answer to how the soldier might feel being sent off to a war that he doesn't believe in, to shoot and kill and maybe be shot and die for a cause that he disagrees with. My opponent provides the same statistical analysis which isn't really accurate because he includes the entire US armed forces. As I have shown in C1, it is difficult to determine a "chance" of going to war. (b) Creativity While Con claims that "Every job has a strict chain of command", it is common knowledge that military chain of command is entirely different from a civilian one. Drill Sargeants don't yell at new recruits in the corporate world. Creative ideas are far more welcome and appreciated in a civilain job compared to a military job. It definitely stifles creativity when the military member can do nothing but say "sir, yes sir" everytime he is given an order. While it is true that the boss has the final say, civilians often have a chance to discuss ideas to be implemented before a final decision is made. It is a good reason for independent individuals to stay away from the military to avoid falling into a pattern of unquestionable obedience.C4: Sex misconduct "According to Sexual Harassment Law Firms, 'anywhere between 40-70% of women and 10-20% of men have experienced sexual harassment in the (average) workplace.'"Again, this is a stretch. My source is directly from the Department of Defense's annual report [3]. My opponent's source [2] takes you to a website which asks you to enter a zipcode to talk to a lawyer and at the bottom of the page says "Studies suggest anywhere between 40-70% of women and 10-20% of men have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace." There is no mention of what those studies are. A random unsourced quote from a law firm trying to get more people to call their lawyers is hardly as accurate as the Department of Defense's annual report. To conclude this point, Sexual Harassment is unacceptably high in the military but my opponent has provided no reliable proof that it is just as high in the civilian world.C5: Delay of veteran benefitsThe GI bill was revised but nowhere in my opponent's source does it say that the delay of veteran's benefits has been fixed. There were positives as well as negatives to the new bill.C6: DischargeI did mention in the comments section that there are other ways to get discharged. They are General discharge, Other than Honorable discharge and a Bad Conduct discharge all of which will hurt the member's career, none of which require the commission of a felony. The first two can be given for purely performance related reasons.Con has no answer to my contention as to why would anyone want to join an organization where cowardice is punishable by death. My opponent is flabbergasted and wonders if my source made a typo! (lol) That is funny but not legitimate. Extend argument. ConclusionMy opponent's entire argument seems to be that the chance of getting hurt are low but as I've already shown, analyzing statistics on the military is not as simple as my opponent claims it to be. He has never directly sourced any of those figures but rather did the math himself. I'll close by saying that when a servicemember joins the military, the military owns him/her. They must obey their superiors like a robot to an extent unheard of in civilian life, endure sexual harrassment, fight and maybe die in wars they don't believe in, face the possiblity of an other than honorable discharge, come back with PTSD in a wheelchair with amputated arms and legs, have delayed or no veteran's benefits and a lifetime of unemployment and homelessness. Such is the fate that awaits those (the ones that aren't dead already) who buy into the glamour of the military and bravely set forth to "defend their homeland."Sources[1] http://psychcentral.com...[2] http://bit.ly...[3] http://www.sapr.mil...;[pg 3-4]