My experience in considering military service (and why I'm anti-war)

I am in my 20s and before I graduated college I had no idea what I wanted to do with myself. But I thought I could make myself useful and serve my country for 2 years or so, and get that all figured out.

So I seriously considered joining the Army. I wanted to get involved in logistics and planning - supplying/supply lines or maybe intelligence, I wasn't sure. My experiences in this recruitment process really surprised me and turned me off to the military, I'll just outline them.

My friends and family: Thought I was an idiot for considering joining. Most of them are pro-war, "support the troops" types. What was I supposed to think when I spotted their hypocrisy in thinking others should go fight/die for them, but they shouldn't send their own or someone close to them? The hypocrisy of the typical pro-war mindset was revealed to me, by just about anyone who I knew that was filled in on my considering this. Out everyone I knew very few were supportive, maybe 2 or 3.

All the guys who were newly joining the military were ever talking about was money. All you would hear is "This gets you $28,000. I have a friend who gets $31,000, I hear if you do this long enough you get $35,000." You think I want to give up my freedom and take orders to go be a part of that group? It seemed to me that the majority of people joining these days are just in it for meaningless reasons and they had selfish attitudes. This turned me off to the military.

The recruiters/recruitment: Are basically the best salesmen in the area. They try to put you in a bubble and make it like your choice to leave (before you've signed anything really) is not an option. It reminds me of reading about Scientology methods. This also turned me off to the military. And basically it became clear that I'd be treated like a piece of cattle if I joined the military.

All of this opened my eyes. It got me started into reading more and more anti-war philosophy and stuff and by now I am just entirely anti-war. I think that it is nothing but people in power manipulating the poor and middle class people from both countries to kill eachother. I find myself agreeing with people like John Lennon and Muhammed Ali. But I have my experiences with looking at the military to thank for setting me down this path - before that, I was ready and willing to "serve" until I saw the ugly part of this military machine, and the parts that are so hypocritical.

I've just never talked much about why I'm anti-war on ATS/PTS and it's something I feel strongly about. I thought I'd talk about this experience and how it affected my beliefs and see what you guys think. Does it come across as selfish? Am I out of line for thinking this way? Should my experiences with the military have affected my principles? Or should principles simply stand on their own?

Does it come across as selfish?

Not at all. Stuff is messed up now, but keep in mind where pro-military comes from. We've had the benefit of living in the greatest nation in the world, not due in some small part to our sacrifice in two world wars.

So, there's one midset that says when your baby dies fighting Hitler, you make more babies. Then there's Iraq, huh? No weapons of mass destruction, no oil, I mean why?