One of the side-effects of joining the National Guard is that the junior enlisted in certain jobs tend to come from the small towns that are really, really, full of bored dysfunctional people. While the experience was not pleasant for me, I have learned a few things (so please avoid my mistake).
1: These are people whose main understanding of life comes from television. Even though they had been deployed, they described special forces personnel with awe because of how tough they were physically, not because of the special nature of their work. When they tried giving me advice on becoming a lawyer, they seemed to think that most time is spent in a courtroom shouting objection instead of understanding principles and doing background research.
2: They are quite frequently scared of cities. Even the new platoon sergeant explained his refusal to visit the state capitol because "there are too many people, too close together". Of course, he said that in a noisy, crowded, and chaotic bar. There are plenty of people in the unit who want to be cops. 'Great!" I thought, the city needs a lot more of them and is constantly hiring. Nope, these people would rather move a few hundred kilometers away and work for a pittance than work in a large city with plenty of other officers ready to provide support if needed.
3: They perceive confidence based on physical aggression. When we needed to clean a room, one new guy left his stuff in there (after 1SGT had made a point of telling us to get our stuff out) and I decided I could make the point most delicately to the new guy that his stuff needed to be packed in the future. They didn't think much of my explanation of what 1SGT wanted and then chimed in with shouts and threats.
4: Redneck has become a tribal identity. Explaining that would involve explaining some of the nastier ethnic hatreds of my "peers".
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