And honestly, as a child of veteran, *nothing* encapsulates the experience of the military soldiers who fought in the middle east like John Walker. They didn't get the heroics of WW2 like Steve did, they got completely fucked then sent home to fuck up their families, and the absolute hatred John Walker is honestly an expansion of the overall disgust alot of fandom culture has with service members. There is a reason why the VA has to focus so *hard* on suicide prevention in general and why there are a lot of people in that sphere who identify so hard with John. And Sam was a fucking VA counselor like good god
I hear you, nonny. Whilst I am not a Walker fan, I understand why so many people relate to him and I don't think he deserves a lot of the hate he gets. You're right that Walker is an absolutely classic example of a person screwed over by the system (and the military is part of the system) all his life, then discarded. Also, people have all kinds of noitons about the military upholding these strict rules of conduct- and yes they do *officially*.
In reality however (as I am sure you know) Soldier like John are made to do morally questionable things all the time. They're not doing them off thier own back, they're doing it because their superiors asked them to. The military doesn't care about soldiers breaking the rules as long as it benefits them.
The difference with what happened in TFatWS is that it made the military look bad. It was negative publicity. John was right whe he said "I am what you made me"- because that's ultimately what soldiers are. Tools of the system. They came down on John hard and made an example of him purely to cover their own asses.
And with he show, life imitates art. People hate on service members like John IRL, but what they don't realize is that their hate is directed at the wrong people. Its the system which is the problem, not individual service members, barring a few bad eggs. Its the system which is giving the orders and making them dance to its tune.
And yes, seeing the way Sam, a VA himself treats not only John but also Lemar is fucking gross. Sam didn't identify with Lemar at all didn't reach out to his family. Instead he and fandom victim-blame the guy incessantly: or just erase him. Bucky didn't treat him better at the start- but at least at the end he began to treat John with a little more decency. I don't think it was ever personal with Bucky: he always saw John as another soldier like himself and probably understood how he'd been exploited and discarded. Like Bucky himself had been. All he had to his name was a crappy therapist and a dingy apartment.
