I found the article to be pretty good aside from that comment, which was a little too on the nose to be funny for me...
But we're arguing semantics here. I wrote my response because the way in which joubert dismissed the possibility of the author's comment being sarcasm strongly implied that he regarded the military as an inherently violent organisation to which only violence-loving terrorist-killing wannabes would aspire. I resent that.
We agree so far. I don't think it's just semantics, but my "politics" probably differ radically from most of the crew here (and I don't expect to change anyone's mind), so I'll leave it at that.
I get that his list of reasons was largely sarcastic. But that suggests he's (at least somewhat) cynical about the military. Given that, I don't understand why he'd join up. Especially when he implies that he had/has specific knowledge that he'd likely be sent to Iraq and told to kill people. I just don't find it funny. Maybe I missed the point.
He is cynical about the opinions many civilians have about the military.
If you don't know that everyone in the military is cynical about the military, you know very little about military folks.
Projecting seems to be especially common among the "intellectual" class.