Not the PLA either... 
Made a new account to hopefully minimize self-doxing, but here's some background. I haven't lived with him in 10 years and I left the country 4 years ago. We don't really talk all that often, but he had messaged me with some questions about photography and then brought it up.
I said something like "I'm sure you're aware I don't have a very fond opinion of the military". He said "I'm not too enthused with the idea either, but I need the security and discipline that it will provide while I try to find something to dedicate myself to and I've been in this dead end job for about 2 years and my soul is decaying".
I told him he can come live with me, that it's easy to get a 1 year visa and I'd happily pay for flights and I have a spare room. He said he'd think about it but "needs physical activity and more friends and connection in general". I tried to explain that I go climbing multiple days a week, volunteer for search and rescue, and play board games with friends every week that he'd be able to hang out with.
I get the impression though that he thinks visiting would just be putting his problems on hold for a year; maybe he's right about that, but I think living somewhere other than our shit hometown would give him a lot of perspective on the world and help him maybe realize that what he actually needs is a community of some kind. I don't want him to make a huge fucking mistake because he feels hopeless and gets pressured into it by our conservative step dad or some recruiter or whatever.
I also briefly tried explaining some issues with the US military, but it's a bit hard to undo decades of american "education" in one conversation. He said "my moral code is also not nearly as strong as yours, and I have very little strong feelings toward very much at all outside of just trying to be a good person". I assume he reached out to me because he's having some doubts.
Anyway I tried to make it super clear that if he wanted to come live with me or if he wanted to do a work visa somewhere else I'd pay flights and anything else and help in any way I can; I'm not rich, but I have a small emergency savings.
I think I've heard there are organizations of leftist / anti-imperialist veterans? Maybe one of them has information I could send him. Any advice or ideas would be appreciated.
Ask if he would shoot a child if someone asked him to, or cover up a friend being SA'd to save his own skin. What does he think the military is? Free bed and breakfast in an exotic tourist spot?
Men think that they will get some masculinity reset by joining the military when working a service job at McDonalds is far more brave and respectable.
Pretty sure that's roughly what he's picturing. He vaguely knows they've done plenty of bad things, but doesn't see them as fundamentally a force of evil. I think I need to focus on dispelling this illusion.
I'm considering this approach, but I worry being too harsh will just push him away from his "crazy communist brother". Ultimately, I don't think I'm going to turn him into a principled anti-imperialist over night, but maybe I can convince him that the military is a lot worse than he realizes as well as it not being in his best interest anyway? Like maybe if I focused on showing how a lot of veterans regret their decisions.
Absolutely. In his case I'm not sure how much is actually motivated by masculinity. Certainly some of it, but I think with him it's the structure and feeling of purpose. Like I honestly think he would agree that working at McDonalds is more brave, but would just say he's not very brave... I could be totally wrong about this though.