Ever wonder what the Minutemen do when the General isn't around? Nothing! Absolutely nothing. In the world of Fallout, the General is the Minutemen. He singlehandedly wipes out entire super mutant fortresses and clears out whole formations of raiders while the rest of the Minutemen do completely nothing. The newest batch of recruits aren't very happy about that. They didn't sign up to sit on their asses all day eating noodles like a particular slouch hat wearing second-in-command. No, they signed up to help the Commonwealth, to help its people, to make it a better place. But what can the Minutemen do? After all, they're still just a rag-tag group of militia with maybe a few suits of rusty power armour and crappy laser muskets.
 
Even after the destruction of the Institute, the Commonwealth remained just as dangerous and lawless as before. The Minutemen were supposed to keep the peace, even with dozens of bloodthirsty and drugged up raider gangs, mindless feral ghouls, and that's not even counting all the mutated wildlife in the remains of Boston. The Brotherhood of Steel was the only other main faction left, with the Institute having been nuked and the entire Railroad taken out by both factions at once. Thankfully, the Brotherhood is friendly... at the moment.
 
So what are you, the newest member of the Minutemen going to do about it? Just patrol a single settlement and stand around a guard post all day, or actually go out and make a change? You've got to do what's right. It's the Minutemen way, after all.
 
Wait, did the General just make an entire shack out of a broken tree branch and five toy cars? Did he just pull out a minigun from his back pocket? Nah, the Wasteland sun must be playing tricks on your mind.
 
Maybe.