American Military - We're Honored

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
181

Well, why don’t you back your assertion up with some kind of argument, then?

[quote]pushharder wrote:
JBraswell wrote:
Hmmm, let me say at the outset that I certainly wish the for the wellbeing of just about anyone in whatever endeavor he or she has undertaken and that I have sympathy for family members of those who are lost in war.

However, in general, I have a slight distaste for this sort of lionization of soldiers for a couple of reasons. First, whenever you inject excessive emotion into an area of discourse, especially those as inherently volatile as war and politics, it tends to degrade the quality of the reasoning involved. The painting of soldiers and the military as sacrosanct unnecessarily polarizes debate participants.

Second, while again, I do wish them well, I by no means think that a solider is any better than another person who works hard at something productive, engineering, accounting, journalism, etc. I think your feelings of unworthiness are a bit silly, actually.

Yes, there are risks involved in being in the military, but that’s simply a choice one makes before deciding to join; there’s a well-known risk:reward profile to the job. Further, there are other jobs that put people at even greater risk. Arctic fishing anyone? Is a soldier who dies in combat somehow worth more than a fisherman who gets washed into the Baltic?

The lack of logic, understanding, reasoning, wisdom, discernment and old-fashioned good sense in this post is astounding. Absolutely, positively astounding.[/quote]

182

[quote]PGJ wrote:
BH6 wrote:
PGJ, You lasted way longer than I did. Good work devil dog.

Thanks. I’m gonna have to take a break from the Political forums. I get too worked-up and it’s always the same arguments over and over. I should be doing work or playing with my kids instead.

Semper Fi

[/quote]

I am feeling the same way.

183

[quote]JBraswell wrote:
Well YOU haven’t answered why we invaded a country that had nothing to do with the pressing middle east problems to which you’re demanding a solution.
…

[/quote]

Are you sincere with your question?

We went to war in Iraq in an effort to remake the middle east.

One of the reasons the terrorists get support from the general population in the middle east is that oil props up many dictatorships.

We wanted to knock off a dictatorship and install a democracy in an oil rich state to show that there was a better alternative to dictatorships and radical Islam.

Iraq was the best candidate because of their previous misdeeds and our on going conflict with them (no fly zones, corrupt oil for food, kicking out UN WMD inspectors, etc).

Things have obviously not worked out as well or quickly as we wanted but we will win in Iraq if everyone recognizes it is vital to the war in radical Islamic terror.

If people keep trying to pretend it is a seperate issue we may lose resolve and pull out.

184

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
chinadoll wrote:
Headhunter~
That’s great! The best of luck to your son!
c:)

Yeah, considering he is 15 and still needs to worry about

  1. graduating from high-school
  2. getting into the hardest military school ever…West Pointers kiss my ass!
  3. graduating from Annapolis…if he doesn’t he’ll be relegated to enlisted life to pay-back his debt.
  4. making the cut for Officer Candidate School
  5. finishing Marine Officers Basic Course

If he’s good enough he may even be allowed to lead Marines in combat; an honor given only to a privileged few.

No luck needed here…just lots of hard work and intestinal fortitude…and aptitude.[/quote]

Football player (6’, 245), near top of his class, working on his Eagle Scout, tested IQ of 160. He should have as good a shot as most.

I didn’t know that if they bust you out, you have to pay them back. I can understand if you quit, but not if they wash you out. That seems pretty unfair — they took a chance and it didn’t pan out. I will point this out to him. Thanks.

HH

185

[quote]JBraswell wrote:
chinadoll wrote:

Oh B.S.

You’re right, Chinadoll; we are the only country with any freedom at all. Please inform the dozen or so other nations that rank higher than we do on the annual Freedom Index.
[/quote]

Who gave them their freedom, as a generous gift? That’s the point of her thread.

HH

186

That is at least a reasonable explanation. Note that, if you’re serious about this explanation, then you have to agree that our Administration purposely lied to and manipulated people to believe that we were going in there because of an IMMINENT threat to our nation, one that didn’t exist.

Why did they lie? Because they knew that if they gave the explanation you gave below, NOBODY would go along with it, because nation-building is, in general, a loser’s game, one that we have no business doing. The Admin’s recognition of this broad sentiment is why Bush explicitly ran on a campaign of non-intervention, where we were supposed to ease back from our role of world police. Further, even if were openly committed to policing the world, there are much more heinous regimes in the world that we could’ve started with.

Also note that I can believe all of this without being an “America-hater”, as accused by dumbasses like PGJ above.

Finally, to turn somewhat back to the topic on which this thread was started, note how people with a military background so readily assume a moral highground in discussing this topic, as if their job gives them some sort of special insight. (This is just the sort of thing I complained about in my original post on this thread.) We get quotes posted from ‘A Few Good Men’, directing us to thank them for the freedom they provide. While I’m not suggesting that the military is not essential to a civilized society, I do contend that its view of itself as ‘special’ is misplaced. Members of the military are no more important, in the grand scheme of things, than people who work hard to manufacture our cars, produce our food, engineer our buildings, medicines, or even entertainment.

187

I don’t think the admin outright lied about Iraq. I believe they heard things they wanted to hear and genuinely believed that WMDs were there in greater quantity than we actually found.

It is a fact that Al Qaeda wanted Iraq to give them WMDs. Saddam apparently delayed and put them off. He was not ready to get into bed with Al Qaeda yet.

I think they did not feel it was necessary to share their overall strategy with the general public and the MSM is to lazy to go back and read the articles,essays written and speeches given by various members of the admin.

188

I hate to be engaged again.

Why not go into the “Canadian Vixens Worship” thread and scold the members there for worshipping them and post about how ALL vixens are hot, not just Canadians and so ALL types of vixens should be in the Canadian Vixens Worship thread- canadian, american, asian, fat, skinny, fit, not fit-- the posts are unfair to all other kinds of vixens. How dare they!

Heck, this website can be offensive in that it implies that people who live the fitness lifestyle are superior to all others. Especially when members post their photos and others say, “great job”, that’s unfair to the rest of the members here and the whole of society, whom has all kinds of different body types.

This thread is about the Armed Forces men and women, not entitled, “What are your political views about the Middle East Crisis”. You have taken it personally and have internalized it to mean someone isn’t recognizing all the other productive members of society, when in fact that was never implied. You’re projecting that issue onto everyone else here who supports the armed forces. That’s silly.

No one here said that the Military people are better than you or anybody. But if you come into the thread that has good intentions with the intention of flaming, of course some people will think there are sour grapes or other issues behind it.

I apologize to you personally if my gratitude and admiration for the wonderful job done by our Armed Forces men and women has personally offended your sensibilities. Hence, my intention has been to stop posting on this thread, knowing there are some people here whom obviously feel personally slighted by it.

Sure, you have very valid points and I admire your passion in terms of your political views, but one reason I hate politics is that many people feel that because they’re passionate about their views, that gives them license to bring up the subject whenever and wherever they like, it’s their right, and no one else’s views should matter.

And it also appears that these are arguments just to argue, which is truly a waste of time.

[quote]JBraswell wrote:

Finally, to turn somewhat back to the topic on which this thread was started, note how people with a military background so readily assume a moral highground in discussing this topic, as if their job gives them some sort of special insight. (This is just the sort of thing I complained about in my original post on this thread.) We get quotes posted from ‘A Few Good Men’, directing us to thank them for the freedom they provide. While I’m not suggesting that the military is not essential to a civilized society, I do contend that its view of itself as ‘special’ is misplaced. Members of the military are no more important, in the grand scheme of things, than people who work hard to manufacture our cars, produce our food, engineer our buildings, medicines, or even entertainment.
[/quote]

189

jbraswell,

First of all, I must tell you how often I’ve typed a variation of the paragraph to come. Don’t ask me for sources. I will refuse to give them. Why? Due to the fact that I’ve given them multiple times. If you want sources, YOU are going to have to do the work that apparently you haven’t done. Here’s how you can do the work: use google or type JeffR into the search engine.

I haven’t typed this paragraph for a few weeks. What the hell…

We invaded Iraq because: Deterrance against terrorist supporting regime works (see the results of Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia). saddam was funding and supporting suicide bombers in palestine, al qaeda (see Phillipines, acting as P.R. for bin laden, zarqawi etc…) . He was working on supporting the taliban in Afghanistan. He tried to kill our President. He was firing on our planes. He had invaded his neighbors and was always a threat to our friends and our necessary supply of oil. He was murdering and maiming his own people. iran lies between Iraq and Afghanistan. Democracy is the only acceptable long-term solution to the viscious tyrant. Iraq had wmd. He had purposefully hid and misled. The u.n. weapons inspectors were a joke the minute that saddam decided he would defy them. They were never meant to be detectives. He was planning to implement new production on wmd. He used the wmd on his people and his neighbors making this unacceptable in the post-9/11 era (remember the clinton advisor holding up a vial in 1998 declaring one vial of ricin could kill everyone in Washington, D.C.?). hussein had never honored the obligations of his cease fire. He was bribing sympathetic countries and organizations, making oil for food and the u.n./sympathetic countries a joke. He was using proceeds to build lavish palaces for himself. At the same time, his people suffered.

That should do it.

Now. If you are tempted to make some quick off the cuff retort, resist the impulse. I ask you to research each one of those stated causes/justifications/reasons.

If the best you can do is repeat dnc mantra without serious, in-depth research on the issue, then welcome to the looney bin.

I’ve taken the time to answer your question. I ask that you return the favor with interest.

JeffR

190

[quote]sepukku wrote:
much of Europe has the great fortune to enjoy the same rights.
[/quote]

Enjoy those rights. They were and are still being earned. Vigilence and sacrifice are demanded to keep them extant.

JeffR

191

[quote]JBraswell wrote:
Members of the military are no more important, in the grand scheme of things, than people who work hard to manufacture our cars, produce our food, engineer our buildings, medicines, or even entertainment.

[/quote]

No more inportant than people in entertainment? really?

192

[quote]JBraswell wrote:
chinadoll wrote:

Oh B.S.

You’re right, Chinadoll; we are the only country with any freedom at all. Please inform the dozen or so other nations that rank higher than we do on the annual Freedom Index.
[/quote]

Ha, ha! As if “freedom” can be empirically measured. Well, J.B., can you suggest a good routine for the U.S. so that we can improve our ranking on the Freedom Index? They say that doing well on the FI is 80% training, 20% nutrition. Whadda you think?

193

On second thought…

194

a friend of mine in the middle east with one of the local children

195

Chinadoll,

You are correct that this thread got off of its intended track, although I would like to point out that my first post on this thread was not political, and I only started discussing such things after Pandora’s Box had been opened, so to speak.

With regards to your initial point, though, I think perhaps your comparison of pro-military sentiment to that of pro-Canadian vixens is a bit off. For crying out loud, just read your first couple of paragraphs. You’re “not worthy?” They give more than non-military could give in their lifetimes? Each and EVERY one of them is a hero? Trust me, if the thread on Canadian women contained such remarks, I would’ve had the same reaction. This is way more than just innocent rooting for your quirky pet occupation.

Further separating pro-military sentiment from any other kind of specialized appreciation is relative frequency of occurrence. Every day you can hear the same kind of sappy, irrational, pro-military talk like this. You NEVER hear such talk about, say, crab fishers. (Forgive me for overusing that example; it just seems appropriate.) Contrarily, I’m sure there are have been plenty of Asian vixen threads, Swedish vixen threads, New Guinea vixen threads, etc.

Finally, so what if it’s sappy and irrational, why do I have to be such a mean old bastard to complain about it, you may ask. Well, I may be a mean bastard, but the reason it bothers me, as I cited in my original post, is that it induces such arrogance from people in the military, especially in political discussions like the one that erupted on this thread. I have punks telling me that I don’t know anything about “leadership” just because I’ve never been in the Marines. They just assume a certain moral highground to which they’re no more entitled than anyone else who works hard.

Now, by no means am I saying that ALL military personnel are like this, but I believe the attitude is WAY more common among them, largely due to this sort of cheerleading.

(For the record, there are some other professions in which this attitude is also abnormally frequent, such as teaching, but I think the military is probably the blue ribbon winnner.)

I do apologize to you for my response on the foreign-country-freedom issue. While I stand by my assertion that there are countries that are more free than the US, I realize after re-reading your post that that was not the point you were making at the time.

196

[quote]JBraswell wrote:
Chinadoll,

You are correct that this thread got off of its intended track, although I would like to point out that my first post on this thread was not political, and I only started discussing such things after Pandora’s Box had been opened, so to speak.

With regards to your initial point, though, I think perhaps your comparison of pro-military sentiment to that of pro-Canadian vixens is a bit off. For crying out loud, just read your first couple of paragraphs. You’re “not worthy?” They give more than non-military could give in their lifetimes? Each and EVERY one of them is a hero? Trust me, if the thread on Canadian women contained such remarks, I would’ve had the same reaction. This is way more than just innocent rooting for your quirky pet occupation.

Further separating pro-military sentiment from any other kind of specialized appreciation is relative frequency of occurrence. Every day you can hear the same kind of sappy, irrational, pro-military talk like this. You NEVER hear such talk about, say, crab fishers. (Forgive me for overusing that example; it just seems appropriate.) Contrarily, I’m sure there are have been plenty of Asian vixen threads, Swedish vixen threads, New Guinea vixen threads, etc.

Finally, so what if it’s sappy and irrational, why do I have to be such a mean old bastard to complain about it, you may ask. Well, I may be a mean bastard, but the reason it bothers me, as I cited in my original post, is that it induces such arrogance from people in the military, especially in political discussions like the one that erupted on this thread. I have punks telling me that I don’t know anything about “leadership” just because I’ve never been in the Marines. They just assume a certain moral highground to which they’re no more entitled than anyone else who works hard.

Now, by no means am I saying that ALL military personnel are like this, but I believe the attitude is WAY more common among them, largely due to this sort of cheerleading.

(For the record, there are some other professions in which this attitude is also abnormally frequent, such as teaching, but I think the military is probably the blue ribbon winnner.)

I do apologize to you for my response on the foreign-country-freedom issue. While I stand by my assertion that there are countries that are more free than the US, I realize after re-reading your post that that was not the point you were making at the time.

[/quote]

Cool. I’m glad you get the meaning of what I meant.

Yes, I didn’t post BS toward the quote about foreign country freedom (sorry, I only skimmed over that part), but to Seppuku’s (not dissing him personally but anyone who does this) response to someone else that seemed to me to be arguing just to argue about the argument.

I like that you’ve mentioned your perspective about some people becoming arrogant by cheeleading types of praise. Although I don’t agree that it’s more prevalent with the military, it brings up the point about perspective and sets of experiences. I don’t doubt for a second that you have had those bad experiences.

I want to say, I’ve had so many wonderful experiences with the military personnel that reside in my state- maybe it’s my perspective- I do live in paradise and who wouldn’t be happy and nice while living in paradise? And also, in the healthcare field the military is very active in teaching us disaster management and other issues and have been nothing but helpful, gracious and hospitable.

The biggest difference I find in the military versus civilians is that military men and women currently have to leave all their daily comforts, their loved ones and their lives behind in order to serve in a country that is vastly different then the United States. Furthermore, the physical dangers to them are much much greater there. I do find this a tremendous sacrifice and feel immensely proud of them.

197


Neat…

Mystery 9/11 rescuer reveals himself

Unknown Marine steps forward as one who helped save two NYPD cops (CNN.com)

NEW YORK - For years, authorities wondered about the identity of a U.S. Marine who appeared at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, helped find a pair of police officers buried in the rubble, then vanished.

Even the producers of the new film chronicling the rescue, “World Trade Center,” couldn’t locate the mystery serviceman, who had given his name only as Sgt. Thomas.

The puzzle was finally solved when one Jason Thomas, of Columbus, Ohio, saw a TV commercial for the new movie a few weeks ago as he relaxed on his couch.

His eyes widened as he saw two Marines with flashlights, hunting for survivors atop the smoldering ruins.

“That’s us. That’s me!” thought Thomas, who lived in Long Island during the attacks and now works as an officer in Ohio’s Supreme Court.

Thomas, 32, hesitantly re-emerged last week to recount the role he played in the rescue of Port Authority police officers Will Jimeno and Sgt. John McLoughlin, who were entombed beneath 20 feet of debris when the twin towers collapsed.

Proof of identity
Back in New York to speak of his experience and visit family, Thomas provided the AP with photographs of himself at Ground Zero. As further proof of his identity, the movie’s producer, Michael Shamberg, said Thomas and Jimeno have spoken by phone and shared details only the two of them would know.

Thomas, who had been out of the Marine Corps about a year, was dropping his daughter off at his mother’s Long Island home when she told him planes had struck the towers.

He retrieved his Marine uniform from his truck, sped to Manhattan and had just parked his car when one of the towers collapsed. Thomas ran toward the center of the ash cloud.

“Someone needed help. It didn’t matter who,” he said. “I didn’t even have a plan. But I have all this training as a Marine, and all I could think was, ‘My city is in need.’”

Thomas bumped into another ex-Marine, Staff Sgt. David Karnes, and the pair decided to search for survivors.

?United States Marines!?
Carrying little more than flashlights and an infantryman’s shovel, they climbed the mountain of debris, skirting dangerous crevasses and shards of red-hot metal, calling out “Is anyone down there? United States Marines!”

It was dark before they heard a response. The two crawled into a deep pit to find McLoughlin and Jimeno, injured but alive.

Jimeno would spend 13 hours in the pit before he was pulled free. Thomas stayed long enough to see him come up, but left due to exhaustion before McLoughlin, who remained pinned for another nine hours, was retrieved.

Thomas said he returned to Ground Zero every day for another 2 1/2 weeks to pitch in, then walked away and tried to forget.

“I didn’t want to relive what took place that day,” he said.

Shamberg said he apologized to Thomas for an inaccuracy in the film: Thomas is black, but the actor cast to portray him, William Mapother, is white. Filmmakers realized the mistake only after production had begun, Shamberg said.

Thomas laughed and gently chided the filmmakers, then politely declined to discuss it further. “I don’t want to shed any negativity on what they were trying to show,” he said.

As for his story, Thomas said he is gradually becoming more comfortable telling it.

“It’s been like therapy,” he said.

199

[quote]pushharder wrote:
aussie486 wrote:
JBraswell wrote:
Members of the military are no more important, in the grand scheme of things, than people who work hard to manufacture our cars, produce our food, engineer our buildings, medicines, or even entertainment.

No more inportant than people in entertainment? really?

Aussie, this pretty much tells you all you need to know about Mr. Braswell, doesn’t it?[/quote]

I know for myself - Entertainment Tonight is the most patriotic show on television.

Honestly - what could be more important than knowing who Paris Hilton had sex with? She is the ultimate patriot.

200

Nooo, he has got a point. The un-named USMC soldier at the WTC: now there’s a hero. Did a job no one asked him to, above & beyond the call of duty & dissappeared into the woodwork. -ing well done that man!

Now me. I got 3 ARCOM’s & two valour devices for combat op’s. My unit was awarded a Presidential Citation for combat op’s. Am I a hero? No. Do I swagger around, looking for respect. No. Was I doing my job? As best as I could.

And what was I fighting for? That poor teenage PFC next to me, because it’s my job to keep him alive & send him home to mom & dad.
Do I think the press / public have gone overboard with 'hero’accolades? Absolutley. Used to be you had to take a German pill box down with a spoon to be a hero (cf. Audie Murphy).

So let’s all just calm down, get some perspective & take it all with a little grain of salt.
Play nice kids!