[quote]rainjack wrote:
But since you used our manpower to keep you safe - we will never know.
[/quote]
Shove it up your ass!
There. I said it.
A free society needs to have some respect for a martial tradition. After all, you can bet tyrants and dictators will. And one never knows, they just might be eyeballing your homeland.
good point
[quote]rainjack wrote:
Because they are willing to do things, eat things, and kill things that normal people haven’t the balls to even comprehend.
The normal people depend on these people you have no respect for to keep us free.
All you have to do is listen to someone who has been in the fog of war - just listen for 5 minutes, and they will tell you stories that will sicken you, and won’t so much as blink.
You can throw rocks and dismiss their service if you want, but I will not join in your chickenshittery.
I’ll bet you are typing this up from the safety of whatever passes for a german bedroom these days. Suffice it to say, you would be speaking Russian were it not for these people that really don’t deserve any respect.
You sicken me. [/quote]
I cannot add a single thing except to admire how well RJ said what he did. Perfectly said, word for word.
[quote]lixy wrote:
rainjack wrote:
But since you used our manpower to keep you safe - we will never know.
Shove it up your ass!
There. I said it.[/quote]
Rommel should have headed west.
[quote]lixy wrote:
rainjack wrote:
But since you used our manpower to keep you safe - we will never know.
Shove it up your ass!
There. I said it.[/quote]
And thanks to the brave men and women of the US Armed Forces - even a pedophilic, baby-raping car-bomber such as yourself can say whatever the hell you want to.
How does it feel to walk around all day with a yellow streak down the middle of your back?
I respect the soldiers who I’ve met and I;ve decided are good people. I don’t respect the soldiers I’ve met and decided they were assholes.
Why the fuck must we paint them all with the same brush? They’re human. I respect what they’ve DONE, but that doesn’t mean I respect them (I might still, and that helps, but a douchebag is still a douchebag even if he’s wearing fatigues).
I know… I think a score or so soldiers. Most of them are good people, and have my respect. I also know a few flaming assholes, who, while I respect their SERVICE, I don’t have much respect for them personally.
This is an interesting post. Here’s to hoping I can help out a little bit. EDIT: This post became much longer than I’d intended, I am not going to proof this thing.
My old man was in the air force - 20 years. I got to live around military types my whole life. I remember my dad talking about how much he loved Reagan. I remember being in Iceland and having people freak out when Russian planes invaded our airspace. I remember sitting down with my dad and how happy he was watching the Berlin Wall come down. I grew up watching GI Joe and He-man. I was a Hulkamaniac. Very early in my life I decided I was going to join the military. Part of it was the adventure and part of it was youthful patriotism, and another was the desire to be one of the “good guys”.
I was a teenager living on an Air Force base during Waco and Ruby Ridge. I thought we were the good guys then too. We were fighting cultists and nazis. I’d never shot a gun except for once during scout camp. When I was 17 I started the “Stew Smith Navy Seal workout”. My nerd days ended and I got strong cranking out 30 pullups but still skinny as shit. My dad tried to talk me out of it and wouldn’t sign the papers, so when I had to wait until I was 18 to join the Corps with a guaranteed infantry contract. The summer before bootcamp I had to shoot a dog. Some lady didn’t teach her dog not to chase cars. I’d never killed anything and I cried like a bitch when I shot it.
When I got to boot camp, the fantasy vanished. I realized how military life was more tedium than I could have imagined. A few years in I thought I had it figured out. I loved being in the field, cold, wet, sleep deprived, starving and miserable. I loved it. The Marines under me loved me. At garrison, I hated the Corps. I had a whole crop of guys come under me after 9/11 and I remember feeling really bad for them as they were picking up cigarette butts around the company office.
Things changed post-9/11. I spent about 5 months in the Philippines fighting the Abu-Sayef terrorist group. I slept on the hood of a humvee for 4 months. I had never been happier in my life before or since. I confess I did get that bloodlust once. I remember watching a home video of an Abu-Sayef ambush with a bunch of Filipino airmen in their E-club. It ended in the systematic beheading of each man. I won’t go into details, but it still bugs me. The guy next to me looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "That guy (the last one) was my friend.) That night I swore to myself I wouldn’t be happy until I killed one of them.
A few months later I’m in a convoy that has stopped. I’m in the command vehicle and I look over and a guy is about to throw a molotov at my truck. I grab my pistol from the cupholder, breaking it and stick it out the window. The guy drops it and runs. The major, sitting next to me tells me that I should have killed him. It was my hesitancy that gave the guy the chance to put down the molotov.
That evening it hit me hard. I realized how close I was to taking this guy’s life. I cried like a 5 year old girl. It was quite pathetic actually, but I had to have that talk with myself and as far as I saw it I had to come to terms with taking a life. For years I would be concerned that I was a coward and I hesitated out of fear rather than compassion and a desire to make sure I did the right thing.
Those were the happiest 5 months of my life. I liked war. I honestly did. I liked it because it was real. During the first weeks we were there the locals were afraid to make eye contact with us for fear of reprisal. By the time I left they treated us as rock stars, running a hundred hards out of their huts simply to wave to us. The amount of good we did was incredible. It was also scary. But that fear was a rush. I made it out alive and it felt good.
I ended my enlistment and went to school. During my entire freshman year I looked for reserve units to join that were going to Iraq. I sat at an E-club in Okinawa drinking beer watching the push and it ate me up inside. I hated not being there. That’s why I got out. I was really angry at the Corps for not sending me. I finally found an artillery unit that was going. They needed someone to train them to be infantrymen before heading out to Iraq to serve provisional riflemen. It was a calling and I jumped at it. This was after the WMD’s were found out to be nonexistent. I went back because I believed in the war. I am a scholar of the American Revolution. I believed in the universality of human rights and Saddam was a bad bad man.
I volunteered for that tour and on a convoy killed a man who I think was in a VBIED and charging us. No hesitancy. I didn’t shed a tear afterward. I didn’t enjoy it, but I think after my talk with myself in the Philippines I had resolved myself for what needed to be done. I wish I had seen more action, but figured I would do so after I graduated college and returned as an officer.
Less than 2 months since I’d returned from Iraq, my friend from the fleet died in Iraq. He had done the same thing I did volunteering with a local reserve unit, this time in New York. Another year later I find out another friend whom I thought had disappeared to keep from getting pulled out of the IRR had joined the army so he could get to Iraq. He left the Corps because he didn’t think they’d send him. He ended up getting caught in an ambush in Sadr City. Those two were no different than I was. And let me tell you, an Allah-guided bullet from a shitty AK-47 or an IED daisy chain abortion from 155mm shells will kill you just as readily as a laser guided JDAM dropped from an F-18.
When I got back and I started to learn more I started to realize I can’t go back in. Not because of the military - it’s perhaps the only good group of guys in government - but because I started to learn how our freedoms are eroding at home. I learned the truth or Waco and Ruby Ridge. I was dealt with unjudicously by the police and I watched our politicians (I’m looking at you McCain) take away our freedom and rub our noses in it.
I’m off topic on an already too long post. My point is that the majority of us do join for the right reasons. I had the honor of leading some fine men in combat and I knew who they were and what they stood for. Let there be no confusion. War is a rush. Too many military guys try to play this, “I hate war and you’re sick for wanting to go” game. They are being dishonest. It’s okay to like war. It’s just not okay to join simply to kill…that’s sick. It’s also rare. Before my guys left for their second tour in Iraq, one of my former corporals got one weeded out. He kept talking about wanting to kill for the joy of it. The Corps sent him home. I miss war. I miss the rush of it. But most of all, I miss the direct way in which I got to do good and defend those that could never defend themselves.
As for the hero stuff. There’s nothing humbler than being in. When I was younger I thought it’d be cool to be a hero. But everytime someone pats me on the back I get embarrassed. I know men that did way more than I that got no credit. I got a NAM (medal) for training those guys on how to be grunts. I know guys who got them for singlehandedly charging machine gun nests. How much pride do you think I have in THAT medal? And for those that think it’s cute to make light of guys that join to play hero, consider yourself. Have you never fantasized about running into a burning orphanage and pulling a bunch of babies out?
mike
Great post
[quote]streamline wrote:
Over here in Canada our Veterans have special license plates for their cars that state they are Veterans. Every time I go to a customers home how has one, I take the time to personally thank him and sometimes her for fighting for my freedom, which I do so enjoy.[/quote]
I respect this, but I think it’s paranoid when people say that they are fighting for your freedom. How often exactly is the freedom of Canada or even the US seriously threatened?
The minute men of the revolutionary war, fought to keep us free. I don’t there has been an honest war since the revolutionary war.
Even WW2 is debatable.
What was noble or righteous about 1812? The Civil War? The Mexican American War? The Spanish-American War? World War 1, World War 2, the Korean War? Vietnam War? Desert Storm? Iraq War?
All these wars were just some stupid bullshit, thought up to free people so we could get something from them or…straight up occupy and steal their shit.
Alot of those wars, were so anti-liberty to call them wars of liberation, it is nauseating.
[quote]Legionnaire wrote:
streamline wrote:
Over here in Canada our Veterans have special license plates for their cars that state they are Veterans. Every time I go to a customers home how has one, I take the time to personally thank him and sometimes her for fighting for my freedom, which I do so enjoy.
I respect this, but I think it’s paranoid when people say that they are fighting for your freedom. How often exactly is the freedom of Canada or even the US seriously threatened?
[/quote]
Terrorists threaten our freedom everyday they exist. Do not be fooled by thinking they will not kill you. It maybe improbable, but it is also possible and if not you then maybe someone you know.
What keeps us free is the fact that everyone knows exactly what were are capable of doing to keep our freedom. Those that have never fought for and won their freedom do not have it. To many take the freedom they have for granted. They have never lived without it, they do not understand what it is like to be oppressed. Here in Canada I get to meet people who have come to this country from oppressed countries and honestly I have a difficult time comprehending the suffering they describe to me. I find it hard to believe that people can do such things to other people, but they do.
I enjoy the fact that I can say anything about anyone, as long as it is not in true hatred, and nothing can happen to me. I can go back to school anytime I wish. Seek out any career I wish. Follow any religion, join any political party, VOTE!!, I am free to do as I wish and I am forever in the debt to those who won it for me. To anyone that doesn’t agree with me WELL FUCK YOU!! you’re free to think and do as you like, so go fuck’in figure.
[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
This actually bugged me for quite some time.
Why are so many here in awe of soldiers?
Despite what you might think of the reasons for (recent) wars, the guys who go there don’t do this for humanity or America.
They do it because they are men.
War is a blast, especially if you happen to have the upper hand, better intel, weapons and propaganda.
I doubt not that many parrot the phrases they’ve heard so much when hugging their moms for a last time.
"Don’t cry mommy, someone has to do it. We have to (choose according to culture and pers. preference liberate them/ defend our border/ repay them/ purify the continent/ obey gawd"
But deep down, they KNOW it is about…well, call it like you want: testosterone, the will to compete at the highest level with the biggest stakes, joy of killing, the big adventure…
Of course, some really want to make a difference. Is it 5%, 3% maybe? No idea, but it’s minimal. Others are solely in for the dough or perks like health insurance which is more or less the same - although a combination of destitution/opportunism and bloodthirst is likely.
But reason #1 is the beast inside men.
Why so many here, even women(!) try to embellish what is the ugly, bloodied, grinning hydra we call war?
[/quote]
I think you little understand war in the modern era.
You should read “House to House” by David Bellavia, “Warlord” by Ilario Pantano, “Lone Survivor” by Marcus Luttrell and then see if you think the same thing. Oh yeah, and “Black Hawk Down.”
[quote]Sikkario wrote:
The normal people depend on these people you have no respect for to keep us free.
The minute men of the revolutionary war, fought to keep us free. I don’t there has been an honest war since the revolutionary war.
Even WW2 is debatable.
What was noble or righteous about 1812? The Civil War? The Mexican American War? The Spanish-American War? World War 1, World War 2, the Korean War? Vietnam War? Desert Storm? Iraq War?
All these wars were just some stupid bullshit, thought up to free people so we could get something from them or…straight up occupy and steal their shit.
Alot of those wars, were so anti-liberty to call them wars of liberation, it is nauseating.[/quote]
Imagine having your banking wow’s in a country with a state run bank. Argue with them, they can the state police and Sikkario goes to jail. No lawyer, no trial just bye-bye Sikkario. You take your freedoms for granted, must be nice to have that freedom. Maybe you should wake up and take your head out of your ass, there is after all a real world out there.
[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
This is an interesting post. Here’s to hoping I can help out a little bit. [/quote]
Mike, my respect for you has always been pretty high, but this post has increased it substantially. Semper Fi, brother.
[quote]streamline wrote:
What keeps us free is the fact that everyone knows exactly what were are capable of doing to keep our freedom.
[/quote]
This makes sense – destroy the source of the problem before it becomes serious, but it also raises the question of whether it is right for us to impose our will on others before they have done anything to violate our freedom. I suppose I could understand better if you said that the aim is to give others who are currently oppressed the same freedoms which we enjoy right now.
I welcome the possibility that I am completely ignorant re. this subject, but to say that by demonstrating our power we are keeping ourselves safe requires proof of a legitimate threat beforehand. It sounds to me like going around beating everybody else up to show them you are not to be fucked with. I’m not arguing with the current order as it benefits me greatly, but that does not make it right.
[quote]Sikkario wrote:
The minute men of the revolutionary war, fought to keep us free. I don’t there has been an honest war since the revolutionary war.
…
What was noble or righteous about 1812? [/quote]
The Brits didn’t follow the Treaty of Paris. They also were pressing our sailors into service and were keeping troops in western outposts.
mike
Mike,
What’s your take on the fact that we allow the very same Islamic savages we fight overseas to move here? Do you ever read “Refugee Resettlement Watch”?
My father was conscripted and fought in the Vietnam war.
He’s given me very few pieces of advice as a young boy.
Some were (in no particular order):
-
Knowledge is power.
-
Don’t ever compare a women to another women (not even to compliment her).
-
Don’t join the army. If you really want to - join the navy as they get to sleep in a bed at night (my father also like’s boats - go figure).
“But don’t join the army. Its shit. People try to shoot you all the time and you have to hike 40 miles every day with a 40 pound pack plus weapon plus ammunition. Its really shit, son.”
Spry:
Was your dad in the U.S. Army or Australian army?
The poor Aussies have gotten the shitty end of the stick in practically every war they’ve fought in (see Gallipoli). That might partially explain why he hated it. Then again, the Vietnam War wasn’t much fun for anyone.