MrDumpkins said:
Owyn_Merrilin said:
MrDumpkins said:
omega 616 said:
I don't think I would go whole hog and pay $250 to bury a guy I don't know. If there was a dude who had done some impressive stuff, I'd certainly throw the dude a bone if I could.
I don't mean to nasty but the guys who were the first to charge off the boats on D day, didn't actually do much... They allowed other soldiers to advance but all they did was die (was like "operation meat shield" ). If a guy did something that made you go "Daym, dude is THE manly man!" then I think he should have a big ass ceremony.
Although, I think people in WW1 AND WW2 are fucking hero's but these modern day wars seem more like bullies.
This is the most unbelievable thing I have ever read. Do you understand what those soldiers gave up? Everything. They'll never get to experience what a full life is, they might not have wanted to be in that battle, or the war. But their sacrifice was real.
Think about what you have, what you're going to have. Now imagine giving it all up, never getting to experience what life has to offer. Not everyone amounts to something, but everyone has the potential. They gave that potential up so that others could have it instead.
No poor dumb bastard ever became a hero by dying for his country. He did it by making some other poor dumb bastard die for his.
Or to put it another way, they only made that sacrifice because some other soldier was willing to pull the trigger, and they in turn probably killed more than their share. There could be no wars without willing soldiers, and propaganda to the contrary, that's not an oversimplification. It's the unvarnished truth, which is just too horrifying for most people to consider. In the absolute best case scenario, a soldier's job is to commit justifiable homicide in order to defend his own borders. In a more realistic scenario, they're murderers who invade other countries to benefit a few bastards at the top. It's been over 60 years since a soldier in my country's military actually did anything to defend me. Why the hell should I support the murders committed by the modern military because my grandfather actually fought in a war of defense? His was the last generation that did.
Those poor "insurgents" in the middle east, on the other hand...
Captcha: army training, sir!
Oh fuck off with the propaganada, captcha. I'm not in the mood. Although nice going on giving an example of just how much money and effort goes into normalizing this crap.
It's just like you said, respect the individual soldier, he is doing his job. Everyone has to make a living. If you have problems with the army in general, then it's the high command you want to go after. Their the ones who sit in their chair in safe room moving around peoples lives (friendly and enemy) like their chess pieces. I am in full agreement that we haven't been in a needed war since WW2.
So then you're in full agreement that the modern military is nothing but a bunch of hired thugs who, if they had a shred of decency, would lay down their arms and refuse to follow orders? Because right now the job they're doing is not at all worthy of respect, and respecting the individual soldier in this day and age is nothing but accepting the nuremberg defense, in a society where we don't kill soldiers for not following orders, no less. The Nazi's didn't give their soldiers that cushy chance of just sitting in a jail cell, and it was still ruled that "just following orders" was no excuse. That makes it even worse that we don't hold that standard to our own troops.
You can't blame the military without blaming the troops. It just doesn't work that way. It may be a big blame that each person holds a tiny part of, but they still have that tiny part. We have altogether too much respect for the soldier in this country, and not enough of that healthy fear of him that was so common prior to World War II.
Edit: Maybe this will make my stance a bit clearer:
Universal Soldier
He's five foot-two, and he's six feet-four,
He fights with missiles and with spears.
He's all of thirty-one, and he's only seventeen,
Been a soldier for a thousand years.
He'a a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn't kill,
And he knows he always will,
Kill you for me my friend and me for you.
And he's fighting for Canada,
He's fighting for France,
He's fighting for the USA,
And he's fighting for the Russians,
And he's fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way.
And he's fighting for Democracy,
He's fighting for the Reds,
He says it's for the peace of all.
He's the one who must decide,
Who's to live and who's to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.
But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can't go on.
He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from here and there and you and me,
And brothers can't you see,
This is not the way we put the end to war.
