I'm sick of these false heroes

The BBQ Pit
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I’m old enough to have known plenty of Vietnam Vets and these guys are no more “heroes” than my dog. But, they love to perpetuate that myth because unfortunately many of them are losers who stayed in the military until they were retirement age and haven’t worked since age 37. Some of these old geezers had nothing, absolutely nothing else exciting in their lives, so they harken back 30 years ago like the high school football player who was a sports hero and dated the homecoming queen. I’m sick of it. I agree that lots of them were ruined because of the war and at the time I applauded Kerry for helping to get us out of that horrible, degrading, unwinnable war. He dared to say what was really going on over there. Half the troops were smoking MJ and “fragging” the young Lieutenants who were so inexperienced the troops had to kill them or be killed. At the time I had officers tell me half the men were high at morning roll call. Does anyone remember the name Lt. Calley? Are they stupid enough to think that was an isolated case? Why in hell do we glorify war? War is for old men to remember and young men to be smart enough to find another way. I read a story recently about Afghanistan and how, among other things, the mess hall and computers are plastered with “services provided by Haliburton”. Gee, I wonder who has something to gain? Why are we so blind while our men and women march off to be maimed or killed and families are pulled apart, children losing their parents forever, and we plaster American flags on our cars and houses, while the old men in washington sit back and count their ill-gotten gains? War is extraordinarily profitable for the right people. It’s like saying the king has no clothes to speak the truth. The war was a horrendous mistake and we cannot convert an Islamic nation into a Democracy. Why, when we have so many people in our own country that go to bed hungry, don’t have health insurance, clean water or a roof over their heads, why did we have to send our young people over to Iraq to die and spend billions and billions of dollars to save the Iraqi people? When you get paid take a look at the withholding from your pay and remember that a large part of it is going to the Iraqi war. Not only are we beginning to suffer financially now, we are mortgaging not only our future but the future of our children to pay for this war.

I just want to know if we are so appreciative of those who risk their lives for the ideals of some old coots in Washington, why they earn $15,000 a year, and some are even on food stamps, and Brittany Spears gets millions for wiggling her ass and screaming into a microphone. This hero stuff is all BS bigtime.

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And the Debate is…?

Sounds more like a BBQ Pitt rant, to me.

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Kerry’s glorious Vietnam adventures perhaps?

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Anyone who fights (voluntary or drafted) for this country deserves our respect, until we have good reason to doubt them. Some of them are heroes, others are not. For you to make a blanket statement that they are not heroes is simply ignorant on your part.

Being in the military is “work”.

Because, old men talking about times from their youth is strictly limited to Vietnam veterans. :rolleyes:

I’m already sick of you.

Ah, it was Kerry who was “fragging” himself with a grenade launcher and then collecting a purple heart afterwards for his trouble. Plus, please provide a cite that troops were killing their own officers regularly.

Haliburton provided the computer, Haliburton gets to put a sticker on the computer. Deal with it.

It’s called patriotism. Most Americans aren’t like you. They are proud of this country and all the great things about it.

Actually, I have no idea what you are saying. Being able to string together your thoughts into sentances and paragraphs that actually make sense seems to be beyond your ability.

Ah, your a racist too? Them dumb rag-heads are too stoopid to possibly be a democracy. :rolleyes:

It’s not the job of the federal government to make sure that no one goes to bed hungry, or has health insurance, or clean water or a place to live. These services are provided by the private sector. It’s called capitalism. If you want these things you need to buy them. If you need money to buy them then you will need to work. It is the job of the federal government to fund the military and protect the US and our interests abroad.

Cite that soldiers only get $15,000 a year?

Soldiers should be paid more, though. Us conservatives will be more than happy to cut some social spending programs to free up the budget to increase their pay. Which, of course, liberals like yourself would whine about.

There is some bigtime BS in this thread all right. It’s in the words of the OP. This rant isn’t suited for GD, and is idiotic by even pit standards.

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No, that would be Republican war hero Bob Dole who recieve a Purple Heart for a self-inflicted grenade wound.

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Yeah!! While those freakin PUSSIES were crawling around in rice paddies and pungie sticks the REAL heros were courageously taking their VM minibuses up that hazardous trail to Canada!

" I read a story recently about Afghanistan and how, among other things, the mess hall and computers are plastered with “services provided by Haliburton”. "

That’s what Haliburton does, stupid. The government outsources non-combat services to them so that the military can focus on what it does best - smoking weed and baby-killing.
And we don’t “send” our people anymore, they volunteer.

"Ah, your a racist too? Them dumb rag-heads are too stoopid to possibly be a democracy. "

No, she’s just too stupid to understand that Islam and democracy are not two mutually exclusive terms.

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Moderator’s Note: Moving to the BBQ Pit.

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Well, AruDad enlisted in 1939 and retired in 1969 as a full bird having gone mustang. He didn’t talk about the down side of his various duties other than a fairly casual discussion of WW2 and the holocaust when we had it covered in social studies in school, then we saw photos of what they found when they liberated a couple camps, and living conditions that they found in the cities as an aftermath of the war, and when the recruiters came to school he would discuss the changes in miltary home and ‘work’ life through his history [though I do remember 64-69 fairly well=)] and what a military career would mean. Never got into discussing his number of kills, or much of anything though he did have a hilarious explaination for a soldier of the month award he got for sitting on his can smoking in a truck keeping out of the cold=)]

And as to the $15k, I believe he is referring to retirement pay. I know mrAru gets 50% of his base pay averaged for the last 3 years of his enlistment, which is something on the order of $1300 a month, and certain vets benefits that were in his enlistment contracts. He is getting some form of disability for hearing loss and carpal tunnel [machinist mate on a sub, MMs always have a fair amount of hearing loss from the machinery, even using hearing protection and carpal comes from the repetative movements of tool use] so he is in some sort of job retraining program [he is getting his quality assurance and non destruct testing skills certified I think, and also getting college credit for certain bits of his training so it transfers to civillain life in a way that HR people can understand it.]

I do know that his military pay at E6 ofer 18, with all his sub pay, sea pay, housing allotments and such came to $34K a year, which given the sheer number of hours worked in a week [navy does NOT work a 40 hour week, you go in at oh my god in the morning, typically 7 am, and get out when the work is done, he could leave as early as 5pm, or midnight, and still have to be back in the next day at 7am…OR he could have the overnight watch and spend from 7 am one day to 5pm or later the next…he averaged an 80 hour work week most times.] And being told that the free housing and dependents benefits made up the difference for realistic pay for work performed never had to be a dependant trying to deal with the military hierarchy to get medical care for chronic problems either…

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You’re.
And did she say that? No. That was your strawman, dumbass.

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Either your dog saved Timmy from drowning in the well or you’re an obstreporous nit.

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The OP’s batshit enough without you putting words in her mouth.

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Easy on her, guys. What, none of you ever had any great profound revelations to share with the world when you were young? :wink:

Look, suez, as someone who has been part of the military now for almost 20 years, first as active duty, then as a dependent wife, and now as active duty again, and who intends to make this hitch last for 20 years (does that make me a loser, I wonder?), it would probably surprise you to know that I agree with one or two nuggets in your little screed.

There are quite a few veterans, many from the Vietnam era, who are quite happy to drape themselves with the mantle of ‘hero’. The vast majority of those who do this have no claim to it. Those who truly performed heroically tend not to talk about it all that much.

But you should know this. While the mere fact of being in the military doesn’t make you a hero, heroism does exist here, and plenty of it. If the evening news casts wanted to fill each night with nothing but heroic stories of service people, they could do so easily. Of course, they don’t do that, and I’m not saying they should, but my point is that the vast majority of these stories are ones that only a few people will ever know about. There are stories of acts so amazingly selfless and noble that it would break your heart to hear of it. And that’s part of why we do, sometimes, ‘glorify’ war. Does it bring out the worst in human nature? Sure does. But sometimes it brings out the most sublime and noble nature there is to be had.

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I’m thinkin’ it’s the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic aspect that’s giving us fits.

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Well, that and this annoying tendency that some people have to see the foreigners wearing matching outfits and walking around with guns as an invading army rather than bringers of peace and salvation.

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Very good, Lambchop. You have been on the SDMB long enough to hear some buzzwords and then parrot them back along with an insult. Unfortunately for you, you have no idea what the fuck you are talking about.

A strawman logical fallacy is when you construct a weaker argument of your opponent and then attack it. I did no such thing. I was simply pointing out the OP’s obvious racism of stating that an islamic country isn’t capable of democracy.

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America is NOT purely capitalist. We DO have welfare programs. The U.S. is a balance (however teeteringly so) between socialism and capitalism. If this were a purely capitalist government and society how would you expect the government to force people to go to war (you know, the draft, Debaser)?

suezeekay, I understand your rant. Some people that fought in Vietnam did some pretty horrible things. But they were living some pretty horrible things as well. Sure, there are probably some folks who are truly mean and self glorifying for no good reason, but not everyone is like that. People really can crack when faced with some grotesque experiences. The man that was recently sentenced for 8 months for his part in Abu Ghraib said he was told these men raped a 15 year old girl. While his actions are still inexcusable, if this is truly what he was led to believe you can see where he might have felt justified in humiliating these men for the girl’s sake.

Some people really do believe in their soul that they are helping. They are doing a noble thing by risking their lives to bring freedom to an oppressed people. And THAT is a noble thing. Others, like you and me, see how these people are pawns in the money-grubbing plans of our nations’ leaders. It’s sick and disgusting that people are actually making a profit from the death and misery of innocent people. But please don’t disgrace the few people who believe in a noble cause and give the ultimate sacrifice to keep us free. However misguided it seems to us that patriotism is in this modern world, without it we would not be here to enjoy our freedoms.
Here is a link to my favorite poem (as featured in another SDMB thread)

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Jeev, twern’t making a comment on the legitimacy of the war (which I oppose) but on the futility of attempting to encourage a country where ill-conceived borders constrain a religiously, ethnically and culturally disparate group with a history of violent bloodfueds to willfully embrace a democratic process.

That notion could understandably be perceived by some as insanely naive.

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Are you talking about Iraq in 2004 or the American colonies in the 1700’s?

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It’s interesting to see someone admit it. Usually people on the left are afraid to even use the “S” word. However, this current trend towards socialism is in violation of the US constitution.

So, the fact that we had a draft 35 years ago means that we don’t live in a capitalist society now? Sense this does not make.

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Look Yoda, if this were a real capitalist society there would not be government assistance to farmers and regulations on businesses. The tabacco industry, for example, would not be required to tell you anything about their research into cancer. You know about the whole concept of a monopoly? You know how it is illegal in the U.S.? Remember what happened to Microsoft? (Not that anything really happened to them, but the concept was there)

Are you serious? Or are you funnin’ with me? You can’t really think the U.S. is truly capitalist.

Go read Atlas Shrugged.