Well, sure. I guess if you wanna get that broad about it: When I joined up in 2006, we were already rebuilding. I had no part in the invasion, and regardless of how I felt about the original impetus of war, we had then a responsibility to rebuild, so yeah. I supported THAT mission, at least more than I supported going to jail and never having a good job again.
True, most JOBS have little chance of getting shot at. The real danger comes from mortar attacks and IEDs.
The most populous job in the US military, though, is infantry.
What percentage of Canada’s current military have ever been to Afghanistan?
The way I heard it, most people in the military have office jobs in their own country, with negligible chance that they will ever be anywhere near the fighting.
Cite, please?
About 55,000 ish total deployments, but this does not consider multiple tours.
Currently, we have about 950 people in Kabul in a primarily mentoring/training role. The CF has about 60,000 members in the Regular Force and about 20,000 in the Primary Reserve Force.
I do have a higher regard for these types than for others. At the risk of merely repeating others - when you run out, they run in. Not to lessen other professions but how can you not have a little more respect (or regard or whatever yo want to call it) for someone who knowingly puts his or her own life in jeopardy to help you at a time when are unable or unwilling to do so yourself?
Because they don’t believe that they are being helped. There’s at least one here who thinks I’m morally deficient for being in the us army, despite being a medic. My whole mission is helping folks, but that doesn’t matter, because Iraq.
See, this is an argument frequently advanced by soldiers, and it’s always wrong, unless they were conscripted.
Of COURSE you chose where you went, dude.
You enlisted some time after the start of the war. You knew when you signed the contract that the war was going on, and that you might be sent to it. You have made a positive choice to be part of it.
And don’t you get a chance every couple of years to renew your contract, or leave? If you don’t like the Iraq war, you have had a chance to leave it, without penalty, without going to prison.
I make an exception in the case of conscripts. Someone who was given the choice of Viet Nam or prison can tell me that he was forced to go, against his will. You can’t say that.
I haven’t read the thread, but I’ll offer an answer to the OP. While I think they deserve a certain amount of respect by default, I think it’s been blown out of proportion. The policeman, fireman, soldier, have been idealized, than idolized. What I mean is that there has been tendency to view each of them as if you’re viewing the very, very best of them. This can be seen with the loose and cavalier use of the term “heroes” when these groups are referred to. The fact of the matter is that a tiny fraction of them are heroes, meaning that only a tiny fraction of them have ever been put into a situation where heroics were called upon (thank goodness) and then rose to the occasion. Most of these guys go about there jobs rather routinely, with nothing extraordinary happening to them. Which is a good thing. so while they may do their jobs extremely well and show bravery and professionalism, they’re not all heroes. Also, there are a good number of guys in any of these groups who are assholes. Just like the assholes you find in any occupation. Even the cops know that some of their fellow cops are assholes. Same with soldiers and firemen. So, while I give them a default amount of respect, I’m very slow to idolize them. Or idealize them.
So then you’d condemn the soldiers who hit the beaches at Normandy who were volunteers as “thugs” but not the soldiers drafted to fight in Vietnam?
“Teaching a lesson” through the instigation of violence is a brutish overreaction. Yell, curse, do whatever you need to do short of battery, and walk away. Even assholes deserve not to get punched in the face, except as necessary for self-defense (which post-spitting “education” is not).
Spitting is a physical attack. If I were on a jury and the spitter got smashed in the face with a two-by-four by his target and lost all his teeth, I’d let the guy off. I’d agree with you as far as fighting words with words, but if you escalate it to physical confrontation, you ceded the high ground to the other person.
No I wouldn’t.
You keep claiming I said this.
Try to understand that it is your own fantasy.
You have been invited to explain that statement several times, but so far you haven’t answered.
Please tell us, how the Iraq war helps anyone.
As long as the topic is fantasy, have you got a cite for your claim that most people in the military have office jobs in their own country?
Sure, in some sense. But just because one guy starts a physical attack doesn’t give the other guy the right to engage in arbitrary physical attacks in response, beyond what self-defense would allow for. Unless there’s some danger of being spit on again, there’s no call to punch the guy in the face; and even if there is some danger of being spit on again, there’s only call for the minimum requisite force to prevent this (which quite possibly involves, dunh dunh dunh, walking away).
Ridiculous.
Ceding high ground is not carte blanche for others to then do to you whatever they like. Beating a total jerk is more understandable than beating a nice guy, but no more morally acceptable.
I never said you said this.
I’m merely taking you at your word.
You’ve claimed that soldiers are “thugs” and condemned those who “signed up to kill” whoever they were ordered to.
Logically, that would include American soldiers fighting against Nazi Germany.
Why would you decide to give them an exemption from your claim that all soldiers are “thugs” unworthy of respect?
Well, Peter’s whole point, if I understand him correctly, is that soldiers who knowingly sign up to fight unjustified wars are unworthy of respect. If Peter thinks America’s involvement in WWII was just, he is perfectly free to consistently consider the American volunteers for WWII as worthy of respect.
Indeed, he does:
TV programs have created a myth of cops’ firemen and soldiers all being heroes who solve all our problems with little personal gain in an hour. Our doctors get the same treatment on Tv and have since Dr. Kildare long ago. They get great press.
They are just people like any other. There are good ones and bad.
They suffer from their idea that an attack against one cop is an attack against all. They should not protect the bad ones. They should root them out .
I’ll make this very simple for you.
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People who fought Hitler because they oppose Hitler = heroes.
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People who oppose the war in Iraq, but fight in Iraq for a salary = thugs.
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People who opposed the war in VietNam, but went to VietNam as an alternative to prison = victims
clear?