You’d be hard pressed to convince me that my freedoms were ever in any real danger over the past 40 or so years. So, when was the last time a soldier actually fought for American freedoms?
WWII?
1812 or 1865, depending on how you choose.
Or perhaps the Civil Air Patrol and Atlantic Fleet in WW2.
Maybe the guys/gals sitting inside ICBMs launch complexes?
The Air Forces on 9/11?
Depends on how you quantify.
I would say WW II. The US would have been fine if Korea had been lost, save for some cheap car imports being lost. Vietnam was indeed a loss, rendering the lives lost wasted. Afghanistan may have been cathartic, but bombing would have been a whole lot cheaper. Iraq was the single biggest mistake in history. Defeating the Nazis was indeed imperative and in my opinion the last time US blood was shed in the cause of freedom.
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Iraq was the single biggest mistake in history.
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A wee bit debatable. But Hitler’s happy you let him off the hook for invading the Soviet Union in 1941.
Fighting for the cause of freedom is not necessarily the same as fighting intelligently for the cause of freedom, as a number of wars since WWII illustrate.
My apologies, I meant in US history. Yes, Hitler was a fool for invading the USSR.
Agreed that the conflicts the US has been involved in over the last 50-60 years have not necessarily had a direct impact on our freedom.
And a lot of hindsight is 20/20.
The problem we face is if we are the strongest force of good in the world, are there any responsibilities for that? We see it often in the super hero movies, Superman is so powerful and realizes that he must use that power for good, but he is not omniscient, so sometimes he makes mistakes and does other damage.
What if a bully is picking on a weaker kid? Do you step in and stop them?
What is a man is beating up his girlfriend? Do you stop him?
What if someone is beating a dog? Do you stop that person?
At what point do we decide a problem has gotten large enough that intervention is necessary?
Clearly in the past some major powers went unchecked long enough that it became a world issue. So we felt we had to get involved to protect others, our way of life, etc.
What if we left Sadam alone and he and other middle east countries started to ban together and started threatening Israel or others that were not a part of them?
At one point Hitler would have seemed a joke, until he wasn’t.
I don’t care to be the big brother to the world, but again, if someone is bullying someone else, what do you do? Help or walk away and say “not my problem”.
Some people think that some elements of the cold war was a fight for our freedom.
How about the entire Cold War?
No platoons of American soldiers actually bled and died fighting for America’s freedom.*
But millions of soldiers were on duty, ready to fight, and to fire their weapons immediately–if it became necessary.
And that readiness is what kept America and the entire western world free from losing its freedom.
The best way to win a fight is to be ready, and scare your enemy enough that he runs away from the fight before it begins…
So, Grrr, all the millions of US soldiers stationed in, say, Germany, for 30 years were fighting for your freedom, every time they rehearsed their training on the firing range.And the same is true for the soldiers back home in Iowa, training in the underground missile silos.
Give 'em some respect.
*I’m not counting Vietnam,because the OP seems to be asking about soldiers who fought directly for the freedom of the USA. The loss of Vietnam to communist control did not damage America’s freedom. But the loss of Germany and Europe to communist control would have damaged America.
(on edit–I see that Damuri beat me by 2 minutes 
First off, I have plenty of respect for what our soldiers do. But let’s not call it something that it isn’t. Soldiers of the past forty or so years were risking their lives for American interests. Our freedoms were not one of them.
Saying an Iraq vet went and did what he or she did so I could continue to have the right to practice whatever religion I want to, or have the freedom to speak my mind seems ridiculous to me.
The soldiers that killed OBL were fighting for our freedom.
I’d also argue that the soldiers who have been fighting ISIS have been “fighting for our freedom”. Want to be able to attend your gay nightclub in Florida or your office Christmas party in San Bernadino without getting shot? We need to defeat ISIS, or at least make the ideology not seem so attractive.
I’d say Afghanistan, or even the operations against ISIS, though it depends on exactly what you mean by ‘Fight for my freedoms’, which is pretty nebulous.
Your ‘freedoms’ are always in danger, both internally and externally. They are constantly under attack by someone. Whether you are pro or anti abortion, or pro or anti free speech, freedom of the press, assembly, gun, whatever, there is always someone who is fighting against or for those things, so it’s going to depend on your perspective whether they are adding to or taking away your ‘freedoms’. Externally, there are certainly groups who want to impinge on you in one way or another, directly or indirectly. So, in this respect, I’d say that today was the soonest a soldier ‘fought’ to protect your ‘freedoms’…they did so by simply patrolling in the South China Sea or being stationed in Europe or Japan or the myriad other places they are, by being deployed to Poland in a show of force to keep Russia from getting more froggy and by doing all the other stuff they do.
Why not Korea?
In a broad sense, don’t fighter/bomber/drone pilots count as “soldiers?”
I disagree with this. ISIS is not a threat to us. The only reason they are ab;e to recruit home grown American Muslims is because there is so much bigotry Muslim Americans have to deal with.
Take away the bigotry and ISIS loses all it’s power to do harm here in the states.
Do you not think that the terrorists on 9/11 were trying to take our freedoms away?
Because there are thousands of Americans who died that day who aren’t free to do a damn thing.
I think you are showing the error of “mirror imaging” here - namely, thinking that one’s opponent thinks the same way that one does. Or misunderstanding ISIS’ motives.
Islamic terrorists frequently couch their views in terms of the Palestine issue, the downfall of “The Great Satan,” an Islamic caliphate (“khilafah,”) etc. And what about the Pulse attack? The gays at Pulse were hardly the emblem of Islamophobia, yet that’s the target that ISIS went after.
Furthermore, it’s too late. Even if America stopped its prejudice against Muslims right now, there has already been enough prejudice in the past for ISIS to continue further attacks, saying, “We are avenging *past *misdeeds against our brethren.”
You can’t be serious. President Obama has all but hugged every Muslim over the last 7 years, under the exact belief you outlined. That big bad Bush was a bad bad man, and if only we were nice as you outlined, they’d leave us alone.
How is that working for you?
Army/Navy/Marines/Air Force: Last time they really fought for our nation was WW2.
Coast Guard: They save lives and stop criminals every single day.
No.
I disagree on both counts. Do you believe the press was freer to opine on whatever topic they felt before or after the Charlie Hebdo attack?
The San Bernardino shooters weren’t victims of bigotry. He was born in Chicago, attended Cal State, and got a cushy job with the county government. She had been granted a green card just months before the attack.
You’re doing some serious victim-blaming here.