# Who were the last soldiers to actually "Fight for my freedoms"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 16, 2016, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070 "2016-09-16T08:52:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070/41 "2016-09-17T08:29:52Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Once again. Killing OBL defended American freedom because \ > > Please to fill in the blank. I’m comfortable with saying defeating Al Qaeda was defending our freedom. Because one of their end goals, even if not achievable, was to bring their version of Islam to America, which would entail a loss of freedom. I’m also comfortable with the attacks on the _current_ version of ISIL to be “defending our freedom” because they want to kill Westerners and try to do so. Defending your life may as well be defending your freedom. On the other hand, Saddam Hussein, and ISIL before they brought terrorism to the West, had no goals of actually attacking America. Same thing in Afghanistan once we had flushed out Al Qaeda. If the only thing that counts is an existential threat to the core of _already existing_ American freedoms, then the answer is _never_. The British were never going to conquer America in the War of 1812 and did not set out to do so. The South in the Civil War was never going to take away, by their attacks, any freedoms in the North that already existed. The Revolutionary War was a tax revolt, whipped into a revolution by the equivalent of right wing nuts who thought that _any_ taxation was tyranny. So I guess it was defending our right to…no taxes? Yay? (It did _turn into_ a defense of freedom due to British atrocities and the curtailing of local sovereignty.) ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070/42 "2016-09-17T11:04:45Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > The War of 1812 was a far better case for defending American freedom than any war since but the ACW. English law allowed impressment of English citizens into the navy, even after the American Revolution was over Americans were still considered born Englishmen by the crown and were impressed regularly. A British naval ship would stop an American merchant ship, decide it needed more sailors and take American citizens against their will. There were other factors at play, but this denial of human rights was rightfully a huge driving force to war. This is wrong on many levels. The War of 1812 was about American expansionism. They intended to steal territories in Canada and Florida and Indian territories. This was the main driving force behind the conflict. Canadians, British and Indians were fighting for freedom. Americans were fighting for conquest., and were 100% in the wrong. In addition to this, Britain was fighting Napoleon, and blockading trade with France and her allies. America demanded the right to trade with Napoleon. But any poor innocent merchant ship trying to trade with the tyrant would be fired upon, maybe impounded and the cargo confiscated. This was another cause for war, but it certainly wasn’t American freedom at stake. Quite the opposite. .Napoleon was a tyrant, by trading with him America was supporting Tyrany, and the British were fighting for freedom. As for the impressment of American sailors, you’ve distorted the facts somewhat. There was no policy of impressing American born citizens. They only impressed British-born sailors. Some of their recruits claimed to renounce their British origins, and take American citizenship. The crown did not recognize the claim. If a real American was impressed by error, he could appeal to the courts and be released. The Americans used this as an excuse for war, but it wasn’t a major cause. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070/43 "2016-09-17T11:37:11Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > the curtailing of local sovereignty. Before someone nitpicks, I mean “the limited freedoms of local government”, since “sovereignty” implies independence. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070/44 "2016-09-17T13:18:46Z")
> [@harmonicamoon](#): > > Did he have a trial? Was he extradictable? Did Admiral Yamamoto have a trail? ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070/45 "2016-09-17T13:19:54Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Once again. Killing OBL defended American freedom because \ > > Please to fill in the blank. Read above and do try to use a little imagination. ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070/46 "2016-09-17T13:35:46Z")
What a mess this thread is. It suffers from the beginning, from the fact that no one defined what “fighting for Americans Freedoms” means. After that, various people have done everything from making oblique political statements, to satirical asides, to moralizing about vague concepts versus resentment and revenge. I suspect a still unspecified hidden agenda was behind the original post, with various other unspecified agendas being the cause of a number of responses. For every war and most intense political struggles that Americans have been involved with, there have been significant opponents who claimed, sometimes correctly, that the battles or other actions of those championing the fight, were unnecessary or even duplicitously arranged. Since a lot of time and effort is put into PROPAGANDIZING every war and other conflict, by everyone involved with it, it can require a great deal of work, of education, and of insight, to even begin to figure out whether the struggle was what it was said to be over, or not. And too, no matter what the struggle was actually about primarily, there have always been people who worked hard to take personal advantage of the fact that it was occurring, and adding more lies and exaggerations to the propaganda, thus confusing things even more. Because it is ALSO true, that most of the time, the people who ARE leading the charges for the right reasons, refuse to point out the miscreants who are profiteering, for fear of confusing and reducing the effort being made to fight the important battles. So. What do people REALLY want to talk about here? ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070/47 "2016-09-17T14:35:14Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > I suspect a still unspecified hidden agenda was behind the original post, with various other unspecified agendas being the cause of a number of responses. In the interest of full disclosure, what inspired me to start this thread because I have been seeing a lot of annoying posts on my Facebook feed lately. Basically, the gist of them being: “How dare you take a knee before the anthem! You’re disrespecting our soldiers who are fighting for our freedoms!” So I figured I’d have a discussion about it here. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070/48 "2016-09-17T14:49:22Z")
[quote=“Peter\_Morris, post:42, topic:766070”] In addition to this, Britain was fighting Napoleon, and blockading trade with France and her allies. America demanded the right to trade with Napoleon. …Quite the opposite. .Napoleon was a tyrant, by trading with him America was supporting Tyrany, and the British were fighting for freedom. [quote] The british were fighting for freedom? How? Whose? It was in name of freedom they were restoring the House of Bourbon and the arch conservatives? ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070/49 "2016-09-17T15:48:10Z")
[quote=“Ramira, post:48, topic:766070”] [quote=“Peter\_Morris, post:42, topic:766070”] In addition to this, Britain was fighting Napoleon, and blockading trade with France and her allies. America demanded the right to trade with Napoleon. …Quite the opposite. .Napoleon was a tyrant, by trading with him America was supporting Tyrany, and the British were fighting for freedom. > [@](#): > > The british were fighting for freedom? > How? Whose? > It was in name of freedom they were restoring the House of Bourbon and the arch conservatives? I’d also strongly question the idea that Napoleon was a “tyrant” compared to the leaders of most European countries at the time. I’m not an admirer but I’d certainly say he was far less of a tyrant than France’s previous rulers and also far less than the leaders of Prussia, Russia and Britain’s other allies during the war. Based on Morris’ logic, Britain was supporting tyranny based on who she was allied with at that time. I’d recommend Peter rethink his argument because it doesn’t come across terribly well. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070/50 "2016-09-17T15:50:16Z")
The Axis did have ‘some’ plans to invade and conquer the US. However the Nazis couldn’t even invade and conquer Britain, so I have no idea how valid a threat that was. If you are a black person in the south, the civil war was fought for your freedom. Other than that. Not sure. ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070/51 "2016-09-17T17:17:53Z")
Some historical notes related to this: You know how Bush said we needed to invade Iraq, because we wanted to fight the bad guys over there, so that we wouldn’t have to wait and fight them over here? Well, whether you think he was right or not in that instance (I don’t), that was the reason behind why a number of the wars and “police actions” Americans were sent to fight in occurred following WW2. One of the big “lessons” of WW2, was based on how appeasment failed as a strategy, and how waiting until the war was actually at your doorstep, was probably a bad idea. The most common story told even now about the lead up to the part of WW2 that happened in Europe, is that if we’d just kicked the Germans in the nuts when they militarized the Rhineland, the rest of the mess would have been avoided. This thinking contributed heavily to what became known as the Domino Theory, that was used to justify why we needed to have our people fight and die in Southeast Asia. The thing is, related to this discussion, is that the INTENT behind the action, is what decides whether or not our military was or was not fighting for American Freedom or safety. Not the outcome. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070/52 "2016-09-17T17:54:49Z")
This thread is what happens when you debate a bumper sticker. The job of the soldier is to protect the state. If an ordinary American is defended by a soldier killing someon, it was incidental. The number of these incidents is vanishingly small when you compare it to the number of people American soldiers have killed. ---
**Author:** ![nachtmusick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ac91a4/32.png) [@nachtmusick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nachtmusick)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2016, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070/53 "2016-09-18T07:27:30Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > In the interest of full disclosure, what inspired me to start this thread because I have been seeing a lot of annoying posts on my Facebook feed lately. Basically, the gist of them being: “How dare you take a knee before the anthem! You’re disrespecting our soldiers who are fighting for our freedoms!” > So I figured I’d have a discussion about it here. You have not had one. The only coherent thing said to date is that this a mess of a thread. Freedoms are not cheap. We lost some after 9-11, and no army could have stopped us from giving them up. Whether or not we cede more freedom in the future is up to us, as Americans. If we do lose more freedoms, it will be because we lose faith in ourselves as a nation rather than from any outside threat. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Arthias](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f19dbf/32.png) [@Dr.Arthias](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Arthias)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2016, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070/54 "2016-09-19T12:34:29Z")
OP, actually much longer than 40 years. It never has been about real freedom. There’s a great lecture by Howard Zinn available online (his very last one, actually) called “Holy Wars”. Might be of interest to you. He talks about the three wars which tend to be deemed almost universally as being above criticism: WWII, the American Civil War and the American Revolutionary War. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2016, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070/55 "2016-09-19T22:38:46Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > The thing is, related to this discussion, is that the INTENT behind the action, is what decides whether or not our military was or was not fighting for American Freedom or safety. Not the outcome. That seems way too hard to define – “intent” or “American freedom”. Whose intent? The publicly reported intent or the true one which may differ from that? The soldier who does what he or she is told because they have some noble intent and think that by following the orders, they are fulfilling it? You could say the “intent” of invading Iraq was to protect America from those threatening it. But if the threat is a disruption of an affordable economy based on oil, is that enough of a threat to “American freedom” – freedom to live a lifestyle? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-last-soldiers-to-actually-fight-for-my-freedoms/766070.md?page=2)