RE: A Pattern is Emerging
August 20, 2017 at 9:07 pm
(This post was last modified: August 20, 2017 at 9:18 pm by Thumpalumpacus.)
(August 20, 2017 at 5:50 pm)Minimalist Wrote:(August 20, 2017 at 5:27 pm)Tazzycorn Wrote: [citation needed]
Yeah, as a matter of fact I would be surprised. We train soldiers....not murderers. And if a dickhead like you got through well it just goes to show that they have to tighten up their recruiting standards.
I've known plenty of Marines, served alongside a few on TDY and whatnot, and my experience is that like most service-members, they are decent people who take little gusto from their assigned duties even as they perform them with aplomb.
My own stepfather was a recon Marine in Vietnam, 65-66, a radioman doing LRRPs in an 81-man company. He earned the Bronze Star for his actions in a firefight where while pinned down by a VC sniper behind a railroad track, he was still able under fire to not only call in air support but to help direct the fall of fire.
He knew for a fact that he's killed three men, and that knowledge plagued him the rest of his life. (He died in 1990 in an industrial accident). He had been raised in Wyoming, hunting since the age of eight or nine, but after he came home from the war, he swore he'd never kill another thing -- and outside of spiders he kept that oath. "The only thing I shoot anymore is a camera, Darrell," he told me -- and lordy but what he was good at it!
I don't think he was exceptional, at all. Other combat vets I've known and worked with were also deeply moved by the fact that they'd killed another human, and while most of them were willing to do so again so long as they were serving the colors, I never heard a one of them look forward to the prospect with glee.
I should add that none of those I knew were snipers. There may be something else going on that I'm ignorant of.
(August 20, 2017 at 7:43 pm)Court Jester Wrote: If you think the military is loaded with morals and heart warming mindsets, you've clearly never been enlisted. I've never met a heart warming marine. Passionate, giving, caring yes, but only at a very limited level about very limited things.
I wasn't a Marine; I was Air Force. We were nevertheless under no illusions. Our mission, as we put it, was to "kill people and break things", and we did our mission well enough to merit commendation. I'm proud I served, but have mixed emotions about helping to kill people who may not have done anything worse than huddle in a bomb shelter.
I've met plenty of heart-warming individuals from all branches. I've met many who understood the gravity of our actions. I don't think I've met one who would join you on the Rio Grande to take target practice at civilians.
You should probably stick to speaking for yourself, rather than assuming that your views represent those of the American fighting man. It's easy to say you'd be happy shooting civvies while posting online, because talk is cheap. Forgive my skepticism.
