ohhhh the pun... makes my morning coffee go down smoothly.
All kidding aside.... I have a different idea of what constitutes a hero.
Enlisting in the military is not what makes you a Hero. Your actions while in the military determine that. The doctor in Bahgdad tending to the broken fingernail of the General's wife is no hero. The doctors on the front line attempting to triage under fire are the heroes.
The soldier sitting at a desk or pouring the Generals coffee isn't the hero. The soldier gutting it out in a foxhole while keeping up morale amongst his buddies, is a hero.
Is my perspective really that reprehensible? Or is the cynical manipulation and overuse of the adjective "hero" the reprehensible act?
Of course, from my perspective, the truly reprehensible act was committed by an administration that lied their way into the horrible horrible cesspool this war has become.
The U.S. Military Past and Present... We wouldn't have our freedoms if they had not given up their own Freedoms just to fight for Ours..Lets not forget they don't get much pay to start and the risks are heavy . Its not for their pay but for their love of our country.. And to think some people call a Sports star a hero who makes millions in a year... Sad to say but lots of priorities mixed up in America.. Three Cheers for the U.S.Military!!
Every babe who puts out on the 1st date is a hero.
Guys who sign up to work for $20K on account of patriotism, when they could be making $200K for a 40 hour week with the same work on account of KBR, aren't heroes - they're schmucks.
Damn, I know I am going to hate myself in the morning, but I agree with Jacko. There was a time when virtually every able bodied male(myself included)served their time in the military. Some were drafted, some enlisted(I enlisted). It didn't make us heroes, it was just a fact of life.
Not to take anything away from those in uniform, but not everyone who serves is a hero.
pimping?
While Quad is clearly playing to the gallery, the point is that it's damned hard to explain to a LCpl @ $20K/year why he should be on call 24/7 for any kind of shit, when down the road, KBR is hiring his buddies for 6 figures for 40 hours. And it's also hard to explain why we're contracting out foreign policy.
There's 2 things going on here: 1st, we are way undervaluing troops. 2nd, the war is gutting the Treasury. Defense contractors are so fucking wasteful it's hard to know where to start, and that's the honest ones.
The real dilemma is, do people want this war enough to pay the blood and money?
The question even before that is, should we be doing this before we catch Osama?
The questions are rhetorical, obviously.
Jacko you don't have a clue about patriotism or pride..I can see you now at work turning in hours but not turning in productivity..So your idea of a hero is based on how much they make?
you could read & regret - if you were fucking literate.
You forget - I AM the boss, because I'm so fucken brilliant I can get my work and yours done too in half the time, and fuck with you and it's STILL easy.
ohhhh the pun... makes my morning coffee go down smoothly.
All kidding aside.... I have a different idea of what constitutes a hero.
Enlisting in the military is not what makes you a Hero. Your actions while in the military determine that. The doctor in Bahgdad tending to the broken fingernail of the General's wife is no hero. The doctors on the front line attempting to triage under fire are the heroes.
The soldier sitting at a desk or pouring the Generals coffee isn't the hero. The soldier gutting it out in a foxhole while keeping up morale amongst his buddies, is a hero.
Is my perspective really that reprehensible? Or is the cynical manipulation and overuse of the adjective "hero" the reprehensible act?
Of course, from my perspective, the truly reprehensible act was committed by an administration that lied their way into the horrible horrible cesspool this war has become.
Except for the fact that you're a communist and you want the goverment to take my business away from me, we agree on many things.
Simply enlisting in the armed forces does not make one a hero, almost every male near or over fifty served in one form or the other. Not all of them or even most of them were heroes. I served, and I can assure you, I was definitely not a hero and neither were most of the guys I served with. I was just a part of life. The right calls them heroes, the left calls them murderers, the truth is somewhere in between.
If there's a war, we either (a) beat the drums and hire kids @ $20K, or draft them, or (b) hire mercenaries.
Draft has obvious complications. It makes people decide if they really want to be at war. It makes Congressmen scramble for Natl Guard slots, and everybody starts applying to grad school, and grad school, etc.
There's a lot of genuine patriotism, especially when people feel like (a) there is a real threat, and (b) the leadership is half-assed competent and responsible.
But it's also true that young men have always used the military as a way out - join the Navy & see the world, join the Marines or go to jail, or just plain get a job shooting for the Army instead of packing sausage for Swift. So what if the motivations coincide? Just give them honest leadership and a fair chance to come back alive.
OR (b) we can hire mercenaries. Usually these aren't organized to do much of anything larger than squad level, or nothing with really serious firepower, like armed aircraft, artillery, tanks, etc.
Usually they just run security for contracting operations, which is where the real money is. These rentacops make 6 figures, but the REAL money seems to be in brokering & managing inflated costs for buildings that keep getting destroyed and rebuilt, and rebuilt, and rebuilt. If the contractors make 6 figures, the stockholders aren't getting less, proportionally.
So what we're talking about here is costs that are amazing, and impact that is problematic. Practically speaking, these people run the ground level foreign policy. The idea is, build a school and the locals will love you.
Bullshit. The locals didn't ask you to do shit, and they're just as likely to use it for a toilet when you leave. It's all politics to justify a particular party's claim to be doing something, while in fact what they are doing is feeding their campaign contributors.
Then of course tax cuts is bullshit, because the new debt creates inflation sooner or later (unless the money is taken out of circulation other ways, which gets around to the same thing) which of course IS a tax, but it hits those with the least ability the hardest.
Of course the blue collar (esp in the South) has a long history of "sucking it up" because that's the culture, and it's not always a bad thing.
But when you get asshole leaders, like the Jesus preachers, getting in bed with the asshole politicians and asshole crony capitalists, to deliver the votes so they can fuck the people who are sucking it up, that's just plain self-destructive.
What *I* want to see, is the leadership sharing the hardships, leadership that DOES know where it was when the shit hit the fan, who DOESN'T have other priorities. THEN you would see them developing some brains, I guess.
But that's gonna happen about when hell freezes over.
Meanwhile, the only complaint anybody has had about a Democrat in office for the last 25 years is that one of them got a blowjob. Seems to me that blowjobs all around might solve a whole lot more of our problems than the Republicans have, but in any case, it's time to give the Democrats a chance to fuck things up.
Seriously, I don't think we'e had as corrupt administration as this one since the 20s, and those people had the good sense not to go off and start a war that tied up the entire army the other side of the world. I think that (a) there's no way they can pull this one out, even buying off militias is limited (b) it will be a watershed in world history by uniting most of the 3rd world against us while isolating us from western allies who don't want to be entangled, and so (c) GWBush's place as the worst president of all time is pretty safe - who else fucked things up so thoroughly?
I'm not a Communist. Communism always has been, and always will be nothing more than a Red Herring.
I do admit to some viewpoints that appear socialist on the surface, but are actually from a much older philosophy as taught by Rabbi Hillel the Elder. To Whit: That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?
He's pushing his yellow ribbon franchise.
Different people have different ideas, but I'm probably the easiest to please here - anybody that hangs in there and does what he thinks is right is pretty close.
As for your definition, most people don't choose their duty station. Joe DiMaggio played ball in Hawaii in WW2. It wasn't his fault the brass didn't want to risk him. All I expect is for a person to answer up loud & clear when duty calls.
GA is right, most people are just regular joes doing what they have to. I wouldn't take them for granted though, because they get things done. A lot of medals of honor have gone to guys who were doing what they had to.
Like you, the people I do fault are the leadership. 5 Deferments Dick and his buddy AWOL don't deserve people like Douglas Zembiec: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/16/AR2007051602860.html
Quad and the likes of him, treat these men like so much entertainment. It's fucking obscene.
here I was thinking it had something to do with actual service, not running yer FUCKING MOUTH!!!!!!!!!!!
I can see why you like the Republicans then, and how you fit right in with your Prez & Veep: all tough talk, but no brains or balls. You depend on the balls of the poor schlubs who have no brains, who actually sign up thinking that you might have 0.1% of their patriotism.
But all you have is a fucking yellow ribbon franchise.