Dodged a bullet today

[fett]

That's right. Newc the bastards.:ROTF: I'm sorry for the bad pun, but my day hasn't been very much fun.

[Newc]

Newc, that's a pretty lame thing to say. You have said on a number of occasions that this war is good - how about you put your ass on the line?

I'm not military material. I don't acknowledge authority, and I don't agree with letting the enemy live. I disagree with the traditional military tactics of sending out a platoon to find and be killed by an autonomous 5-man squad. I firmly support the idea of total subjugation of the enemy and its people, and in a "Holy War", the destruction of all religious sites which are used as staging areas for the enemy.

And I strongly disagree with the idea of Politicians telling our military to keep World Opinion and P.R. on their minds. We've lost too many Americans due to worrying about World Opinion and how it looks on CNN.

Children fight. If anyone believes you have to "fight" a war, they have no business doing it, or offering their opinion on it. You either win a war or you lose a war, you cannot "fight" a war. The only way to win a war is to kill the other guy and break the spirit of his people so they do not seek war.

The purpose of war is not to die, but to kill. Commence with the full-scale obliteration of Iraq, and I may consider signing up.


Do NOT try to lay that guilt-trip off on me, Tim. I didn't sign the sheet, I didn't take the oath. Those that did are obligated to fulfill that contract. It's that simple. It's not the same as buying a guitar or car or marrying your high school whore and then changing your mind. It's an affirmation that you are willing to do whatsoever you are asked to do without question, hesitation, or remorse.

Ollie North was a good soldier. He did what he was ordered to do. Whether it was morally corrupt makes no difference. He did what he was ordered to do.

Now, if you'd have skipped on down to my reply to his clarification that he was not specifically trained for bomb duty, you would have known that your post was not needed.

While I'm a firm believer in signing the paper and taking oath obligates one to duty, I firmly disagree with a 2-week course in homemade-bomb-disposal and then being dropped in the field. If he hasn't been trained since his first day out of Boot Camp to deal with IEDs, there's no intelligent reason to assign him that task unless they just want another body on the pile.

[fett]

The Prez is just running out of people. That's why he is calling up the National Guard. And anyone else. There are a lot of vets out there that have a card that indicates they can be hauled out of retirement. I have seen one of them. This shit has to stop.

[Rsmacker]

I'm not military material. I don't acknowledge authority, and I don't agree with letting the enemy live. I disagree with the traditional military tactics of sending out a platoon to find and be killed by an autonomous 5-man squad. I firmly support the idea of total subjugation of the enemy and its people, and in a "Holy War", the destruction of all religious sites which are used as staging areas for the enemy.

Etc Etc.

Well said that man!

I think the recruiters are well out of order, certainly over here, they try to get you to sign up to the Forces by telling you what a spiffing wheeze it is, how you are part of a team, everything is dandy, and you can learn to be a welder/carpenter/blah blah whatever. Kind of like a tradesman's apprenticeship, only you get to go all over the world! Sounds great!
They should emphasise more the fact you are also signing up to quaking in your boots as some Yankee cowboy in an A10 strafes your armoured column (sorry chaps!), as well as lots of blood, gore and dead children etc. Basically, all the stuff that they play down, but which is part and parcel of warfare.
And don't come back minus a leg and demand loadsa compensation, sorry, you took the Queen's Shilling, have been paid to put your life (and limb) on the line. From day one history is full of fuckwit commanders who threw their mens' lives away, that's what you sign up to, it will never be a "safe" career move, unless you can specifically get a contract which states you won't serve in any "hot" zones (yeah, like there is a contract like that!) When your balls turn green and drop off thanks to breathing in DU dust, well, that's just the way it is.
I wouldn't trust anyone who wanted me to be their cannon fodder, so I never joined up. Anyone wishing to be completely immune from any chance of being sent off to become a statistic should also refrain from signing the form, simple as that!

That said Drock, I hope you manage to avoid it all, especially if you aren't an expert!


Personally, if I had joined up, and the chance was there that I might be shipped out to Iraq, I'd go into the office with no shirt on, a Rambo headband and a big fuck-off machine gun in my hand and tell them I wanna go and kill some rag-heads, ANY rag-heads, ALL rag-heads, please let me go and do some anti-partisan cleansing operations.
They'd shit themselves and send me somewhere nice and quiet, like Scotland, and send someone a little more stable out to Iraq who is more into being "human" to civilians and building wells and all that nonsense.

The idea of me rampaging round Iraq liquidating schools and markets full of "insurgents" and wearing necklaces made of ears would probably be a bridge too far for the PR boys and the Top Brass and guarantee me a nice quiet posting looking at Guillemots or something.


Then again, knowing my luck I'd be on the next plane out there, armed with an "Idiots Guide to IEDs", a Leatherman and a BB gun.

[Shawn Lutz]

good luck and keep your head up.

I can understand where Newc is comng from here but I don't see this as joining the military and then being shocked you gotta fight a war...albeit someone elses war. I admit that does piss me off...folks joining the military to get an education and tranining for personal growth on uncle sams tab but cry about it when they are sent to active duty....folks...the military is a group of people who may have ot fight wars..there a risk there so think befre you sign the dotted line.

People can have change of hearts all the time. I was for this war initially...the longer it went on the more I change my mind to get the fuck on out of there cause whatever we do there is NOT going to matter very much in the grand scheme of things other that sticking our noses out, youth getting killed daily and getting a little cheaper oil. Democracy works here for us, just because it works somewhere does not mean it will work everywhere and in that region of the world NOTHING will work so let it be what it will be.

I'm sick of US being the world police....yeah..let me go fix my neighbors roof while mine leaks like a motherfucker....let me go pay my neighbors bills while I default on mine....let me give free room and board and medical services for guests and fuck over people born here. oops...sorry for the rant

[Baum83]

It's an affirmation that you are willing to do whatsoever you are asked to do without question, hesitation, or remorse.

Ollie North was a good soldier. He did what he was ordered to do. Whether it was morally corrupt makes no difference. He did what he was ordered to do.

So you're implying that the SS killer squads who arbitrarily hung partisans, non-combatants, Jews, and countless minorities alike were also good soldiers who simply obeyed orders and are not to blame for their actions that were clearly wrong, did not support the war effort in any way and are, apart from making not much if any military sense, morally despicable?
Just some food for thought for Newc, and anyone else who would agree with him that soldiers should be mindless killing drones rather than thinking beings.

[donf]

I didn't see anywhere, where Drock said he 'wouldn't' do it. As a matter of fact, I'm sure he would because thats what we do in the military. What I got from Drock is, he was shocked when he heard that he mighta been on tap to go over there. To be a sailor out to at sea, whether an electrician, gunner, cook, etc, you don't expect to be called on land, unless you're a seabee or a horpsman, so to received info like that, would shock anyone.

Drock went on to mention that he hopes he doesn't get the call to over. Hell, nobody wants to get the call to go over, but he didn't say he wouldn't do it. He said he hopes it doesn't happen in the next year and a half of his remaining contract. Drock has done more active duty military service than most of the people on this board, and when his contract expires in a year and a half, he has every right to make a decision for himself: reenlist or don't reenlist. He's already given more than his share of time.
Drockillles!

[Newc]

So you're implying that the SS killer squads who arbitrarily hung partisans, non-combatants, Jews, and countless minorities alike were also good soldiers who simply obeyed orders and are not to blame for their actions that were clearly wrong, did not support the war effort in any way and are, apart from making not much if any military sense, morally despicable?
Just some food for thought for Newc, and anyone else who would agree with him that soldiers should be mindless killing drones rather than thinking beings.

From a military standpoint, yes, they were good soldiers. All a soldier has to do is follow orders. That doesn't mean I think the Holocaust was a good thing, that simply means exactly what it says: military personnel have to follow orders, right or wrong, good or bad.

The kamikaze pilots at Pearl Harbor accepted the fact that they would not have enough fuel to return to their ships, and they would have to crash their planes into our ships and die in the process. America accepted the fact that we had to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to stop the Imperial Japanese Army.

War is always a moral quandry. If you actually take the time to stop and think about the fact that you're being faced with the very real chance you'll have to kill someone, or be killed yourself, that moment of hesitation could get you killed - especially against an enemy that IS a brainwashed mindless killing machine like the Nazis were, or like the terrorists.

You cannot hope to win against an enemy who has no morals until you "stoop to their level". You can't clean crusty turds out of a dirty toilet with a firm anti-turd policy, a handful of flowers, and a couple squirts of 409. You have to get face to face with the bowl using a tool that can break those turds down, with the full intent of scraping those turds off, and the full understanding that you're going to get dirty doing it.

[SEEGERMANY]

This could get ugly.

[Baum83]

From a military standpoint, yes, they were good soldiers. All a soldier has to do is follow orders. That doesn't mean I think the Holocaust was a good thing, that simply means exactly what it says: military personnel have to follow orders, right or wrong, good or bad.

The kamikaze pilots at Pearl Harbor accepted the fact that they would not have enough fuel to return to their ships, and they would have to crash their planes into our ships and die in the process. America accepted the fact that we had to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to stop the Imperial Japanese Army.

War is always a moral quandry. If you actually take the time to stop and think about the fact that you're being faced with the very real chance you'll have to kill someone, or be killed yourself, that moment of hesitation could get you killed - especially against an enemy that IS a brainwashed mindless killing machine like the Nazis were, or like the terrorists.

You cannot hope to win against an enemy who has no morals until you "stoop to their level". You can't clean crusty turds out of a dirty toilet with a firm anti-turd policy, a handful of flowers, and a couple squirts of 409. You have to get face to face with the bowl using a tool that can break those turds down, with the full intent of scraping those turds off, and the full understanding that you're going to get dirty doing it.

Yes, a soldier is pretty much always in a dilemma. He has to obey orders that more often than not end up with people being dead, and at the same time has to see to it that he puts the correct person on the wrong end of that gun of his. There are times where this goes wrong, and it's an accident, and there are also times when it happens on purpose and with malicious intent.
I don't know what US law says, but German soldiers must not obey any order that would fall into the latter category. I also think common sense dictates that you shouldn't go around and kill innocent people on purpose just because some asshat with more crapola on his shoulder told you to do so.
I'd be interested to hear what active and former military personnel think about this. You're a soldier, not a contract killer.

A lot of, if not all, kamikaze pilots were put into their planes without parachutes, and the canopies were bolted shut. Yeah, it was voluntary, right... I won't go into the issue of the nukes, though I thoroughly disagree with you there as well.

Most of the Wehrmacht soldiers were not brainwashed Nazis, hell, not even all SS soldiers were - those troops didn't even solely consist of Germans at that point of time anymore. The point I was aiming at is that both the executing (no pun intended) soldiers and their superiors failed to stop injustice when it was most badly needed.
Take the men who tried to assassinate Hitler. They are prime examples of insubordination and by definition one could call them traitors, yet are considered heroes. Nevermind they probably didn't give a shit about the jews either, but they were patriots that had seen the futility of the war effort.
I didn't mean to say that any and all soldiers should start philosophing about war and justice while they're being shot at. But the SS troops burning villages in France sure as hell were not shot at while hanging poor ol' Jacques. I also didn't mean to imply that you supported the Holocaust, it's just a perfect example of where that line of thinking can lead.

Now, about the stooping down to someone's level part.
The eastern front in WW2 is probably the worst environment in which men have fought. Ever. Until now, anyway. Scorched earth is a term that was coined at the eastern front, and that's all that was left after the war. And millions of corpses, too. Please do tell me who won that part of the war by total dehumanization, raping the enemies women, by burning their homes and killing their children. Now, everyone learnt their lesson there - war sucks, and you don't want angry Ivan to be near your wife and kids. If you think that such an extreme experience is the only thing that helps a nation, you should support free nukes for everyone.

--edit--
I'll do my best to be more or less rational about this, seegermany.

[monk]

All a soldier has to do is follow orders.

Is that your opinion as "the armchair general" or as someone with military experience?

It depends on what military doctrine you are using. In a strict hierarchy where the mental capacity decreases from top to bottom that may be the only case.

When your military looks different (e.g. it uses a drafting system) soldiers can be given a "problem" and then be expected to "find a solution" without getting exact orders on how to do every step. Then, soldiers are also given a choice in most situations (such as whether or not to act according to the Geneva convention or not, etc etc).

[RacerX]

Just one correction...Newc, there were no kamikazes at Pearl Harbor; Operation Divine Wind ( tokubetsu kōgeki tai ) did not exist until the later years of the war when the Jap military became desperate.

[marcus]

Is that your opinion as "the armchair general" or as someone with military experience?

It depends on what military doctrine you are using. In a strict hierarchy where the mental capacity decreases from top to bottom that may be the only case.

When your military looks different (e.g. it uses a drafting system) soldiers can be given a "problem" and then be expected to "find a solution" without getting exact orders on how to do every step. Then, soldiers are also given a choice in most situations (such as whether or not to act according to the Geneva convention or not, etc etc).

US soldiers only have to follow "lawful" orders. The Uniform Code of Military Justice is very clear on this. If an order would violate the Geneva conventions, for example, the soldier does not have to follow it.

[monk]

US soldiers only have to follow "lawful" orders. The Uniform Code of Military Justice is very clear on this. If an order would violate the Geneva conventions, for example, the soldier does not have to follow it.

Yes, that is what I believed. I was just arguing that "soldiers who blindly follow any order" has nothing to do in a well composed military where soldiers are able to think for themselves.

[SEEGERMANY]

"BIG RED OWNS YOU!"