hcross
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posted on May 3, 2001 10:02:57 PM
If you can spare a few extra minutes a month, this would be well worth your time.
http://www.adoptaplatoon.org
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gravid
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posted on May 4, 2001 04:39:52 AM
I am sorry but the kind of people who make it their occupation to kill strangers for politicians are not the sort I want to go out of my way to associate with.
George Bush as your direct top boss is enough reason for anyone to quit right there.
World War II is the very last time a case can be made that there was a power so scary that it could be regarded as a threat to the American homeland. The Germans would have consolidated their hold on that continent and
then been looking at the rest of the world.
What do we care if the Balkans are full of people who have hated and killed each other for centuries? What threat is that to the US?
If it unstabilizes the region let the european powers get off their butts and do something about it.
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Mybiddness
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posted on May 4, 2001 06:44:56 AM
Hcross Thanks for that great link. If you want to make a link clickable you just need to put [URL$] before it and [/URL$] at the end of it without the dollar signs.
http://www.adoptaplatoon.org
Gravid I'm a little surprised by your comments, although I won't try to change your mind.
IMO, if our country had sat around with our collective thumbs up our butts since World War II then we would be living in an entirely different world/country right now... and, not for the better.
I'll agree that there are plenty of times that we didn't have any business getting involved - but also plenty of times that we were there because it was truly the right thing to do.
Regardless, the men and women who do serve have made a sacrifice toward the betterment of our country. They've compromised their safety and their own personal day to day freedoms. Sending a batch of cookies or a letter of thanks for their efforts seems a very small effort on my part in comparision.
Not paranoid anywhere else but here!
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firstover
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posted on May 4, 2001 06:54:46 AM
gravid - soldiers don't get to pick their fights. They follow orders. I imagine that most signed up to protect your homeland, not kill Balkans.
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gravid
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posted on May 4, 2001 07:16:57 AM
I agree - a lot of them sign up with noble motives and then are put in harm's way by politicians that are manipulating things on behalf of oil companies and other money interests.
That is why I would never serve. My uncles served in several services and came back with alcohal and nicotine addictions - closed head injuries and parasites. My Dad was raped and beaten and then they dropped his unit behind German lines and lost them. Took them 3 days to find where they had been mis-dropped. They accidentally did him a favor by putting him in the hospital so he did not drop.
My one uncle came back so spaced out he walked in after being gone 4 years and sat down in the living room and started to read the paper like he had been down to the corner store. Did not go in the kitchen where everyone was. He told me later his outfit in the pacific islands had one guy who got off killing people and when ever they took prosoners the commander would tell him to take them back to the beach and he would walk them off out of sight and they would hear his automatic weapon and he would be back in 5 minutes. The beach was hours away.
I would never associate myself with that knowing ahead of time how it really works instead of the movie version.
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Mybiddness
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posted on May 4, 2001 07:25:42 AM
Gravid I see where your opinion comes from now. But, if I had experienced the same kind of personal horror stories that you've seen then I'd be more likely to send three batches of cookies a month instead of just one. Just proves the point to me that our service people can really use our support.
Not paranoid anywhere else but here!
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HEPburn
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posted on May 4, 2001 08:07:43 AM
the kind of people who make it their occupation to kill strangers for politicians are not the sort I want to go out of my way to associate with.
Shaking my head in disgust
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hcross
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posted on May 4, 2001 09:36:19 AM
It wasn't my idea, I saw it posted on the Soapbox and thought it would be an opportunity to do something nice for someone else.
gravid, I hardly know what to say, most people, myself included, join the Armed Forces out of a sense of duty to our country. We hardly committed that much time of our lives to kill strangers, rape, and pillage.
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victoria
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posted on May 4, 2001 11:09:21 AM
When I enlisted, they told us we couldn't just "quit" if we didn't like the orders or the politics of the Commander in Chief.
If we let the military "quit" everytime they had a problem, we'd be just another 3rd world country by now.
I served 22 years, and I'm proud of it. Maybe not a big fan of every mission I was a part of, but I did nothing I wouldn't want my children to know about.
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gravid
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posted on May 4, 2001 12:07:16 PM
victoria - I am very happy for you that you were never asked to do anything you had a problem with.
I think that is probably true of the vast majority of people who serve if for no other reason than so many support people are needed that not that many actually make contact with the enemy.
I just would never give them the power over me to put me in that position where I had to live with whatever I was asked to do. I have to think that if I was serving under someone who killed their prisoners like my uncle did I would have an easier time shooting him in the back than the enemy.
When all these things come up in the news like the civilians killed in Korea and Vietnam and everyone is surprised I am not.
That is what I expect war to be all about.
When you are in that situation if you want to live you better not be too thoughtful or you will soon be dead. Better not to allow yourself to be put in that spot in the first place.
I think I know what you mean about quiting - you cvan resigna commission but not in action - and your enlisted man can not quit before his enlistment period is up.
I guess I should have more sympathy for 18 year olds that don't know what they are getting into - but my family made pretty clear to me what it was like to be "owned" by the government.
I am by no means a pacifist. By the time I was 18 I had owned a gun for 5 years and had shot a man that made the unforgivable mistake of shooting at me and missing. But it was a very personal thing - I did not do it because someone told me he was an enemy. The bullet ripping through the leaves by my head was pretty convicing.
[ edited by gravid on May 4, 2001 12:20 PM ]
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MuRiEl
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posted on May 4, 2001 02:48:46 PM
Well, heck, I LOVE a man in uniform!!
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gravid
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posted on May 4, 2001 04:43:58 PM
Muriel - Tell us more . I have heard that before. Is it manly or are they very flattering to the male figure?
Does anyone feel that way about women in uniform?
[ edited by gravid on May 4, 2001 04:45 PM ]
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MuRiEl
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posted on May 4, 2001 04:49:26 PM
Gravid: I'm not sure. I think it's the authority figure thing. 
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krs
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posted on May 4, 2001 05:13:46 PM
"But it was a very personal thing - I did not do it because someone told me he was an enemy"
It's always a personal thing called save your chochas.
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toke
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posted on May 4, 2001 05:35:51 PM
Feel free to emigrate if you don't think my country is worth your service. In fact...please do.
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gravid
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posted on May 4, 2001 07:04:19 PM
I don't think ANY country is worth killing strangers for if they are not attacking you.
I would not have any problem living in Canada or several other countries. But if I would not kill for them either.
There is no such thing as serving an abstraction - you serve people. Any country is a collection of individuals. If you serve the US you are serving whoever is the commander in chief and whoever his agents are. All these oaths about serving the constitution are a vial to remove responsibility. It still ends up that some individual has the power to tell you what that constitution demands of you and if you don't agree with him you have the right to be inprisoned or killed. There is no freedom of conscience to interpret the constitution as an individual. It is what your supreme court tells you it is - so an oath to preserve it is an oath to whoever holds power.
Countries are obsolete and don't know it yet.
What is the difference between a Canadian and a US citizen? To whom they pay their taxes.
It is a protection racket on a global scale when all we are being protected from is the danger of giving our money to another political system.
We live the same culture - use the same goods. The differences are details of who gets some things such as health care as social services and who has to pay as a seperate system.
Don't tell me about owning guns. - Neither government allows people to own anything that is a threat to government itself. So again it is a question of is self protection a social service or privite.
The more world culture becomes the same the less reason there is for countries to excuse their hoarding their citizens as a resource.
People should be able to live anywhere they want as long as they are productive non-violent people.
Governments should make people want to live in the area they administer not by threats but by running things so well that people pick them like any other service.
[ edited by gravid on May 4, 2001 07:12 PM ]
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krs
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posted on May 4, 2001 07:47:57 PM
As he recites his pledge of allegiance for the umpteenth time, a man decries the country and it's aims if they inconvenience his ideas of geopolitics.
Why do I have the feeling, as someone said they felt in another thread, that all of the above is a result of not being accepted for physical reasons to join in the furtherance of the freedoms enjoyed?
I mean: What is sour grapes.
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gravid
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posted on May 4, 2001 08:44:32 PM
I have never pledged allegiance. If I had
my statements could be treason. I don't think most children reciting the pledge in public school are really making an informed consent
you should hold binding on them as adults. Like most things children do it is because they are told to do so by an authority figure. Some of them will grow past that and decide to do so, or not, based on their convictions.
Perhaps you don't agree. There were a lot of other things I would not do in school that the herd did. The last two years of school I did no home work because it was a stupid waste of time. It bothered the teachers for me to get A's on my tests and D's on my report card. It did not bother me because I had not failed - their grading system failed. They were measuring my willingness to conform - not my knowlege of the subject.
But you are correct I could never have enlisted because I don't meet the physical requirements. It is simple economics - people who have disabilities are not cost effective for short term use when you can choose able bodied. For people who want a long career I think they could be but it would take more vision and less predjudice than you will see from the military. They are straining right now to consider being female as not being a disqualifying handicap.
I really don't hold that against them personally. It is it's own punishment if you reject skilled people over petty reasons. The fellow who does not competes with you better.
Edited to add. If serving the country was the test of citizenship then they would be obligated to take anyone and let them contribute whatever they could even if they were in a wheelchair or blind. How could you refuse anyone the right to serve if that were the test? To refuse their contribution would be to disenfranchise them. Who is obligated? The person to the state or the state to the individual? The historic words of the founders say the people have rights above the state and retain all rights they don't give the state, but I don't see that as the presant reality.
[ edited by gravid on May 4, 2001 09:00 PM ]
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HEPburn
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posted on May 4, 2001 08:56:11 PM
If my memory serves me correctly, didnt you post numerous times that you kicked butt often? Like in, beat up? Whats the difference if you do it for your country or for yourself because you were being picked on due to your size? Still is hostile actions towards another human being, isnt it?
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hcross
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posted on May 4, 2001 08:57:01 PM
This was supposed to be about spending a few minutes a month doing something kind for those who make great sacrifices on our behalf, not this. I emailed the moderator and asked that this be locked. Thanks for derailing my thread.
[ edited by hcross on May 4, 2001 08:57 PM ]
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HEPburn
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posted on May 4, 2001 09:00:21 PM
I thought some of us WERE trying to get it back on topic.
kinda hard to do when you request it be locked.
[ edited by HEPburn on May 4, 2001 09:01 PM ]
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hcross
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posted on May 4, 2001 09:03:38 PM
True, but around here it is hard to even try and post something that would be nice to do without getting into politics and fighting.
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krs
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posted on May 4, 2001 09:05:09 PM
Not to belabor this aspect of the issue, but it isn't economics or petty reasoning that may preclude a disabled person from that service, it's the real necessity that each person be able to carry a portion of a team effort with some equality. The military has but one end function and regardless a person's particular job he or she is required to be ready to perform to that function if necessary.
Some lose track of that fact. At the outset of the Desert War the third division (I think it was) was sent to Saudi Arabia. That division was at Ft. Ord in CA, not far from where I lived. The news was filled with the plaintive wailing of the soldiers and their families, many of whom went on the air to say that they had not signed up expecting to have to fight, but had enlisted for the educational, travel, and future career advantages that they foresaw. It was a pitiful, almost laughable display. What had they been thinking the army was?
So each soldier is a warrior, and has to be able to perform as one. People who cannot do that are exempted.
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krs
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posted on May 4, 2001 09:07:51 PM
Send cookies, troops like crumbs.
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hcross
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posted on May 4, 2001 09:08:58 PM
They have to like crumbs for what they are paid.
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pattaylor
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posted on May 4, 2001 09:11:04 PM
Locked at the request of the originator.
Pat
[email protected]
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