What do you think of US soldiers?
- Thread starter mrhappyface
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See, that tends to be what you get with most of the infantry grunts that are out there, especially if they're Marines. I've known a lot of Marines (many of whom are in my family), and they have a saying: "Once a Marine, always a Marine." That proves even more true for the infantry guys.BrynThomas said:
See, most infantry are the jocks that most of us here (I assume) weren't overly fond of; meatheads with not much more to do than flex their muscles and show the world just how totally awesome they are in every facet and, typically, the guys that love to shove it in your face. You'll find, really, that the more intelligent, thoughtful, and laid back guys work in behind-the-lines jobs, such as intelligence or engineering and the like.
I mean no respect to infantrymen from any country, though. They've got a job that I sure as hell wouldn't want.
Some people are incapable of discerning right and wrong, but generally that is not the case. The trouble is, it often isn't clear at all what the morally correct path is, and as such your best bet for making it out of a war alive and not in prision is to follow orders rather than some silly code of morality. Given you've resorted to trying to shoot people in order to accomplish something, I'd say you've generally lost the debate on moral high ground anyhow.Earthmonger said:
Thing spring to mind for exmaple, the Abu Ghraib "incidents". While most would see the incident as a great morale failing, from the perspective of those indicted (the MP's responsible for holding the prisoners) the things they did (make the prisoner's stay more stressfull than it needed to be, if you want to state this politely), could have readily been justified by their moral code; they thought they were helping in the tedious process of collecting human intelligence information and as such were saving the lives of other Americans.
This example should not be construed as an endorsement of such activities but rather simply a point that even when someone is doing something clearly wrong there may be an ulterior motive. Unfortunately, in such a case "I thought I was doing the right thing" is indefensible in court, but "I was following orders" is (assuming it was a lawful order). Without jumping into the political fiasco that went down (generally speaking the most guilty individuals walked away and the peons who followed their orders were hung out to dry), suffice it to say even in this circumstance, most of them were probably able to justify their mistreatment of prisoners, at least to themeslves.
I can generally agree with this, especially the first sentence. I was 19 when I headed to the sandbox the first time - what the hell did I know about the world then? The short answer - nothing, and the same can be said of virtually every person who has ever made it to their 19th year.SageRuffin said:
If I were in a firefight I would run my ass out of there because I could never kill a man even if he truly deserved to die, although I might shoot someone in the heat of the moment.SageRuffin said:
And no I'm not going to respect all soldiers, I respect many soldiers considering their circumstances but not all of them. I don't buy the whole "We're protecting you" argument because you wouldn't have to be protecting us if it wasn't for the government trying to take things from other countries and using war to justify it, those polticians are the people I hate the most.
Yes, however I don't like why we are in Iraq and when/if we kill defenseless people. Lives are being thrown away and it needs to stop.squidninjapirate said:
I wouldn't stereotype all infantry like that, both of my friends were the geeks/nerds in highschool, one of them was quite overweight. However he slimmed down over one summer holidays, because it was his goal of becoming an infantryman, he doesn't intend to stay past his 4 years but he transferred back from armour (another combat branch) just because he couldn't stand the lack of discipline and professionalism. He thinks it's something that's really shaped who he is, but it is not what definesEpictank of Wintown said:
Both of them reckoned the Australian rifleman training filtered out most of the crazies, arrogant types and a lot of them are quite geeky just physically fit as well, some of the platoons even form their WOW groups.
Oh, those fuckwits who are a risk to our soldiers? Bunch of Friendly-fire-tards...
nah, I wouldn't say that. I haven't met any so I couldn't say. They're just doing what they believe is right.
I don't really get soldiers in general. I wouldn't let anyone push me around and order me. Doesn't appeal to me.
nah, I wouldn't say that. I haven't met any so I couldn't say. They're just doing what they believe is right.
I don't really get soldiers in general. I wouldn't let anyone push me around and order me. Doesn't appeal to me.
The you should really keep your mouth shut until you can debate with the big boys.Jonesy911 said:
Someone who is tired of morons clogging up his forum with asinine, unsupported opinions and generalised ranting. Good day sir.Jonesy911 said:
Go watch Full Metal Jacket. Mostly mindless zombies once they get in the filed, but I pity the ones who have familys. Personaly if I wanted a position that involves guns, beer and money then I would go with being a merc, that way you still have control and your mainly in a neutral position since you'll work for the highest bidder, then the rest is up to you and the only penalty is death which sounds better than sitting around doing nothing behind bars when you thought you could slip out of boot camp unnoticed.
Plus it sure is alot of fun being a merc.
Plus it sure is alot of fun being a merc.