Snood wrote:
I'm suprised to admit that I actually agree with perception (someone write down the date!) on this one. Frolic, you need to damn well reference that first smear, or retract it. I can't sit still and watch folks get gratuitous mileage from verbally painting the US military as a bunch of heathen baby killers. Hell, I know a couple NCO's over there.
Snood
I certainly hope you won't make a habit of agreeing with anything I've said. Should that ever be the case I will immediately re-appraise my mental concepts and adjust accordingly.
re the chick who got in the way: nothing more than a media-manufactured event. In war, bad things happen to good people as well as bad people. To the obviously unacknowledged, even unrecognized credit of the Marines involved, they chose from among a selection of available options:
1) Call an airstrike on the source of the opposing fire
2) Call indirect heavy artillery onto the source of the opposing fire
3) Call for direct engagement fire, with appropriate Anti-Personnel munitions (i.e. flechette, or "Beehive" rounds ... guaranteed to mow a crowd flat in no time)
4) Call for sustained heavy automatic fire from the LAV's Bushmaster chainguns.
5) Employ sustained medium and light automatic fire from individual, squad, and platoon-level weapons, onto the source of opposing fire. This sort of fire is often, even characteristically, augmented by indirect fire of Anti-Personnel munitions from light mortars.
6) Employ selective, aimed, single-shot suppression of the opposing fire.
Of the six available options, the Marines chose number six, which, while exposing themselves to a greater extent and for a longer duration to the opposing fire, permitted the survival of the greatest possible number of civilians. From their point of view, it wasn't an easy choice, but it was the only choice. 35 years ago, a couple cannisters of napalm would have done the job quickly. We've come a long way.
Well said Timber----had this war been fought 35 years ago---it is not unreasonable to predict that at least 200,000 people would have died by now. Why---because of weapons parity. There was no technological superiority---no guided bombs----no computers to coordinate the elements
This brings us to the realization that this war would not have been fought 35 years ago--- along with this realization comes the inevitable knowledge that we would have been forced to allow Saddam to become another Kim Jong iL.
Tartarin
No thread should be without at least one Calvin Trillin piece. Thank you!
Tartarin wrote:
<Some continue to believe quite strongly that 9/11 was an internal affair. Whatever the case may be, 3000 or more lives have become a government tool to make so many more lives miserable, to victimize the civilians of a country half a world away in the name of "democracy," even as so many of this country's rights and ideals evaporate. >
Tartarin---I get the distinct impression that no one on this thread wants to listen to your hate filled conspiracy lunacy. Isn't it a lonely feeling?
careful, perc ... that ice looks a little thin.
perc
Decidedly not ok...cease.
Seems as though I'm the only one who has lost the freedom of expression---- I'm calling the ACLU.
Get me some coffee while you're up, would ya perc?
How much objctive difference is there between 9/11and 3/19
I wasn't shocked by the Times article. I didn't think it was an insult to anybody. I thought it sounded like Marines.
I liked the Marines I served with. In 1967-69 We were at DLIWCB (Defense Language Institute -West Coast Branch, all branchs together USAF, US Army, US Navy and US Marines. They were fun, fearless and loyal to the idea that a job had to be done the Marine way or ----well, there was no or. Jesus, they could polish a hallway so you could see the fingers of your hand in the reflection.
They were tough with each other but I think they saw the rest of us, the zoomies, squids and groundpounders, as some kind of inferior forest creatures. They kept a few of us as pets and tolerated the rest.
They were tough sons of bitches. They could endure immense amounts of pain. (There's a Marine game including cigarettes that I won't describe here, trust me, they couldn't be hurt.)
They were great drinking buddies. One never worried about getting left to the mercy of some townie.
They were terrible poker players, but gracious losers. (Thank God)
They laughed at strange things: artworks in a gallery, a movie about a man and a woman, the name of a dish of pasta (ZITI YO! ZI-TIE!)
==
What the article doesn't explain (the chick was in the way) is that those Marines were/are in a different mind than the rest of us. They are about getting the job done. Do you notice any wavering? un Uh. We have the privilege of splitting hairs regarding whether they should be where they are, they are merely attending to the task at hand. Literally, at hand, and if they seem aloof to the emotion of the moment, it's because, at the moment, it's them or that guy in the black shirt with the carbine. I don't ever disparage the beings doing the fighting, it's their pasty faced non-combatant, never thrown a punch in defense of a brother-in-arms with whom I have the problem. I know these men and women are worthy of our love and admiration, they are warriors. What I want is leaders who of worthy of them.
Joe Nation
USAFSS 6948th Intelligence Squadron (Mobile) 1967-1971
perception, the ACLU phone in Washington D.C. (202) 457-0800
Joe, that was a beautiful post. You said it all and shamed me in having not been able to see it with your eyes.
Thanks Kara
While I was musing about gyrines you guys were on 9-11...
Okay. So for me the worst part about the days since that day of horror is that we have completely lost the sympathy of the world's nations by turning into the worst bully on the block.
Where's our drinking buddies now?
Joe
Dys
Thanks---I knew you would have it.
The cigarettes hurt, Joe ... just not as much as letting on that it hurt. It was a fellowship thing, sort of a shared lie. And yeah, back then, I laughed at some things from which today I would recoil in horror and revulsion. But I got used to the idea of getting the job done. Somebody has to.
