← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · il ragno
Thread ID: 20386 | Posts: 18 | Started: 2005-09-25
2005-09-25 01:42 | User Profile
[url]http://www.fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm[/url]
[SIZE=4]A Grand Adventure[/SIZE]
[I]Except that it isn't[/I]
[FONT=Book Antiqua]September 18, 2005
A friend recently asked me what I would tell a young man thinking about enlisting in the military. (He had in mind his son.) I would tell him this, which I wish someone had told me:
Kid, you are being suckered. You are being used. You need to think carefully before signing that enlistment contract.
First, notice that the men who want to send you to die were draft-dodgers. President Bush was of military age during Vietnam, but he sat out the war in the Air National Guard. The Guard was then a common way of avoiding combat. Bush could do it because he was a rich kid who went to Yale, and his family had connections.
He dodged, but he wants you to go.
Vice President Cheney, also of military age during Vietnam, also didn’t go. Why? When asked by the press, he said, “I had other priorities.” In other words, he was too important to risk his precious self overseas. He dodged, but wants you to go.
If you take the time to investigate, you will always find this pattern. The rich and influential avoid combat. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton do not send young men to Iraq. The editors at magazines that support the war, National Review for example, didn’t fight. They are happy to let you go, though. The reason for the All Volunteer military was to let the smart and rich avoid service and instead send kids from middle-class and blue-collar families. It works.
In talking to recruiters, you need to understand what you are up against. You are probably nineteen or twenty years old, full of piss and vinegar as we used to say, just starting to know the world. Which means that you don’t yet know it. (Do you know, for example, what countries border Iraq?)
You are up against a government that hires high-powered ad agencies and psychologists to figure out how to lure you into the military. Over many years they have done surveys and studies on the weaknesses of young males to find out what will get them to join. They know that young men, the ones that are worth anything anyway, want to prove themselves, want adventure, want to show what they can do. Everything a recruiter does is carefully calculated to play on this. They go to recruiting school to learn how.[/FONT]
[IMG]http://www.fredoneverything.net/IraqTorture.gif[/IMG] [I]The Army at work. Be all you can be.[/I]
[FONT=Book Antiqua]“The Few. The Proud.” You don’t think that came out of the Marine Corps, do you? These phrases—“An Army of One,” “Be All You Can Be"--come from ad agencies in New York. Nobody in those ad agencies, I promise you, was ever in the Marine Corps. New York sells the military the way it sells soap. It has no interest in you at all.
Recruiters know exactly what they are doing. They are manly, which appeals to gutsy young guys who don’t want to be mall rats. They are confident. They have a physical fitness, a clean-cut appearance that looks good compared to all those wussy lawyers in business suits. They invite you to come into a man’s world. They promise you college funds. (Check and see how many actually ever get those funds. Read the small print.)
And of course the military is a man’s world, and it is an adventure, and it does beat being a mall rat—until they put you in combat. Driving a tank beats stocking parts in the local NAPA outlet—until they put you in combat. Days on the rifle range, running the bars of San Diego far from home and parents, going across the border into Mexico—all of this appeals powerfully to a young man. It did to me. It beats hell out of getting some silly associate degree in biz-admin at the community college.
Until they put you in combat. Then it’s too late. You can’t change your mind. They send you to jail for a long time if you do.
Combat is not the adventure you think it is. Know what happens when an RPG hits a tank? Nothing good. The cherry juice—hydraulic fluid that turns the turret—can vaporize and then blow. I saw the results in the Naval Support Activity hospital in Danang in 1967. A tank has a crew of four. Two burned to death, screaming as they tried to get out. The other two were scalded pink, under a plastic sheet that was always foggy with serum evaporating from burns where the skin had sloughed off. They probably lived. Know what burn scars look like?
The recruiters won’t tell you this. They know, but they won’t tell you. Ever seen a guy who just took a round through the face? He’s a bloody mess with his eyes gone, nasty hole where his nose was, funny white cartilage things sticking out of dripping meat. Suppose he’ll ever have another girlfriend? Not freaking likely. He’ll spend the next fifty years as a horror in some forsaken VA hospital.
But the recruiters won’t tell you this. They want you to think that it’s an adventure.
Other things happen that, depending on your head, may or may not bother you. Iraq means combat in cities. Ordinary people live there. You pop a grenade through a window, or hit a building with a burst from the Chain gun, or maybe put a tank round through it. Then you find the little girl with her bowels hanging out, not quite dead yet, with her mother screaming over what’s left. You’d be surprised how much blood a small kid has.
You get to live with that picture for the rest of your life. And you will live with it. The recruiter will tell you that it doesn’t happen, that it’s the exception, that I’m a commy journalist. Believe him if you want. Believe him now, while you can. When you get back, you’ll believe me.
A lot of things in America aren’t what they used to be. The military is one of them. The army didn’t always use girl soldiers to torture prisoners. For that they had specialists in the intelligence agencies. You won’t get assigned torture duty, almost certainly, because the Army got caught. Ask your recruiter about it, just to be sure.
Don’t expect thanks from a grateful nation. Somebody might buy you a drink in a bar. That’s about all you get. Many will regard you as a criminal or a fool.
Wars seem important at the time, but they usually aren’t. Five years later, they are history. About sixty thousand GIs died in Vietnam. We lost. Nothing happened. It was a stupid war for nothing. Today the guys who lost faces and legs and internal organs back then are just freaks. Nobody gives a damn about them, and nobody will give a damn about you. A war is a politician’s toy, but your wheelchair is forever. If you want adventure, try the fishing fleet in Alaska.
Think about it.[/FONT]
[IMG]http://www.fredoneverything.net/soldierleash.jpg[/IMG] [I]Encourage your sister to enlist. She can be a leader of men.[/I]
2005-09-25 02:04 | User Profile
Yes, America is past the point where young people should consider joining the military. It's a shame.
2005-09-25 02:13 | User Profile
After encountering those torture photos I was, for the first time in my life, embarrassed to be an American. And then to listen to Rush Limbaugh defend that torture as college pranks...
2005-09-25 02:13 | User Profile
[QUOTE]You are up against a government that hires high-powered ad agencies and psychologists to figure out how to lure you into the military. Over many years they have done surveys and studies on the weaknesses of young males to find out what will get them to join. They know that young men, the ones that are worth anything anyway, want to prove themselves, want adventure, want to show what they can do. Everything a recruiter does is carefully calculated to play on this. They go to recruiting school to learn how.[/QUOTE]
And the ones that they want are white males for who else has the sense to operate the increasing complicated equipment and other forms of ever-changing warfare? With the costs of college going up, jobs going overseas or being replaced with imported H1-B visas, ambitious white males ( and ladies , too, unfortunately) will have no where else to go to earn a decent wage and "prove themselves". And they will prove themselves and possibly die or get maimed and all the miniorities and illegal immigrants will enjoy the fruits and show their ungratefulness. Good advice, FOE!
2005-09-25 02:53 | User Profile
Excellent piece from Reed there. Not one more impoverished White boy should sign up to die for Uncle Shmuel. Let the beloved niggers & cucarachas do that.
2005-09-25 02:59 | User Profile
The "Army of One" slogan is just about the most dishonest way to market the army they could possibly come up with. The modern army does not allow the kind of autonomous decision-making and self-reliance those commercials imply.
Even most of those in the military know what a disingenious slogan that is.
2005-09-25 12:01 | User Profile
Some soldiers really do enjoy war, and that includes killing. Charley Reese wrote a good article about this called "Truth Unwelcomed." War can be an adventure, if a brutal and bloody one. However I agree with General Patton that "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
As for rich Americans avoiding the services, go far enough back, and that was far less the case. Even Bush Sr. was a combat pilot in WWII. War is always a much nobler endeavor when the perfumed princes of privilege have to shed blood along with the rest of their countrymen.
2005-09-25 15:39 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]Yes, America is past the point where young people should consider joining the military. It's a shame.[/QUOTE] And in the event of war, what would you do; throw jelly donuts at the invaders? Reason with them? Perhaps you would try to convince the enemy that we really aren't so bad, and they would therefore,go home?
2005-09-25 15:46 | User Profile
[QUOTE=YertleTurtle]After encountering those torture photos I was, for the first time in my life, embarrassed to be an American. And then to listen to Rush Limbaugh defend that torture as college pranks...[/QUOTE] They don't bother me in the slightest, especially when I consider what happens when the shoe is on the other foot - such as ritual torture and beheadings. The photos depict situations repugnant to normal civilized people, but a war zone is not a normal, civilized environment. Actually I think the US Forces involved used great restraint. What would you do if you captured someone who was trying to kill you?
As concerns Limbaugh, I agree, he is an a$$hole, although no worse than Hannity or O'Reilly.
2005-09-25 16:44 | User Profile
[QUOTE=OPERA96] What would you do if you captured someone who was trying to kill you?
[/QUOTE]
Soldiers are suppose to treat captured enemy soldiers with a the same degree of restraint they would expect in the same situation, but those rules don't count when two civilizations clash. How would I feel if Muslims were invading America? I wouldn't be happy about it. I would take prisoners just so long as it took to torture information out of them, then I would kill them. And I suspect they would retaliate in kind. It is an ugly situation and for what? Establishing "democracy" in Iraq? Don't make me laugh. :wallbash:
2005-09-25 17:07 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Hamilton]As for rich Americans avoiding the services, go far enough back, and that was far less the case. Even Bush Sr. was a combat pilot in WWII. War is always a much nobler endeavor when the perfumed princes of privilege have to shed blood along with the rest of their countrymen.[/QUOTE]
And what that's evolved to today is a perfect tracker of the disintegration of American society. In a noble nation, the elite pick the fights and lead the fights. That's because there's a genuine tie: the highest Emerisian is kin to the lowest. In our country, the elites are divorced from the masses. I'm not saying this in socialist way, but in a nationalist one.
2005-09-25 18:20 | User Profile
[QUOTE=OPERA96]And in the event of war, what would you do; throw jelly donuts at the invaders? Reason with them? Perhaps you would try to convince the enemy that we really aren't so bad, and they would therefore,go home?[/QUOTE]
The American military is strong enough many times over that there won't be invaders. And, if there is an invasion, we should all still own guns.
Anyone who joins the military now can count on being used for "do-gooder" wars and wars for Israel, anything but actually defending America. American belligerency, especially via the military, is the greatest threat to American security today.
2005-09-25 18:41 | User Profile
Hamilton,
Remembering American Wars/ Richard Earley [url]http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2073[/url]
2005-09-25 20:43 | User Profile
They don't bother me in the slightest, especially when I consider what happens when the shoe is on the other foot - such as ritual torture and beheadings.
The U.S. hasn't been invaded since 1812, and that was in response to our trying to annex Canada. So who's going to invade us? Canada? Mexico? Oops, forget I mentioned the last one!
Now maybe if we didn't have troops in three-quarters of the countries of the world, we might have enough to prevent the fact we ARE being invaded...and not by Iraqis.
2005-09-26 17:45 | User Profile
[QUOTE=YertleTurtle]They don't bother me in the slightest, especially when I consider what happens when the shoe is on the other foot - such as ritual torture and beheadings.
The U.S. hasn't been invaded since 1812, and that was in response to our trying to annex Canada. So who's going to invade us? Canada? Mexico? Oops, forget I mentioned the last one!
Now maybe if we didn't have troops in three-quarters of the countries of the world, we might have enough to prevent the fact we ARE being invaded...and not by Iraqis.[/QUOTE]We are being invaded every day, by foreigners from the South, and our borders are still not mined. Treason of the highest sort. Remember when Governor Lawton Chiles of Florida sued the federal gov't for 2 billion? That was what it was costing his state, Florida, in care of illegals because our national borders were not being defended.
As I recall, his suit was not victorious, but I think he had the right idea.
AE
2005-09-27 15:56 | User Profile
[QUOTE=YertleTurtle]After encountering those torture photos I was, for the first time in my life, embarrassed to be an American. And then to listen to Rush Limbaugh defend that torture as college pranks...[/QUOTE]Americans when thinking of massacres during the Vietnam War invariably remember My Lai. The much greater slaughter at Hue has been forgotten by the American media.
From my book:[QUOTE]Even these accounts must be balanced by the version written by Morley Safer, one time CBS newsman and now an entertainer on 60 Minutes, where he has long enjoyed national prominence. Early in the war Mr. Safer staged the burning of huts in Vietnam by giving a Marine a Zippo lighter to torch a grass hut. Safer in his memoir reported the opening of the graves in Hue and observed the victims, "hundreds" of them, whom he described as having been "carefully selected".[1] Why did Safer casually lie about the number of victims by undercounting by about 3000, if not thousands more, and what impressed him as their being carefully selected? Safer, professionally pious and morally correct in his media presence, should reveal what it was about the butchery which appealed to him so much he could not bring himself to criticize the atrocity. Could Safer have said the same thing if the victims were Jews? One must think not. If Jews had been victims and been undercounted by a factor of 10 or 20, their screaming would have kept much of the United States awake. In his book on returning to Vietnam Safer wrote of pride of being introduced to a genuine hero, General Giap of the North Vietnamese Army and referred to John Paul Vann of America as the "false hero". This was the General Giap who admitted that the Tet offensive had been directed at the people of South Vietnam, but found that it affected the people of the United States more. Until Tet the United States thought they could win the war, but then realized they could not.[2] Mr. Safer's hero, General Giap, was not known for being a humanitarian. He registered his belief that every minute hundreds of thousands of people die all over the world. The life or death of hundreds or even tens of thousands of human beings, even if they were his own countrymen, represented very little.[3] This was not the type of person to engage in a war of attrition by countries which cared for lives of their soldiers.
The treatment that Pham Xuan An received from Morley Safer in remembering his journalistic tour in Vietnam revealed much of the bias and dishonest reporting of Mr. Safer. Pham Xuan An had worked as a reporter for Time magazine for ten years while spying for the North Vietnamese and betraying the people of South Vietnam. Mr. Safer regarded Pham Xuan An as a courageous patriot, one of the few he had known and continued to think of him as a dignified and decent man.[4] A Mr. H.D.S. Greenway fondly remembered Mr. Pham as a friend whom he relied upon to explain the intricacies of South Vietnamese politics and was glad to know that Mr. Pham was safe and well. Mr. Greenway had been a reporter for the Washington Post and had advanced his career in becoming the assistant editor of the Boston Globe.[5] Yet another American reporter, Richard Critchfield, had an altogether different impression of Pham Xuan An. Writing in 1990 the same year that Mr. Safer had published his memoir, Mr. Critchfield remembered writing his editors in the United States in 1967 that Pham Xuan An, while probably the smartest and most influential Vietnamese journalist, was almost certainly working for Hanoi.[6] Critchfield's career was such he wrote thoughtful, lightly read books about humanity, and Mr. Safer progressed to being a pious fraud on American television where he became truly dangerous.
The ultimate whipping boy of the American left was present when Safer referred to one individual as a "beet-faced cracker". Could anyone imagine the reaction if there were a reference to a "rat-faced Jew"? Safer, a vicious unconscionable Yiddisher from Canada, took exception to an article written by Robert Elegant of the Los Angeles Times which placed a large portion of the blame for losing the war in Vietnam on American reporters whose sole purpose was to discredit the United States. Mr. Safer blustered that this analysis would only appeal to the few living admirers of Dr. Goebbels.[7] However, in his account of the battle of Hue Mr. Safer committed the ultimate insult of the American journalist. Mr. Safer stated American Marines fought the good fight in Hue and lost 150 men. The North lost 5000 or more. What was totally of no concern were the losses by our South Vietnamese allies. The South Vietnamese lost about 1000 men. Mike Wallace, the ageing coworker of Morley Safer on CBS News, had little concern for the lives of Americans. When asked if he were on a patrol with an enemy of the United States would he warn Americans approaching him and the enemy, Mr. Wallace replied he would not. To Mr. Wallace the lives of Americans were distinctly of secondary importance to what he considered news. To many Americans what was to be considered news has long been shaped by rootless cosmopolitans such as Safer and Wallace who care little for the American outside New York City...
In [B][I]Full Metal Jacket[/I] [/B] there was a scene where all of twenty bodies were found and attributed to the massacre by the North Vietnamese. Then in true American fashion the director, Stanley Kubrick, a Jew, proceeded to pursue his ghoulish fantasies that only Americans were capable of depravities.
[/QUOTE]American memory manipulated by Jews has lapsed when those in power deem it convenient or necessary.
Almost 60 years ago George Patton wrote of another massacre: [QUOTE]The coverage by the national press so bothered Richard Nixon he bitterly commented "the dishonest, double-standard coverage of the Vietnam War was not one of the American media's finer hours". Mr. Nixon quoted the observation of Kenneth Crawford of Newsweek that Vietnam was the first war in history where the press was more friendly to our enemy than to our allies. The coverage of the massacres at Hue so bothered Mr. Nixon that he mentioned it in two books. Mr. Nixon compared the non-existent coverage to the extensive media blitz on Lt. Calley and My Lai which may have been ten percent of the number butchered at Hue. [B][I]General George Patton remembered 800 German prisoners being taken and 500 of them being killed. In one sentence he dismissed this butchery. Patton attributed the slaughter to Americans having the mistaken belief that Germans had killed hospitalized American troops. If Americans remember any atrocity from World War II, it was the slaying of American soldiers at Malmedy during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. Less than 100 American troops were killed.[/I] [/B][1] Remembrance of massacres and those killed has been controlled by a national media which has preferred to find its demons and ghouls among white Europeans or failing that in Americans who fought against communism.
2005-09-27 16:44 | User Profile
[COLOR=Purple][FONT=Arial][I][B] - "Then in true American fashion the director, Stanley Kubrick, a Jew, proceeded to pursue his ghoulish fantasies that only Americans were capable of depravities."[/B][/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
You just wrote yourself that Kubrick portrayed Vietkong carrying out a cold-blooded massacre of civilians and then [B]immediately contradict yourself [/B] by claiming that he fantasized that "only" Americans were capable of depravities?
I do not think you are giving Kubrick a fair treatment.
Petr
2005-09-27 17:08 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr][color=purple][font=Arial][/font][/color]I do not think you are giving Kubrick a fair treatment.
Petr[/QUOTE]
Petr, have you seen the film? Kubrick deliberately paints a dark picture of American Marines in Hue in the second half of the film. EG is not being unfair to Kubrick. What too many people remember is the crazy hijinks in boot camp in the first half of the film.
AE