the anti war hero thread

[ShunNakamura]

yes the National Guard comment was for a national guard only.. though it would be a tad different then what it now is(since it would have to be the sole defender I think that is obvious).

Well I hope that was me that was being quoted... I recall saying something similar anyways. :P

*cough* as I said earlier it really comes down to how much weight you put on the words. I made an extensive post above somewhere, that I think showed that I am really demanding on those two words.

I can very well say that most people who go into the army are likely good people(one step above average in my mind) and many are probably excellent to amazing human beings.. particually after being in combat a few times. For me though that still does not go up to extraordinary...and for me a Hero must perform a extraordinary act.

Oh yes.. the whole reason I kept saying it was people I know.. is cause that is all I got to go off.. and I knew 'forehand that it could be slighlty off so I made sure to mention it. And a good freind of mine(a wrestling mate) who joined the military, so that he could get money for college, I would have asked him whether or not it is still for the benifits, but he did not make it back. He was a good, a very good, guy for sure, but I would not dub him a hero.

[Cloud No.9]

so are people here honestly saying all combat soliders are heros?

lindy england? war criminals? human rights abusers? genocidists?

if you mow down civillians are you still the same hero you were when you first put on that uniform? if you rounded up jews on trains for auschwitz are you a hero? were the shootings in uzbekistan heroic? was bloody sunday heroic? geurnica? dunkirk? were the japanese heroic when the captured soliders and sent them to certain death?

attrocitrities performed by so called "heroes". is that what a hero is to you? can you really say all soliders including these are heroes just because they are combat soliders.

[DarkLadyNyara]

can you really say all soliders including these are heroes just because they are combat soliders.

Good point.

[Gnostic Yevon]

so are people here honestly saying all combat soliders are heros?

lindy england? war criminals? human rights abusers? genocidists?

if you mow down civillians are you still the same hero you were when you first put on that uniform? if you rounded up jews on trains for auschwitz are you a hero? were the shootings in uzbekistan heroic? was bloody sunday heroic? geurnica? dunkirk? were the japanese heroic when the captured soliders and sent them to certain death?

attrocitrities performed by so called "heroes". is that what a hero is to you? can you really say all soliders including these are heroes just because they are combat soliders.

Why the frickin' nazi obsession? This is a very small number, and of course being a war criminal negates the heroism of being a soldier, but other than the actual nazis or the japanese imperial army, you speak of probably less than 1/1 million soldiers.

This doesn't change the fact that soldiers are quite frankly 10x as brave and heroic as you could ever hope to be. You can't lump a few bad eggs in with all the good ones. I think you only do that because it makes the rest of the soldiers look bad. But somehow, I have a suspicion that you want to make them look bad.

[nik0tine]

This doesn't change the fact that soldiers are quite frankly 10x as brave and heroic as you could ever hope to be.

And just how the hell do you know this?

[lordblazer]

They get court marshalled if they run back during combat.Which jail time may seem bad but it is an easy way out from having to get killed.

In combat though yeah they are scared hell its pure adrenaline rush for them.You can still be scared stiff and still be brave.They have the courage to go out there.They have the courage to walk around in baghdad in uniform and risk being picked off by a sniper.

[nik0tine]

But that's all because they don't have a choice. Im not saying it doesn't take guts, 'cos it does, but it's either go to prison or do your duty. Picking the lesser of two evils doesn't seem very heroic to me.

[The Redneck]

But that's all because they don't have a choice. Im not saying it doesn't take guts, 'cos it does, but it's either go to prison or do your duty. Picking the lesser of two evils doesn't seem very heroic to me.

Actually, they do have a choice....

First and most obvious, they don't have to join the Army if they're not willing to get shot at. The Nazis, the Iraqis, and a lot of other countries had conscripted troops (wherein they point a gun at your head and say "You're in the Army now"), but the US (and most other nations) has a volunteer army.

Second, there are ways to be a conscientuous objector (there was one fellow like that--seventh-day adventist, who just wouldn't shoot at anybody. He told them he still wanted to help, so they made him a medic. During one battle he was helping someone and a bullet broke his arm. He splinted it with a busted rifle-stock and as they were carrying him back to the unit he saw someone else wounded--so he crawled off the stretcher while the others were ducking gunfire and saved that guy's butt too.), to gain medical discharges, mental health (obvious enough--you don't want to walk around with some nutcase carrying a gun right behind you...), dispensation for emergencies back home--there's a variety of ways someone in the US Army can get out of combat if they wish.

[Gnostic Yevon]

This doesn't change the fact that soldiers are quite frankly 10x as brave and heroic as you could ever hope to be.

And just how the hell do you know this?

Because you hide behind you internet account and tell soldiers in the army that they are similar to nazis. If you were brave at all, you would at least have the courage to say that in person to an actual combat veteran. See what he has to say to a punk kid who tries to put him in the same camp as people sending jews to auschwitz.

And I'm pretty sure that your life has never been in any danger either. The closest most people on these boards have *ever* been to combat is sitting in an easy chair playing Metal of Honor and pretending that we have any idea what combat is like. There are a few exceptions (Redneck (i think), Susquatch, and War Angel). Other than that, we have no room to talk about what being a soldier is like. I have no business talking about what it is like to be an inner city school teacher. This is because I've never been inside an inner city school, I've never taught a day in my life, and thus I can't slander them and compare them to nazi propagandists, or tell them that what they do is exactly the same as someone else who sits around in an office working on reports and spreadsheets.

A Soldier is 10x braver than I am too, but the difference is that I at least respect them enough not to try to link them to war crimes and genocide for the purposes of winning an internet debate.

[Cloud No.9]

i never comapred soldiers to nazis. i compared the wermacht and ss to soldiers. which they were.........

and i compared war criminals to people who aren't heroes. and if you eally belive war criminals are heroes then your morals are fully slipped.

so yeah that argument is void. i'll explain really simply.

i said not all soldiers are heros. i said that one of the reasons that some soldiers are not heros is because they might have slaughtered civiliians. i don't think this is a totally bad thing to say. ir do you want to salute the deaths head squadron in charge of auschwitz purely because they were solides go ahead.

but i for one are not with you on that salute. i will salute heroes.

[Gnostic Yevon]

i never comapred soldiers to nazis. i compared the wermacht and ss to soldiers. which they were.........

and i compared war criminals to people who aren't heroes. and if you eally belive war criminals are heroes then your morals are fully slipped.

so yeah that argument is void. i'll explain really simply.

i said not all soldiers are heros. i said that one of the reasons that some soldiers are not heros is because they might have slaughtered civiliians. i don't think this is a totally bad thing to say. ir do you want to salute the deaths head squadron in charge of auschwitz purely because they were solides go ahead.

but i for one are not with you on that salute. i will salute heroes.

LOok you can try to twist your own words to make it sound better, but your basic argument is :

No soldiers are heros because some soldiers are nazis, and some have committed war crimes.

That's your whole argument. I never said that nazis are war heros, I said that these war criminals that you bring up are A VERY VERY SMALL NUMBER OF ACTUAL SOLIERS. Out of 100,000 abu graib was done by what 10 people, maybe? The war criminals aren't war heros. No sherlock. But you can't use that argument to say that soldiers in general should not be considered heros. That's a stupid argument. It's like saying that accountants aren't good people and then when asked why pointing to enron accountants. Yes crap happens, and the criminals are caught and brought to justice.

Nobody celebrates war crimes. But I'm gonna have to object if you try to say that those who fight should somehow be ashamed because of a few bad apples, most of whom are caught and punished for dishonoring their fellow soldiers by acting like barbarians.

Or should you be ashamed to be Scottish because William Wallace and his men may have at one point committed a war crime?

[lordblazer]

This doesn't change the fact that soldiers are quite frankly 10x as brave and heroic as you could ever hope to be.

And just how the hell do you know this?

Because you hide behind you internet account and tell soldiers in the army that they are similar to nazis. If you were brave at all, you would at least have the courage to say that in person to an actual combat veteran. See what he has to say to a punk kid who tries to put him in the same camp as people sending jews to auschwitz.

And I'm pretty sure that your life has never been in any danger either. The closest most people on these boards have *ever* been to combat is sitting in an easy chair playing Metal of Honor and pretending that we have any idea what combat is like. There are a few exceptions (Redneck (i think), Susquatch, and War Angel). Other than that, we have no room to talk about what being a soldier is like. I have no business talking about what it is like to be an inner city school teacher. This is because I've never been inside an inner city school, I've never taught a day in my life, and thus I can't slander them and compare them to nazi propagandists, or tell them that what they do is exactly the same as someone else who sits around in an office working on reports and spreadsheets.

A Soldier is 10x braver than I am too, but the difference is that I at least respect them enough not to try to link them to war crimes and genocide for the purposes of winning an internet debate.

One actually one day when i was in the park wiht my little cousins two rival gangs jsut started a fire fight and one of my cousins died in the cross fire.And I got a shell which is still in there today on my lower back just a few inches from my kidney.But other than that yeah i agree with you lol.

[Cloud No.9]

no gnostic yevon you are missing the point.

i am saying that you cannot rubber stamp every single soldier as a hero no matter what actions he has performed. the war criminals are proof of this. you cannoy rubber stamp them heros. so you cannot rubber stamp all soldiers as heros regardless of the actions they perform. good or bad.

which brings us back to the start and the raison detre for this argument. it is against the rubber stamping of all soldiers as heros purely for being soldiers. it is against the declaration and praising of all soliders whether good or bad. it is against the idea that a man can be regarded asa hero no matter what he does. it is against awarding heroship with the uniform.

a soldier can be a hero if he proves himself to be one. not if he wears the uniform and is allowed to do what he sees fit. that is not heroship. and that is why not every soldier can be counted as a hero and that particular title needs to be earned.

and while i'm at it. i'm not a nationalist in any shape or form. so scottish history means very little to me. and i am neither ashamed or proud of being scottish.

[nik0tine]

Because you hide behind you internet account and tell soldiers in the army that they are similar to nazis. If you were brave at all, you would at least have the courage to say that in person to an actual combat veteran. See what he has to say to a punk kid who tries to put him in the same camp as people sending jews to auschwitz.

Nobody has said this. Read this statement again, and tell me if you can see the vast amount of unintelligence oozing from the post. Please don't say stupid stuff like that again.

I can't slander them and compare them to nazi propagandists, or tell them that what they do is exactly the same as someone else who sits around in an office working on reports and spreadsheets.

My friend, the only person who is being slanderous is you.

A Soldier is 10x braver than I am too, but the difference is that I at least respect them enough not to try to link them to war crimes and genocide for the purposes of winning an internet debate.

You are the only one who has linked them to that stuff. (By misenterpreting what was said by Cloud 9)

That's your whole argument. I never said that nazis are war heros, I said that these war criminals that you bring up are A VERY VERY SMALL NUMBER OF ACTUAL SOLIERS. Out of 100,000 abu graib was done by what 10 people, maybe? The war criminals aren't war heros. No sherlock. But you can't use that argument to say that soldiers in general should not be considered heros. That's a stupid argument. It's like saying that accountants aren't good people and then when asked why pointing to enron accountants. Yes crap happens, and the criminals are caught and brought to justice.

Nobody celebrates war crimes. But I'm gonna have to object if you try to say that those who fight should somehow be ashamed because of a few bad apples, most of whom are caught and punished for dishonoring their fellow soldiers by acting like barbarians.

Or should you be ashamed to be Scottish because William Wallace and his men may have at one point committed a war crime?

If you want to further your position in this debate, you might as well stop posting, and leave the talking to Redneck, Sasquatch, and the crew. You don't even understand his argument in the least bit. He said something you disagreed with, so you got mad and took it way out of context. His argument was that "Not all soldiers are heroes" and one of the reasons for this is that some soldiers have done bad things. That isn;t twisting his words to make them sound better, it's simply putting them BACK into context. And who took them out of context in the first place? Oh yeah, it was you.

[Gnostic Yevon]

Because you hide behind you internet account and tell soldiers in the army that they are similar to nazis. If you were brave at all, you would at least have the courage to say that in person to an actual combat veteran. See what he has to say to a punk kid who tries to put him in the same camp as people sending jews to auschwitz.

Nobody has said this. Read this statement again, and tell me if you can see the vast amount of unintelligence oozing from the post. Please don't say stupid stuff like that again.

I can't slander them and compare them to nazi propagandists, or tell them that what they do is exactly the same as someone else who sits around in an office working on reports and spreadsheets.

My friend, the only person who is being slanderous is you.

so are people here honestly saying all combat soliders are heros?

lindy england? war criminals? human rights abusers? genocidists?

Here ya go.

A Soldier is 10x braver than I am too, but the difference is that I at least respect them enough not to try to link them to war crimes and genocide for the purposes of winning an internet debate.

You are the only one who has linked them to that stuff. (By misenterpreting what was said by Cloud 9)

I link them? Cloud's ENTIRE argument is "some soldiers have done bad things, so no soldier can possibly be a hero" and in her argument she is clearly linking the entire soldier proffesion to Nazis, War Criminals and Genocidists. And I stand by my words, she's saying what she's saying to win an internet debate. I'm refuting her half assed argument that the existence of Nazis makes the proffession something less than it is.

That's your whole argument. I never said that nazis are war heros, I said that these war criminals that you bring up are A VERY VERY SMALL NUMBER OF ACTUAL SOLIERS. Out of 100,000 abu graib was done by what 10 people, maybe? The war criminals aren't war heros. No sherlock. But you can't use that argument to say that soldiers in general should not be considered heros. That's a stupid argument. It's like saying that accountants aren't good people and then when asked why pointing to enron accountants. Yes crap happens, and the criminals are caught and brought to justice.

Nobody celebrates war crimes. But I'm gonna have to object if you try to say that those who fight should somehow be ashamed because of a few bad apples, most of whom are caught and punished for dishonoring their fellow soldiers by acting like barbarians.

Or should you be ashamed to be Scottish because William Wallace and his men may have at one point committed a war crime?

If you want to further your position in this debate, you might as well stop posting, and leave the talking to Redneck, Sasquatch, and the crew. You don't even understand his argument in the least bit. He said something you disagreed with, so you got mad and took it way out of context. His argument was that "Not all soldiers are heroes" and one of the reasons for this is that some soldiers have done bad things. That isn;t twisting his words to make them sound better, it's simply putting them BACK into context. And who took them out of context in the first place? Oh yeah, it was you.

Again I'm going to post cloud's actual words.

so are people here honestly saying all combat soliders are heros?

lindy england? war criminals? human rights abusers? genocidists?

That's what she said. She thinks the existence of war criminals makes a soldiers job less heroic. She's entitled to her opinion, but it's wrong. It's as wrong as saying I should be ashamed of being German because there were some bad Germans or that I should be ashamed of being a CS person because the first computers were used in war. It's irrelevant to the issue.

The job itself is done to protect citizens from danger and it means that if you go into a war zone, you stand a reasonable chance of being shot. That at the very least makes the job noble and honorable, and provided that you don't do something illegal, that qualifies as heroic. Fine war criminals are not heros. That doesn't make the job of a soldier any less noble.