Teufel Hunden

Its because you're putting your requirements for respect in too narrow and negative of a light.

This is not true, and you'd know that if you did a little research of your own. Of course you're going to have the people that fit your description in any walk of life, but "mostly?" Not even close. You can't even defend that position it's so far off course. If our military had truly been scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for people to "brainwash (another word folks like to throw around out of ignorance)," we wouldn't be good at ANYTHING. But our military has, and still does, serve as the model for other countries to replicate themselves. We're far too proficient at too many things to be the lack luster group of idiots you'd make us out to be.


I'm sure the members on TFP "just so happen" to not fit the mold and don't serve to indicate the greater force makeup at all. People who live in hugely military cities tend to have a more negative look on the military anyway, justified or no, and in so looking down your nose at the military in town, you fit that mold. Aren't stereotypes fun? But truly, your opinions are no different than most Americans these days. Almost everyone walks around town believing they're better than the rest of the world in some way. "Everyone but me drives like an idiot." "Everyone but me has no idea why they have the opinions they have." "Everyone but me has no idea what's best for this country." Your opinions are just centered on the plentiful military members in town. "Why should I respect these guys? They suck. They're just unmotivated brainwashed idiots with no education and no where near the intelligence I possess! They only exist to do our dirty work."


The friend of a friend is a douche bag and needs to learn to keep his mouth shut. Most of us who have seen combat, especially more than once, don't enjoy talking about it, and when I meet someone who does want to talk about all the gory details, I automatically assume he's just making it all up. But his sentiments are no different than some of the shit being spewed all over the US by that end of the political spectrum, military or no. Since the military has people in it from all walks of life, of all levels of intelligence, etc, of course you're going to have douche bags in it like this guy. But it still isn't "most" people in the service presently.


Your friend is a douche bag too, and you shouldn't feel bad about the "loss." People like he and his friend do us all a disservice.

These convos are not unique to you because the people most willing to "share" their opinions with everyone else are the people with the most "out there" opinions, and they're going to be the most aggressive in doing so. When was the last time you heard about a moderate on the street corner holding a sign up screaming at passers by that, "compromise the is the real answer!" Never. But, how many times can you think of people comparing Bush to Hitler? How about all the people who loved Bush now comparing Obama to Hitler? Its my guess you probably just don't run into many moderate sounding military types because they're the ones not wanting to talk about piles of dead insurgents, Obamists, and all the other crap. I can say that nearly everyone I've served with is exactly like me. We're all low key now, not terribly interested in getting into bar-room debates with people, or conversations about the combat we saw. Hell, aside from my hair cut, I don't really make it outwardly obvious I was a Marine, and I don't have many articles of Marine Corps clothing. I have one nice polo that has some chevrons embroidered on the chest, and that's it. My most blatant showing of having served at all is my screen name.

No. Your friend and his friends are douche bags. They don't deserve free passes.

No. Not everyone is cut out (not meaning that in a negative way) for the service, and should stay out of it altogether. It's a big commitment, and sometimes not being totally committed can get people killed.


Depends on what it is. I give guys like John McCain a free pass for saying in an interview that he, "Hated the gooks." I know a WWII vet who landed on Tarawa and Saipan, and still to this day cannot stand to be around Japanese people, or even hear the Japanese language being spoken. That is also fine. But those men went through HELL at the hands of their enemies. For them to have carried some residual hate over the years is perfectly fine IMO. But your friend and his friend? Absolutely not. Especially if they criticize the president too loudly or have little pet names for people who support him.

You can always criticize people for assbaggery. But your overall opinion of the military being uneducated, unmotivated, and brainwashed is plenty disrespectful enough, so I'm not sure why you're worried about this.



---------- Post added at 01:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:39 PM ----------

This is actually not true, and hasn't been for a long time. Dehumanizing, IS, however, a normal response for someone in combat. It's why bomber pilots, who cause far more death and destruction than your average rifleman, almost never have PTSD.

While "back in the day," during WWII and the like, it was a big desire for people to go kill some "japs," the term "Rag Head" has never been spoken to me by an instructor or my unit leadership. In fact, in 2003, my commanding officer made a BIG effort to squash any kind of racist remarks made my anyone, and even relieved one platoon sergeant because he didn't like the way the Sgt was speaking about our upcoming mission. The problem with training people to dehumanize the enemy (especially an enemy that looks different than the majority of the people on your side), is eventually they dehumanize everyone who looks like the enemy which is detrimental to the overall mission. For both of my deployments, it was beaten into our skulls that not everyone we're encountering is the enemy. Not everone out there wants to fight us or hurt us. Terms like "haji" to describe the whole people is ignorant, and should only be used to describe people who really are hajis... etc. We went through SO MANY culture awareness type classes, I lost count.

Dustin picked that up from his buddies or from himself. It was absolutely NOT part of his official training process.