DickHardman

bad times.....

Mike Brewer

Nothing wrong with fighting hard, or with conditioning yourself to the horrors of war. It's fair to assume the soldiers in that picture were not the ones who killed whomever that skull belonged to. It is old, dry, and packed with dirt like it might be if freshly dug up from a long-term grave. That guy's been dead a while.

The Germans holding it, however, are very much alive. As such, they are in need of coping mechanisms and tactics that will make the enemy fear them.

It's a funny thing about assumptions. You can't really be sure what they're doing, why they are there, or what unit they are attached to. You can assume that they are callous, nasty, unfeeling bastards that are showboating with a dead enemy's skull. You could also assume that they are with the mortuary unit, charged with the recovery and identification of old remains. Given the condition of the skull and the likelihood of it being quite old, one is just as safe an assumption as the other.

I'd be interested in an experiment, Dick. For one week, I'd love it if you'd try to look for the best in people instead of the worst. I say this without malice, and I'm not in the least bit upset. I just think it'd be a fun game. Are you up for it? Here's the deal:

For one week, try to find and post two links or stories about people doing positive things or living up to high and noble ideals. I'm curious to see if such an exercise might skew your perceptions back toward the center some.

I will, of course, subject myself to a similar experiment designed by you - just to be fair about things.

Thai Bri

Dick gets all moralistic about a soldier posing with the remains of a dead person, yet he uses a picture of an alive mentally ill person in his signature?

Mike Brewer

Let's not pick on the guy too much. I really think this may have opened a good door. Encourage the experiment!

aseepish

Fortunately he didn't post ALL the photos...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6083388.stm

"On one of the pictures, a soldier is seen holding the skull next to his exposed penis, on another - soldiers pose with the skull on their jeep."

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"It was about that time I realized that searching was my symbol, the emblem of those who go out at night with nothing in mind, the motives of a destroyer of compasses." -Cortázar

gregimotis

Lets say somebody on this board got into a fight somewheres and I happen to have a video camera and record it. Now let's say I want to sell the images to the local paper.
Is my paper most likely to buy... A frame from the beginning of the vid where our member is trying to talk his way out of a fight?
A frame from the end of the vid where our member is calling 911 and staying on the scene to make sure things work out?
A frame where our members fist is stuffed right up into some guys gob and the blood and spit is flying left and right?


Now take that little scenario, multiply by 150,000 plus soldiers and 3-4,000 photographers all running around trying to get a Pulitzer.

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I am Tired. Tired. Tired.

gregimotis

Excellent point.

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I am Tired. Tired. Tired.

gregimotis

Here Dick, I'll start it out:

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I am Tired. Tired. Tired.

Tom Yum

Nothing more beautiful than earning the hearts and minds of others.

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Love it, leave it or fix it.

the tick

Whats the point of this particular thread?

Mike Brewer

Well, if history is any indicator, the purpose is for Dick Hardman to vent about the horrors of war and use obscure references completely without context to sway the opinions of non-soldiers. Often, it's the same story across the boards, and Dick is by no means alone. Many people turn on the TV and they see things that happen in war, and it makes them shudder. They think to themselves, "How can we be a part of such things?!" But they neither want the real answer to that question, nor the solution.

The simple truth is, wars happen because the masses ignore problems until there is no other solution available. If the public had, for example, gotten behind tougher measures when Saddam was breaking UN Resolution after UN Resolution in the first place, the situation may have turned out drastically differently. If the public had rallied and told Clinton that Osama was a big priority back in 1993, right after he made the first attempt on the Twin Towers, Clinton might have been forced to take Sudan up on their offer instead of letting Osama slip away while Clinton paid attention to oil deals and illegal campaign contributions. But the public did no such thing. We were too comfortable and too insulated in our daily lives to care enough to act. And so situations developed, got bigger, and led to all-out war.

The next fatal flaw is that people watch TV and think that they have the knowledge, understanding, or even the right to comprehend the intricacies of war and how it's fought. Try and find me an average McDonald's worker that can tell you everything about the food-chain business, let alone everything about how to prosecute a successful war effort. What you get are a bunch of non-soldiers trying to tell soldiers how to do their jobs. The hard truth of the matter is, people like Dick Hardman simply do not have the capacity or experience to understand the whole picture of what wars are and how they're fought. That's not meant as an insult - it's just the truth. Many of these same people would be offended to no end if someone followed them around all day, criticizing them for how they did their jobs, and most of them have jobs that are totally inconsequential when compared with what our soldiers do every day. They sit at home, growing beards, smoking pot, and talking about how we ought to be fighting a war to decide the fate of western civilization, when they generally have a hard time not being late to work on a regular basis themselves. You have to take some of it with a grain of salt.

Truth be told, war is about destruction. It is killing. It is horror and suffering. It is also sometimes necessary. It is a necessity from time to time to sacrifice a few to save many, no matter how horrible such a decision or its consequences might end up being. The horror of war is profound, but so is its purpose. None of that is easily understood by your average non-soldier - nor should it be! The reason that one-third of one percent of the US population goes off to fight is specifically so that the remaining 99.7% or so never have to deal with those horrors themselves. They are not meant to understand the fact (and it is fact, make no mistake) that in war, people have to do unbelievable and unspeakable things to win. Soldiers and commanders understand that, and accept it as part of their chosen profession. Civilians simply pounce up on their highest horses and condemn such realities as immoral or unethical. But the funny thing about reality is that it doesn't care what you call it - it still is what it is.

Dick doesn't understand war. It's not his fault; he's just never served in that capacity. Plenty of people who have served don't understand war, because their experience is limited to a small piece of something incomprehensibly large. Dick's young and idealistic, and in that stage of life where everything is somehow related to him. That's normal. But you have to wonder how anyone can take someone seriously when they condemn others for subjective value-judgement based behaviors, all the while sitting at home getting high and making fun of fat kids.

Therein lies the heart of my proposed experiment.

the tick

I thought so. But I was wondering why he was posting about something that happened nearly 4 years ago. And was completely blown out of proportion by the German tabloids like BILD-zeitung, from which those photos are, last year. Without a personal comment.

DickHardman

the best part of this post is where you talk about "assumptions", yet you have made quite a lot about me despite that fact that i didnt post any kind of opinion, just a picture.

you guys are the ones who made all the assumptions, not me.

i post positive things all the time, nobody cares about that shit. i posted an entire documentary called gangs of iraq that shows how hard american soldiers are trying to help iraqis. i posted tons of material on iraqis trying to better their country and fight terrorism. again, nobody said anything about all that.


all i did was post a picture, the only people who made assumptions about others were mike b and bri. you cant tell someone not to make assumptions about others mike, then write 2 big posts back to back were you make tons and tons of assumptions about someone you dont know, and i didnt make an assumptions to begin with. your assumption about my assumption was just one big assumption.


btw, do mortuary units normally strap skulls to the hoods of their vehicles? just curious.

DickHardman

again, more assumptions about a person you dont even know. im actually pretty dissapointed that you would say im not interested in real answers and real solotions. if not me, then who? none of my peers, none that i know of, have fallowed the war on terrorism every single day since it started. nobody else among my peers that im aware of cares that our soldiers are dying and fighting every single day, they have more important things to do like watch sopranos and entourage. please dont spread lies about me. you dont know me at all.

yeah, funny how you say this yet this post was nothing but one big assumption about me. by your own words we shouldnt be taking anything you say seriously mike, cause all you did was make a bunch of judgments about me, and then tried to say i was the one making all these judgments lol....are you pulling my chain now???

Tom Yum

I'm not sure how close your siutation is to what Mike described, but he touched on some excellent points!

Where da hell are all the folks who love their country, despite what they say and why aren't they doing their part?

I've already met a handfull of men, while at MEPS in their early to mid 40's and women in their mid to late 30's, whom are enlisting in the army - they come from differing backgrounds, but what's interesting and motivating is why they are here.

I chose a different branch, but I know what I will see and do will put me close to the issues at hand.

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