Military opinions and war experience

kidfinger,

well , I got mixed feelings on it.

on the one hand , it was contrived [ like mcveigh was ] [ for our own good ? ]

on the other, I understand wanting to have a presence there. I feel there is definitely a muslim threat of sorts....not to condemn ALL muslims , but it IS a muslim threat and not a buddist threat just the same.

the manipulation of info and cowtowing to the muslims under the guise of being PC about it...makes me wanna puke..

I believe in calling a spade a spade....ethnic cleansing is professional obfuscation speak [ designed to keep people stupid and uninformed while drawing them into the con of being PC ] for religious wars of muslims against the christians .

I think there is a plan , and it's been around 4 quite sometime....orwell knew about it. and it is unfolding as we speak...

I dunno if we'll ever know the truth...


me , us army 71/72 , vietnam 72....[ lucky to b alive...]

SportyMB,

Well for once in your life I beleive your correct.
College kids are easy to munipulate and most have fallen into that whole anit-war trend that thousands of college students back in the 60 and 70s also fell into, and now most of them have started apologizing for there behavior back in those days because now they understand what the war was for.

And you nailed it on the head.

I say why I am for us being there and yet it is still told to me that Bush lied, I could give a # less if he lied or not, we are there for the 'whole war on terrorism'. Iraq is just the battlefield "WE" chose.

I firmly feel that we would have had to go to the Middle East at some point in the near future and we chose the time and place.

1 death is to many, but already you see the fruits. the press does not show that , it just shows the negative and that is what the college dipsticks believe as gospel.

I got into an argument with a Physics professor at the University if Illinois on the Star Wars program. It was in front of 100+ students and I told him right there when he said he signed a document that he nor his department would contribute to the research of the program that I felt that was fine but he should have been fired on the spot and the whole lot with him. When your country calls, you answer or denounce your citizenship.

The looks on all the 19 year olds was amazing, they could not believe some redneck had the balls to tell a professor that to his face. This university was just a liberal as any other until you got in the Engineering part and low and behold most of these guys had been in the real world and did not hold the Liberal big mouth professors in to high of a regard, let me tell you.


Now I want to bring up something that many in ATS think was a very stupid statement, Bush said "you are either with us or against us". I liked it because there can be no backtracking later, the lines were drawn. We were going to confront this terror and we were asking for cooperation and support.

As you can see, things are not easily forgotten.........

Ed,

You know when you said that we choose the battle field it hit me and I have never thought of this before if we hadn't taken the war on terrorism to Iraq then all those insurgents and terrorist would have been free to attack America instead of going to Iraq to fight our Armed forces if this truly was US planning then good on them and I'm glad that they took it to some where else instead of fighting the war on terrorism in the US.

Thanks for enlightening me on this I never thought of it like that.

What makes you think those pouring over the border to fight the US military in Iraq had any intention of trying to attack America? Could it be the act of invading Iraq itself that is causing fighters from neigbouring countries to join the insurgents? How big is Al Qaeda? How many terrorists from Al Qaeda are in Iraq?

And who is to say that there are not terrorists still planning attacks on America? Or are you under the impression that all muslims are arabs in the middle east?

Sure I'd agree it would make sense to create a hotspot in Iraq to attract terrorists. But how many fighters all together are there from these countries? When will the last one cross the border? If the war is still going in 5 years, how many 16 yearolds today will still be pouring over the border in 2010 as 21 yearolds? When would the influx end?

Edit: sorry Im taking this off topic and I dont want to, but I had to interject. If you think you were just enlightened then you need to start thinking laterally. Don't just think along one axis, think along them all.

[edit on 28-5-2005 by cargo]

You are quite welcome, and not only has Iraq become the spot to be for would be scum terrorists, it has also put Iran on notice and they now understand that our limits of toleration have been reached.


I just wish others could see the big picture...Its not Mesopotamia we were after....

Quite a few actually , it the best place going for JiHad now and the US Army and Marines are happy to oblige.

You miss the point, you must look outside WMD and Iraq, that was not the only reason and in my opinion, it was not the main reason either...

I support this war and I am a war veteran. As someone once said, "War is an ugly thing, but it is not the ugliest of things."

Just a few comments on this..

I get accused of being liberal, or whatever, here alot. Y'all have no idea how funny that is to me. If only you knew...

Edsinger discussed life in the military under the constant threat of the cold war. I know what he was talking about, and he hit a few of the points that I did. The time at which I served was one of the most extraordinary points in our military history. I joined (at 19) in Aug. 1989 and got out in Aug. 1992.

All of my views, by '89, were formed from the Carter adminstration on. (Before that I was just a kid who didn't pay attention.) It was the COLD WAR and it dominated everyone's psyche - in a way that nothing else ever has, I believe. Carter's time in office was really depressing and physically unsettling. The nation was in deep suffering, having just recently passed through the Watergate debacle, a series of crises with the mid-east, and the end of Vietnam War. I think its safe to say, we didn't feel too confident or good about the state of our nation. The Soviet Union seemed to be making advances that were strategically untenable for us (arms-race-wise). And Carter only made that worse with his "tulipwalking," micro-managing self. Ed - if there was ever a tulipwalker it would be Carter. And he was Navy, no less. Go figure. At any rate, it was a different time and this was a different nation. One on the cusp of an amazing revolution.

Then came the Iranian hostage crisis. Nothing had ever grabbed me like that situation. I think I'm not alone on this. Anyone old enough to watch the news was probably glued to ABC (mainly), NBC and CBS every evening and night for the entire duration of that awful happening. For over a year. That episode made Ted Koppel's career, btw. For those of you too young to recall, Nightline began as special coverage of that event. Then it morphed into what you know as today. (Koppel's one of thee only network guys that I like. He's an excellent journalist.)

That event galvanized this nation. We were all of one mind for the first time in a VERY long time.

Then came REAGAN. He came riding out of the West and into office like a dream come true. I have never seen such a profound change in our nation as I did when he became president. How I miss him these days In short order, our hostages came home and he restored our national faith. As Ed said, he completely revitalized the U.S. military and made us damn proud once again to serve our nation. He was the best thing that ever happened to the soldier, the Marine, the Airman and the Sailor. He made our military the most powerful fighting force the world has ever known.

After two terms, he handed the keys over to his second in command, George Herbert Walker Bush. This was near the end of the Cold War, though none of us knew that.

And I joined that Army.

Back then, you went into the military figuring you'd never see combat. Not like 'Nam, or Korea or WW2. We were always thinking nuke warfare, again, like Edsinger pointed out. It was bigger, more hideous and abstract. It was Mutual Assured Destruction. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to Germany and Korea we go...

None of us saw it coming. Not even after Grenada and Panama. You know how young & dumb I was back then? On Christmas leave, 1989, I was at home, flipping through the channels and there was nothing on.. except for coverage of our Panama invasion. I wasn't even paying attention. Now, one would think, if our troops are invading a country, and I am a member of the 101st Airborne Division, I might be a little concerned. Nope. Not I. I didn't really worry about those things. As someone else said, my job was to go where they told me to and when, and to do my job.

So, by the time I was in AIT (Advanced Training), I'll never forget sitting in the PX cafeteria one night and the place was buzzing. I mean, it was electric. I was looking at this picture on the cover of USA Today - of the BERLIN WALL coming down! Y'all who were too young to remember that Cold War mentality, might not get the gravity of that happening. You know how we're told the War on Terrorism will be never-ending? We all believed in our souls - all our lives - that the Cold War would only end if/when buttons were pushed. We never thought that wall would come down in a million years. It was the most unbelievable, miraculous thing that had ever happened in MY life! East Germany was now free! It was tumultuous.

Things were changing....

I arrived at Ft. Campbell, Ky. in Jan. 1990. By July, Saddam invaded Kuwait and I knew deep down in my soul - before we ever got the word - that we would be going over there to kick his Sunni A double S. And I, and all those I served with, were for it 1000% I have never seen a more hyped up bunch of soldiers in my life. It was pure energy. (I won't get into the propaganda that was directed at us here. That's another post altogether.)

While we were over there gearing up for Air War, word came that the Soviet Union had collapsed! Again, never in a million years would we have known that was coming. It was ANOTHER miracle of astronomical proportions. (Thanks especially to: Reagan, Thatcher, Pope John Paul, Poland's Welensa and Gorbachev.)

By the time we came home, the whole political world had changed - literally overnight. The Cold War was OVER and the drawdown of our forces began (1991).

Enter the era of Clinton.

I got out right before he was elected, thank God. I could not stand him. I don't think I could've saluted that man. Especially after the whole Somalia debacle. Even Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell got out right after Clinton was elected. It was the point at which political correctness thoroughly infected the military.

I want to make it clear to those of you who see me as some dove on defense. Au Contraire! During the Cold War (before the NeoCons, before the "WoT") I was a total hawk on national defense. (Seems that term has vanished.) Key term being defense. If and when this nation truly NEEDS to defend itself or an ally, I have no problem with war. As I've shared, I went more than willingly to to the Gulf, because I truly believed our national interests were being threatened and I thought Kuwait was wrongly invaded. I do not support this insane "logic" behind pre-emptive warfare and I did not support the invasion of Iraq for many, many solid reasons (many of which have been soundly proved).

I do wholeheartedly support the men and women who serve in the Iraq War, though. That is an entirely separate issue.

Grady! Glad you could join us in this discussion. Why do you support this? I mean, what is the underlying reasons of your support? Not just what seems obvious to others, but what deep down makes you feel this is right?

[edit on 5/28/05 by Kidfinger]

Although we don't always agree, I can honestly say......

Hey now! I didnt pick on Regan!

You better not or lightning will strike you!

I must amend something I said..



Forgive my haste. I should have said having orders to report to the 101st Airboren Division upon completion of training.

Apologies..

I think the way people view it comes down to how much personal experience one has with the situation and how much actual hard information they have regarding a situation. In my case, in the run-up to the invasion, I solid intel telling me the exact opposite of what the administration was saying in the media. And also, what they themselves were on the record as saying (along with the PNAC document and the Clean Break Strategy.) Their purposes were clear, to anyone who was looking in the right direction.

When you're IN the military, you have a much more limited, or controlled picture of things. That is for different reasons, which I do not consider wrong or bad. When you get out, you add your personal military experience to whatever intellectual paths you pursue. It's doubly informative. You have that cold hard knowledge of how the world really is and how it works and you also have a ton of new knowledge. That's why I consider the military such a great way to start one's life. Y'all would not believe the doors honorable military service opens.

I'm going to keep this short because I have said it many times before and the reasons I support the war against terrorism, including our efforts in Iraq, have been widely disseminated by the administration. Firstly, if we don't do something to annihilate Islamic fundamentalist terror against the US, our nation will be vanquished. Secondly, as the President has said, we can't wait to find out that a nation has WMD capability when a weapon goes off in a major American metropolis.

Saddam Hussein had for more than ten years given the US and the Gulf War allies more than ample reason to invade and, in fact, Bill Clinton authorized numerous air strikes against Iraq for UN resolution violations during his administration. After 9/11, his arrogant nose-thumbing at the international community was insufferable considering the stakes and he had convinced most of the world that he possessed WMDs. That he had used such against his own people is indisputable. It is only in hindsight that the flip-floppers deny the intelligence that led to the invasion.

This war is an absolute necessity. It is literally, "Do or Die." The Iraq front might have been avoided if Saddam had conducted himself differently, but he didn't. As it is, the effort must be continued until the job is done and the Iraqi people can govern themselves. Right now, Iraq is a terrorist magnet and that suits me just fine.


[edit on 05/5/28 by GradyPhilpott]

My unit was in the line of fire frequently in various places. I was in one of the last HUEY (HooWah) helicopter units - the only one in the 101st's Aviation Brigade. I flew door gunner as much as possible and volunteered for the ground assault. [My unit took part in the deepest Air Assault mission in Army Aviation (Air Mobile) history.]

When I was over there I had nothing but contempt for the anti-war movement, which by my recollection, was ridiculously small. I thought it was a bunch of spoiled rich kids and hippees longing for the hazed old days.

The vast majority of Americans believed in the mission and supported us all the way. I can never express how deeply grateful we all were for that overwhelming show of support. It was empowering. Edsinger mentioned will and morale. Will and morale is KEY to winning any conflict.

Now, I am older and hopefully wiser. They could not spoon feed me the lies they were trying to. I am now in possession of a multitude of facts that scream at me - they are LYING! Facts that convinced me this whole invasion would be the scenario from hell. The information was out there. Bush and Cheney simpley got cooked info. "to fit their desire to invade." Edsinger, you believed it; and I did not. On this point, I hope that we can simply agree to disagree.

My thinking on the anti-war movement today has completely flipped. I now see the value in it. And why it is so strong. It is not the same pseudo-peacenik group of freaks it was during my war. It is real and it is fueled by the strongest of passions, namely: getting our troops home and out of harm's way. There is NOTHING wrong with that! We are a free society (so far), and so long as that is the case, people SHOULD speak truth to power.

[edit on 19-09-2003 by EastCoastKid]

That is the biggest lie in all of history. The "anti-war" movement is anti-American and has been at least since the war in Vietnam. Anyone who believes that is seriously deluded.

I was against the Invasion but its kinda late to be bitching and whining about that now, aint it?

The question is where do we go now. I fully support the war because its the ONLY way to end this crap.

As Grady said war is bad but its not the worst thing.

And that is your opinion, Grady.

We are all entitled to that.

It's pretty sad when a fellow citizen disagrees and is labled anti-American. I don't suppose you understand that those folks you accuse of being anti-American think you are a fascist?

I'm not being argumentative and I do not want to get this thread all flamed up; I just wanted to point that out.