War Is Hell.. But We Seem To Like It....

reply to post by Yissachar1


You're re-enlisting? Wow ... big step my friend. You've obviously thought long and hard about it.

I was a step away from going back to the cdo regiment, but I couldn't get my back 100% (that's what happens when you fall out of a blackhawk).

Brit Army? Para? SAS? What's your endgame?

reply to post by Discontent


Just being a section commander or an MFC will do.. I don't care... I just want to get back in the green... My missus don't like it.. Gonna have to move back to England, but for my own mental health its better than working in a factory.... I'm just not ready to be a civvy yet... And do not want to do another tour with the IDF.... Left a bad taste in my mouth...

I guess all I would offer is the same advice I give all ex-soldiers.

Make sure you are doing it for the right reasons - remember you've got a family now, and it will impact the relationship. It always does.

Remember the hurry up and wait mentality - the inane boredom, the mind and back breaking work.

I think yearning for the military because you're not currently happy isn't the right way to approach it - I think you need to be happy with yourself, and then want to re-enlist, otherwise it's a very dangerous path.

Again, I say this without knowing you, so my advice may be completely off the mark, but if this resonates with you at all, then think long and hard.

Best of luck with whatever path you take.

I am a Vietnam Veteran. Forty years ago I was sent by my very rich uncle to work in his vineyards in a land all white and ready to harvest ~ hereinafter referred to as Vietnam, the uncle, my Uncle Sam. I served with B Co 2nd/7th 1st Air Cavalry '66 - '67, as a combat infantryman ... we called ourselves "Grunts," operating out of LZ Betty near beautiful downtown Phan Thiet, Vietnam. Mine was the same unit depicted in the Mel Gibson movie, "We Were Soldiers," only I came along one year later.

Vietnam changed us all indelibly and forever. I'm now on 100% disability rating with an extra hole in my head, covered by a 3X4 inch plate, shrapnel the size of a quarter currently imbedded three inches into my brain ... this traumatic brain injury all compliments of a trip wire booby trap that triggered a grenade, that in turn detonated an artillery round ... and in the process completely ruined my whole day ... April, 22, 1967, during combat operation in the boonies near Phan Rang, Vietnam.

I went to Vietnam because I had no choice, and truly felt it was the noble thing to do ... but as a veteran I came to realize this generation is still a savage one ~ a warrior generation. What I learned from Vietnam was : "Learn what the warriors learned, for indeed, it is warriors who have first hand seen the evil and devastation of hatred, who first hand know the value of peace, love, compassion and harmony among men."

War turned my value systems carefully instilled in my young life by parents, church and society upside down. Now my greatest motivating desire in writing about Vietnam was first a cathartic one, to heal the demons of war within me from where I'd stashed them way down deep so long ago, bringing them out and confronting them so I could deal with them face-to-face, looking them in the eye.

I am the webmaster of "Vietnam Picture Tour," with my pictures of a walk in "the park" grunts called Vietnam with the 1st Air Cavalry on combat patrol. Experience chilling reality there, with beaucoup combat action pictures and poignant poetry to leave the sweet and sour taste of "the Nam" pungent on your tongue, the smell of "the Nam" acrid in your nostrils, and textures of "the Nam" imbedded in you as though you walked beside me in combat. namtour.com...

A COMBAT SOLDIER'S PRAYER
by Gary Jacobson © 1999
music and pictures at: namtour.com...

This combat soldier's prayer,
Who has served his time in Hell,
Is may we learn the lessons of war well,
That we not doom future generations,
The same old tales of horror to tell,
To endure what in youth they see mistakenly as glory.
Oh God, do not let our children
Repeat the same old story.

Make it so that America's babies live to grow old
In this land of the free and the bold.
Help us throw off the shackles of hate that bind
And grow old in a life of a peaceful kind.

Teach us that there is no glory in war,
Nor honor there that brave men should not abhor.
Teach us instead, one for another our brothers to love.
Shower us with thine Celestial message from above,
That we plant seeds of peace evermore
And make war-no-more!

But if I should die on some far, far away battlefield
Know I answered the call
For a grand principle of freedom to yield.
My fervent prayer is that death
May not have been in vain
Fighting for peace and right for the world to attain.

My brothers, American roses standing by my side
On alien soil dying
In the summer of my youthful pride
All the leaves around me falling,

Now I’m lying here still, in sunshine and in shadow,
Longing to hear, “brother next door, I love you so."
For moldering in the soft ground below,
I feel you living and loving in the world above me
Standing tall because I fought that you might be...
Oh look ye down now,
And tell me you still think of me
Honor my red blood, spilt that others might stand free.

Tell me that I did not give my all for you in vain
That brothers and sisters do not look upon my sacrifice
With hateful,
Or even worse,
Uncaring disdain.

Do not forget me when my valley’s hushed
And white with snow,
Grass growing green in the summer of my meadow
Help me see the peace I lived and died for grow.

Make my lonely grave richer,
Sweeter be...
Make this truly,
"The land of the free
And the home of the brave,"
I gave my life to save
That I might too, lie eternally,
Forever free...


[edit on 26-2-2010 by 1stcavgrunt]

Originally posted by Freq Of Nature
reply to post by Subjective Truth

 

I totally disagree with what you are saying...

You keep talking about bleeding hearts and how weak others are!

You have some sort of idea in your head that people are unable to change and that war will continue forever...

You think that you are right with everything you say and are just a delusional as any other man! Plus you don't listen you just act...

Yes there is always going to be violence, but that could come down to the right reasons, such as survival... Look at the animal kingdom!

[edit on 25-2-2010 by Freq Of Nature]

So you think war will stop but violence will continue. And to look to the animal kingdom for insight. Lets do that in the animal kingdom only the strongest live and the weak die at birth right? Are you saying this is what we should do instead of war? I don't get you point is seems to contradict itself. If you have violence you will have war will you not?

Originally posted by Yissachar1

The bleeding hearts will cry about how there is no place for war and warriors. They are also the first one's begging for help and security when it is needed. We are raising the new generations of boys as women look at them they are weak and progressive in mind. There fathers have been turned in politically correct metro sexual limp wrist-ed gay posers and they pass it on to there sons. War will always be here freedom comes down the barrel of a gun. And no amount of crying will change that simple fact. The human heart will always want more than it has.

reply to post by Subjective Truth

 

War is what the Greeks used to call "the great leveler"... It puts all men on an equal plane in an arena where you are forced to perform or die.. Some of those limp wristed guys may surprise you... The best soldier ever to put on a uniform was gay.. SAS Col. Blaire Paddy Maine... An awesome warrior!!
But You are right.. As long as human nature is what it is, there will always be need for Tommy Aitkins guarding those walls... Those bleading hearts need to start living in the real world because it is the soldiers sacrifice that has protected that bubble they live their lives in.. And when that bubble bursts.. Are the people who stand in front of them...

You are right but I dont think because you a gay it makes you limp wristed I am sure there are some very tuff gay men and women it comes down to heart and knowing right from wrong. And having the will to do what the other guy will not. And I know you were not saying that gays are weak I just wanted to clarify my position.

reply to post by 1stcavgrunt

I am a Vietnam Veteran

All I have to say to anyone who went to Nam is Thank you, I'm glad
your home.


As for those who individually excell at the throws of war. They can be
gaged by their killer instincts.





[edit on 26-2-2010 by randyvs]

Originally posted by randyvs
reply to post by 1stcavgrunt

 

As for those who individually excell at the throws of war. They can be
gaged by their killer instincts.

[edit on 26-2-2010 by randyvs]

Just a question, I know it is "spelling" and I am not nit picking.. I just want to know if you mean, "gagged" (choked) or "gauged" (judged) It changes the meaning of what you wrote big time, depending on which word you meant to use.LOL

Again, this is honestly just for clarification...

[edit on 26-2-2010 by SideWynder]

reply to post by Yissachar1

Having reviewed the win/loss ratio of American wars, I wonder if the real reason fro them isn't arms sales. The only wars won without assistance from allies are civil wars and the Spanish American war. All others have been lost or won with strong allied participation.
So what have created the reasons for going to war?
Follow the money and it leads to arms sales and contractors.

reply to post by cobatoma


I agree with you, but the point of this thread is, even though "we" know war is hell.. why do some of "us" seem to like it... that is the question the OP. is trying to find an answer to... (as well as some of us readers)
not so much why are there wars, or who propogates them, but why do some individuals that have been in combat, actually miss it....

Oh well, well, well! Maybe y’all can understand my little parables.

More muscle get thing done ra ra ra!

These testosterone posturing war-talks always make me laugh because it’s so convenient and predictable. Man intrinsically thinks of his sex as the embodiment of power that should cause damage from time to time. Which is why the brute force must always find a pretext to manifest itself? Could “male ego” be behind all these war that are fought? Hum, maybe we’ll find out one day.
Then there’s this weird paradox coming from the self-asserted soldier when asking the civilians to see him as the brave and strong dehumanized fighter and at the same time to try give him some kind of gratifying understanding on the “emotional” level. Well, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t be some G.I Joe Action figure and a complete human being with all its complexities at the same time. So if civilians and raging bleeding-earth hippies are not as sympathetic to you as you think they should be well, suck it up!

Women think that men “make love to them” when in reality, in their mind, men are only self-assuming as males. Once the feminine wake up from her romantic fairytale illusion and realize what the “real world is”, then you’re gonna have the biggest warriors that history had ever seen. You’re going to awake the dormant “Rocky”. The biggest will to fight (and kill) comes from the ones who seem the least capable. Once we get out of the former(the matrix) the latter(no hold bars) will be your worst nightmare. Men’s advantage and this world is that they know they are in a fight while women are lost in their romantic veneer of reality.


[edit on 2-3-2010 by Exv8densez]

Originally posted by Exv8densez

Women think that men “make love to them” when in reality, in their mind, men are only self-assuming as males. Once the feminine wake up from her romantic fairytale illusion and realize what the “real world is”, then you’re gonna have the biggest warriors that history had ever seen. You’re going to awake the dormant “Rocky”. The biggest will to fight (and kill) comes from the ones who seem the least capable. Once we get out of the former(the matrix) the latter(no hold bars) will be your worst nightmare. Men’s advantage and this world is that they know they are in a fight while women are lost in their romantic veneer of reality.


[edit on 2-3-2010 by Exv8densez]

Rise of the Amazonian warrior goddesses eh? Bring. It. On.

War is not a beginning or end its a way of living,it has always been that way since time immemorial and will always be that way in one form or another, especially if the systems of the past remain active. Humans especially males are that way because its the most traveled path, we feal only comfertable and alive in opposition and preferable the just opposition, its the way of war, the friend the foe and the moment to strike, everything alse gets the mute button pressed, nothing but crickets in the background, shadow reality's before the face of death. There are many kinds of wars, dont get attached to one for there will always be others, and not all will be won with hostilities or a gun, but anyone who has been in confrontation will know that hostilities and a gun will solve everything, but the outcomes are not always favorable.

reply to post by Exv8densez


Oh lol are you female, you must be because females are weird, and also they fight for themselves the tactics they use are just different then males. And chicks with spears are hot especially if they know how to use them.

Originally posted by galadofwarthethird
reply to post by Exv8densez

 

Oh lol are you female, you must be because females are weird, and also they fight for themselves the tactics they use are just different then males. And chicks with spears are hot especially if they know how to use them.

Hahahhaah - gold!!!!

reply to post by 1stcavgrunt


Brother I have to say... I have always had to say because the reason I chose to be a soldier was because of you guys...


I am not American... I am English by birth but have Israeli duality.... However.... I am pissed at how you guys who gave everything you was can only be remembered in pious anti war films from Hollywood an a garden of stone in Washington...

You had no heroes home coming yet those self same "grunts" walked TALL in south east Asia... You won battles and lost friends in places that the world will not remember.. You faced hails of bullets and bombs and STILL ran up that hill to take it... You Took it but did not get any acknowledgement from your countrymen that you did it even after the fact your friends died taking it..

You did your job in the worst possible circumstance.. You answered your countries call not by choice... But damnnn you PERFORMED!!... Those deltas and valleys in Vietnam are fed by the blood and sacrifice of my American brothers..... Soldiers true... Brave men... Unrecognized... But NOT by those who "KNOW"....

I know brother...

And I salute you and the bravery of your friends... And I thank you for lost youth and innocence.... For your travesty saved our lives... Lessons learnt... And we love you.... No matter what side you was on.... Honourable men... Soldiers... Brothers....

America did not deserve such men.... They were Gods grace on your nation... Amen...


We are one....

reply to post by cobatoma


The only wars not won are those who are not committed to the fight.... You come to my home and try taking it and I'm GOING to kill you... Not hurt you... Or give you a nose bleed... I actually am going to stop you from breathing and send you home for your family to grieve for...

That is being a soldier.... Our job description is to "close in with and destroy the enemy".... Whoever that enemy may be...

But we have hearts and am not stupid... We would not fire against our own... We would do whats right "in country". We would be soldiers but humans first....

However....


Those battle drums..... That call to war.... That endless fight... Is what we fight anyway... Because war could not destroy us... But we became it for a while... And that wont leave us.... There will always be a part of us fighting in the desert, jungle or frost... Our brothers lain on blood-soaked soil.. That pain we carry for you... So you dont have too... And we all believe that... But our brethren get sent to fight again by immoral men....


Those same governors are not worthy to even be in the same breathing space as those they send to war...

Times need to change...

But when cowardly men do nothing then evil starts to reign... keep alive therefore those men of valor in Vietnam, Korea, South Pacific, Europe.. Because they will try and make you for get that...

THAT IS WHO YOU ARE...

WARRIORS....

Whats more...

Warriors of the Angel Isle....