Those Marines Bought an SS Flag Without Knowing What it Was? Seriously? That’s Your Excuse?

If i was a US Marine Scout Sniper putting my life on the line for my country..I'd take what ever symbol i wanted and give it any meaning i wanted if thats what gets me through my fight..If the Nazi stole symbols and made them bad..why cant i steal a symbol and make it good? But thats just me and those two lighting bolts look awesome..Nazi weren't awesome..but those bolts are

reply to post by kn0wh0w


..... at the end of the day ... I don't think this should warrant much care from people, but please let me know if they are doing somethign really wrong like killing innocent people ( with proof) , or stealing millions of $$ or anything worth while.

reply to post by masqua


Right. Thats like asking every person who cant remember every single Nazi insignia to, somehow, avoid putting two S' beside each other in a aesthetically appealing fashion.

Hell, I didn't recognize the flag, and I am extremely versed in the history of Nazi controlled Europe.

So, if i wanted to make a flag for my new 'Sandwich Soaker', and happened to make the SS look like lightning bolts, would you start a thread about how I'm a Nazi?

"That's Your Excuse?"? no, thats just one extremely reasonable explanation. Unless you truly believe that modern day America is influenced by Nazi ideology (a sentiment that is all-too common around here...), than its hard to have such strong convictions about this arbitrary photo.

Its called grasping at straws.

Sandwich Soaker lolololololololol

SS = salami sandwich

ok lets play a game
What does SS mean to you ?
I will start SS - Salami sandwich

It's a symbol people, it can carry many different meanings, it can be connected to many different parts in time... To state that the soldiers knew it was a nazi symbol is plain ignorant, and even if they knew they could have been representing the symbol for something completely different....Honestly, people are just too damn sensitive today and love to make a big deal out of just about everything....

Now it would be a much differnt story if these kids were going around saying "Heil Hitler" and "Kill all Jews"..... The pictures shows a group of Scout Snipers posing around a SS flag that can easily mean just that Scout Sniper...

reply to post by lordbayfin


Lol, how did I now think of that?

Originally posted by Kenrichaed
Well to be fair, I'm a history major specializing in military history and I can honestly say that i've never seen that ss flag. Didn't even know they had their own flag actually, I thought all Nazi's waved the Swastika around. I could certainly understand how they didn't know what it was.

Kinda reminds me more of one of the special forces designs more than anything to do with Nazi's.

Honestly, if you are a military history major and don't know the SS symbol, that's a very, VERY bad sign. Where are you studying history?

I know the SS symbol by the time I was probably 10 years old. It's well known in popular culture. Anyone who has seen a movie with Nazi SS in it should know what it means. Anyone who has played a war video game set in WWII should know what it means.

Originally posted by lordbayfin
Sandwich Soaker lolololololololol

SS = salami sandwich

ok lets play a game
What does SS mean to you ?
I will start SS - Salami sandwich

Sufferin Succotash

~Sylvester the Cat

They're grunts; not history majors. They're reared on mashing triggers in brain dead, first-person shooter video games; not on the pages of history books.

Give the little rascals a break.

reply to post by Unrealised




why do i see this all the time about soldiers? why would anyone insult soldiers in anyway. this guy might have honestly made a mistake.

its not like this was some conspiracy to get his troupe to pose with a Nazi flag.

calling soldiers fools. when they who have families and friends. go over to these foreign places for WHATEVER the reason. fight, die, suffer, cry, and give up more freedoms then some have today.

reply to post by kn0wh0w


This is going to sound tenuous and self-adulating at first, but bear with me...

I've watched enough war movies, been to enough historical sites along the eastern seaboard from Fort Ticonderoga to Gettysburg, Stone Mountain to the Alamo. I've been to museums and watched the brief war reel vignettes and seen the placards that explain various relics. I've read the words of the chroniclers and historians. I've heard first person (and second person) narratives from relatives and family friends.

There's always a sort of "postbellum" nostalgia that surrounds a vast majority of what I've heard and read. While both sides were willing to kill each other at the time of the war itself, after the fact, people directly involved - or those who are capable of making rational moral judgments to the contrary - are still able to look back and admire the so-called "bad guy" and the strategies and successes that they accomplished during the war.

Roman emperors who razed and raped and pillaged. Continental megalomaniacs and Despots who commanded hoards of murderous zealots. Even events within our contemporary consciousness, like WWII, with the despicable acts of the Germans and Japanese (and Soviets and US).

There's a certain about of praise for good maneuvering and tactics that is doled out despite the horrors put upon the victims of those same tactics.

It leads me to understand the military psyche, as best as I can from not being in it, that among service members in combat there must a fair amount of bravado and deferred-morality (or maybe skewed morality) in that they are able to do what they do everyday without a general agreement that what they are doing is wrong. Of course not, the other guy is wrong.

Thirty or forty years from now or so, I'm sure we'll be living through historical movies about Afghanistan and Iraq that depict the enemy in a more respectable, almost reverential light (just look at WWII propaganda movies from the 40s, versus movies like that "Pearl Harbor" one with Ben Afleck).

Getting to this group of marines: they are associating themselves, for better or worse, with the SS - loosely as I am aware that there is also the coordination of the initials in Sniper Squad. However, I can't help but feel that they see the SS and their power and terror as something to also be fond of or admire, something that they can associate with given their circumstances.

In the end, my opinion is that this is a moot point. What the hell are they doing there killing these people in the first place? I'm more concerned with that fact, than the obvious eventualities of racist undertones that come part and parcel with such bloody invasions and occupations. I mean, long and short, if we don't want to see this behavior, why do we allow the context to even occur?

Stupid Snipers.
That's what it says to me.

you cant drag kiss into this , they are a rock band and not out killing people with guns , but making millions of fans happy with awesome rock music from now and forever !
Im not a huge kiss fan but bringing their band logo in because the typeface used "die nasty" has the same S shape is just ridiculous
the SS nazi symbol we can call a logo !
the Kiss band logo is based on the typeface Die nasty and has a whole set of letters from A - Z and every other character. It wasnt designed around the SS logo and is just similar in resemblance nothing else.

Those who are in the american military who so swear to defend honour and freedoms and the ideals of america should not be using nazi logo for the SS which is steeped in fear and hated for everything America stands against.
If that doesnt make sense to anyone in the US or anywhere else then its just plain ignorance.

or maybe im wrong and the american military is actually facist in nature, well Jim mars and naomi wolfe seem to think so , the american government did take a whole bunch of nazi's under their wing at the end of the war.
Congress also has the faces on the walls a known facist symbol, america has a brutal police state emerging.
Der fuhrer Herr Obama can actually kill anyone he wants using drones anywhere in the world without fear of reprisal!
Hmm yeh america wages war to drive nationalism and untiy through war.
Really the only thing missing is the torture cam..... oh crap forgot about gitmo !
so all thats left is the genocide but wait a whole bunch of americans died quite recently and a whole bunch of you think it was an inside job!

Ahh maybe im just being a conspiracy nutjob, maybe its all just a bunch of coincidence.
or maybe those marines slipped up and thought no one would see their little flag picture
boasting how they compare themselves to the brutal SS.

reply to post by loves a conspiricy


So because they are soldiers they are ignorant? Stupid even?? If you only knew how many enlisted service men and women were college educated, many with graduate degrees.

These guys are obviously KISS fans, that's all. They started to make a KISS flag, and they just weren't finished with it by picture time. It gets boring out in the desert, they have to pass time with something!
Why do people always want to assign their "interpretations" to so called, "facts" ?

Originally posted by ClydeFrog42
So, if i wanted to make a flag for my new 'Sandwich Soaker', and happened to make the SS look like lightning bolts, would you start a thread about how I'm a Nazi?

Yeah, I might not.

So, reviewing the background, which we all now know:

The incident has brought scrutiny to a longtime practice in the scout sniper community. Its members have used the “lightning bolt” SS logo for years on patches, posters and tattoos, a nod toward their title. The position is exclusive to the Corps; the Army has scouts and snipers, but separates their duties into two occupations.

What's been laid out by the brass before:

The Corps has addressed the use of the SS logo before, however. A PowerPoint presentation posted on a Marine Corps website said it should not be used in any tattoos.

What the top brass is saying now:

Commandant Gen. Jim Amos has ordered an investigation of the scout sniper community’s usage of the notorious Nazi SS organization’s logo after a platoon in Afghanistan displayed it with the U.S. flag.

(...)

“On behalf of the Marine Corps and all Marines, I apologize to all offended by this regrettable incident,” Amos said.

(...)

The commandant said Friday that he has directed commanders to investigate the prevalence of the SS logo and other unauthorized symbols within the reconnaissance and sniper communities and for Training and Education Command, out of Quantico, Va., to review scout sniper school training to ensure it is clear the logo’s use is banned.

Sgt. Maj. Mike Barrett, the Corps’ top enlisted Marine, will meet personally with every senior staff noncommissioned officer in the sniper community in coming days to “reinforce my message and expectations,” Amos said. Barrett served as a scout sniper during the Gulf War, and later designed sniper training for Marine units in Iraq.

www.navytimes.com...

I agree with the move. No military should be using Nazi symbolism unless it is the express desire of the top brass, of that force, to honour the Nazi regime through their symbols

This isn't about the Double Sig.

This is about the Marines flying the FLAG of the SS.

They can claim whatever they want to about the Double Sig, but using the flag of the SS isn't the same thing as simply using the Double Sig.

There is a distinct difference between the Manji 卍, and the black swastika in a white circle on a field of red. One is a symbol, the other is a flag.

So because the nazi's used that symbol on a flag no one else can?

Am I getting that right?

What a joke and who gives a damn.

Originally posted by imasecretspy
who gives a damn.

Commandant Gen. Jim Amos

Originally posted by imasecretspy
So because the nazi's used that symbol on a flag no one else can?

Am I getting that right?

What a joke and who gives a damn.

edit on 13-2-2012 by imasecretspy because: (no reason given)

You seriously posted that DIRECTLY under the post that addresses this issue?

It isn't about the symbol.

They used THE SAME FLAG.