A Salute To Our Military Men & Women (pics)

50 Salutes!

Good thread, KRL - thanks

Hey Russ ... I hope you enjoyed the festive season.

http://www.voicesofiraq.com/

KRL, it was/is very nice of you to take some time out of your day to say thanks as well show your respect for all the women and men aiding those in need.

Thank you KRL.

I think its great the way all countries are coming out to help these people not just a few. Regardless of how much you give the point is the world is working together.

yeah, i salute you. enjoy my taxes!

The problem is that it is US international policy to go and start wars of aggressive empire building and to wage war against civilian targets. Humanitarianism is a thin hook American politicians use to make their neo-imperialism palatable to the American people and the world. Look at the majority of the wars the US has been openly involved in over the last 40 years (from Korea, Vietnam, all over South America, to lately Kuwait and Iraq) - NONE of them have _really_ been about helping the locals, and ALL of them have been about maintaining US economic and political hegemony.

Now I am sure that there are some good people in the US army... but there has also been no _need_ for pretty much any of the US's bloody witch hunts and I would say that taken as a whole the US army's contribution to pain, death and suffering in the world far outweighs the odd bit of humanitarian PR building it does.

I'll leave you to your feel good thread now though. ;-)

My father served in the 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 82nd Airborne during WWII. His first action was at Anzio. Once when I was young I asked him what war is like, and he told me these stories:

While waiting for orders to move out towards Rome one day, the unit was eating a hot meal out of their mess kits. Standard practice among GIs was to scrape the mess kits into a pre-dug pit when they were done. Standard practice among starving Italian kids was to stand in the pit with anything they could find and hold it up to the GIs so they could have the leftovers. It immediately became common practice to kneel and carefully place a portion of your meal in the kids' tin cans, boxes, whatever (often before eating anything yourself). On this day, a replacement in the outfit, a surly fuck that noone liked anyway, walked up to the pit and dumped his leftovers on a little boy's head, whereupon the boy immediately scrambled to salvage what he could from his turn in the pit. This guy spent the next several days in a field hospital before being shipped back out to England with a broken jaw and various other injuries.

It was also very common for GIs to pick out a ragamuffin and share all of their meals with them. "That's war", dad said.

On killing a civilian once -- during Operation Anvil, while my dad was helping to "clear" a barn, a crazed and frightened old French farmer burst out of a hiding place and ran at him with an ax raised and screaming pitifully and incoherently. Dad had no choice but to use his Thompson on the poor old fool. No one ever found out who he was or why he did it. Just one of those strange things. He always remembered the incident, and always wanted to know why the farmer forced him to kill him.

Anyway, maybe those two stories will be illustrative of the sorts of situations one finds himself or herself in while serving in a combat zone. It's Alice in Wonderland time in those zones, and criticizing the actions of others from the safety of your desk back here isn't really a smart thing to do. You have no idea.

Is it hard to sleep in that tinfoil hat you're wearing?

yes yes yes

I also salute them. People only bash the U.S' arms service because of jealousy. The truth is that the U.S is extremely powerful to a point that they can do whatever they want, but the world is having a hard time accepting that. imo

Like everything else.."nice" doesn't get reported very often. The world seems to only like to see the bad things. It is enjoyable to see people helping out their fellow man. Too bad we couldn't see more of it.

GOD BLESS AMERICA, LAND OF THE FREE HOME OF THE BRAVE

That's the attitude of Communists.
Talk about the good, not the bad.
Don't criticize the government.
A patriot does not critize the government.

blah blah.

i salute them

The french foreign legion called.. they have a general position open.

[QUOTE=BackToMine]GOD BLESS AMERICA, LAND OF THE FREE HOME OF THE BRAVE



That does't look like the helmet of a US soldier. Israelis and British both have similar sorts of helmets. You might want to check your source here.

By the way, looks like they're getting some good info there. Probably saved a life or two with it.

there's always 2 sides to a story. Pics don't mean anything without CONTEXT.

I support our troops... 100%

if you judged all people on a few.... you would think the world is a bunch of fucking freaks that drink all night and do drugs and make porn sites... look at us

g0 leg, its your b-day. ;)