Posted on 01/19/2015 8:35:25 AM PST by cleghornboy
General Douglas MacArthur, in his farewell speech given to the Corps of Cadets at West Point on May 12, 1962, spoke of duty, honor and country and what these words entail for the professional soldier.
General MacArthur spoke of the bloody battles and the heroic sacrifices made by the soldier on countless battlefields. But he added, "This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war."
This point is not understood by everyone. It is least understood by those who have never served in the Armed Forces. In a post on Facebook, Mr. Deal Hudson writes, ""American Sniper,' in my opinion is NOT TO BE MISSED. The 500 persons in the theater walked out in absolute silence. I've never witnessed that kind of a reaction to a film before, ever. Bradley Cooper is wonderful and Clint Eastwood's direction is masterful."
Various people chimed in fully agreeing. One woman wrote, "I agree, it is a great movie!!! Thank God for Chris Kyle & others who serve our nation, their wives, children & families.
(Excerpt) Read more at lasalettejourney.blogspot.com ...
FMCDH(BITS)
I agree with Kyle's assessment. I say, get them over there rather than over here. King David had the same calling when he and his men took out every living thing in his despicable enemies towns. The Bible calls him a man after God's heart.
Sadly many modern religions are pacifists and don't understand fighting evil.
“The enemy are savages and despicably evil,” and that his “only regret is that I didn’t kill more.”
While the author of this piece is shocked, shocked, that any soldier who says such a thing was not removed from combat for having psychopathic tendencies*, he *obviously* knows nothing about history.
American soldiers have said almost identical things after witnessing horrible atrocities carried out in Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
In Iraq, truly horrific things were done by the “insurgents” the US was fighting. And most of the utterly inhuman, barbaric, savage and despicably evil things they did were done against innocent civilians.
It doesn’t take a whole lot of that before soldiers become utterly contemptuous and hate filled against those who carry out such acts, be they General SS or Iraqi “insurgents”. They are certainly not filled with “the milk of human kindness” towards them. Nor are they particularly inclined to even take them prisoner.
Something even the Geneva Conventions do not require them to do, for non-uniformed terrorists.
I’m seeing two kinds of moral imbeciles here:
The ones who can’t tell the difference between the head-choppers who slaughter innocents and the men who stop them.
And the ones who can tell the difference and they side with the head-choppers.
In fighting the enemy, let’s be sure we do not become like him. A soldier’s job, his duty, is to kill the enemy. But God help him if he enjoys it.
General MacArthur insisted that the soldier is not a warmonger.
Guys like General Mattis, you mean.
“You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil,” Mattis said. “You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”
Or Patton.
I think sometimes people say things for effect.
Moral equivalence at work. Here is an absurd example:
A woman is in the path of an oncoming bus. A man pushes her to safety out of the path of the bus.
A man pushes a woman into the path of an oncoming bus. The woman dies.
There is no difference between the two men, since both men pushed as woman.
That is an example of moral equivalence.
I have seen some nasty stuff but this stuff is what the enemy would do to you and yours and by extension others.
I recall in my Division, VN, heavy casualties brought fewer prisoners, payback.
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”
General Dwight David Eisenhower
Pay attention to the fact that General, and later, President,Eisenhower did not rejoice in killing. Not being a sociopath.
I agree, and it's why I am not a part of any "organized" religion. I tried many times. I follow the Word, and it is very easy to see those that do not follow it, as it is easy to see those that do.
FMCDH(BITS)
Thus it has always been. However, while carrying out war crimes on soldiers will make them mad, nothing quite gets them vexed like seeing tortured and murdered children. Any unit that gets exposed to a bunch of that needs to be pulled off the line immediately, because they are primed to go on a rampage.
And *that* “is prejudicial to good order and discipline”.
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