"This story was not intended to slander the Marines in my opinion.'
Of course it is, if my second reading of the story is correct, it is a fresh attack piece on America and it's fighting men. I've pretty much picked up that this is related to foreign policy in the Middle East, but I don't understand why freepers would support American GIs so viscously being attacked.
There are almost 200 countries in the world but this thread chose the U.S Marines for a little story, to give an analogy to this weeks events over seas.
If you want a villain,choose somebody else, not me, not you, choose somebody bad, not good.
You would cheer on the actions of the Marine in the story?
You should read it more carefully. The fight described is entirely between Americans - one from the Marines, one from the Navy, with American bystanders. Nobody is "supporting American GI's being attacked", it is the story of a bar room fight, no doubt of the usual senseless sort, between several Americans. The point of the story is that the bystanders realize that they must let the fight continue, as much as they hate to see it -- remember these guys are friends of the two men fighting -- until one finally surrenders, thereby ending the dispute once and for all.
The analogy to the situation in the Middle East isn't so much that the individual men fighting represent the two sides of the conflict, but that the bystanders -- namely the rest of the countries in the world -- may need to let the fight play out until one side finally says "I quit", because that will finally resolve the dispute and lead to peace.