Posted on 07/14/2009 11:35:38 AM PDT by Freedom2specul8
RANDOM POLL:
Veterans: how many of you are offended by the peace symbol and why?
(Family members and friends who know the answer, please feel free to speak on behalf of Veterans who cannot post.... )
Thank you for your time!
To quote myself: "I’ve always associated the peace symbol with those who spit on the vietnam vets"
I call it the Great Seal of the Patchouli Soaked Hippie.
I live in a city in Western Montana that is replete with this pretentious jerks. There used to be a microwave reflector on which hippies painted a peace symbol. When the reflector became obsolete and Qwest tore it down the community had a conniption fit. It was really childish.
The peace symbol I accept is the white dove with an olive leaf in its beak.
“the symbol of those that spat on soldiers.”
If you were ever at a Dead concert, or had occasion to see what ‘peaceful demonstrators’ were willing to do to ROTC cadets or active duty anywhere, you’d know. And you couldn’t do squat.
When I see an adult male wearing one, I assume that he is a coward and/or an anti-American that needs cover for his cowardice or lefty politics.
When I see juvenile types wearing it, I assume they are just ignorant and immature.
“The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
-John Stuart Mill
RE: “Not a veteran but it is a symbol of radicals just as the swastika was. It merits the same contempt.
Having been a teen in the 60’s, I remember that it was the symbol of those that spat on soldiers”
**********
Same here — I was in CA, watching in horror as the great unwashed and hippie masses stampeded at universities, paraded around protesting the war, set fires at banks, all of it in the name of peace. Anyone remember Isla Vista near Santa Barbara? The ‘sit-ins’ at Berkeley and UCLA? Peaceful my a**.
Never will I see that ‘symbol’ as one of peace. It speaks ‘troublemaker’ and ‘radical’ to me, and did I mention most were NOT peaceful ‘demonstrators?’
I guess you had to be here to understand — from LA to San Fran and all around — not a pretty sight — made me, a member of the hated working ‘establishment’ at a young age, all the more anxious to win that war in Vietnam, which of could we did not, thanks in part to those supposedly peace symbol-loving agitators who rampaged around the country undermining our leaders at the time.
Maybe it’s only our generation that understands what that symbol means. The left knows. Our side seems to think it’s just an outdated symbol. It isn’t.
As A Vietnam veteran, I am not offended by the symbol (everyone of us wanted peace) but I am deeply offended by those who wear the symbol and their ideology...
'I had to do what I felt was right,' Army deserter tells news conference
By John Wilkens Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. July 11, 2009
SAN DIEGO — An Army tank crewman court-martialed for desertion after refusing to fight in Iraq said yesterday he'd do it all again, even after spending the past year in the brig at the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station. “I had to do what I felt was right,” Robin Long said at a news conference outside the Veterans Museum and Memorial Center in Balboa Park.
Speaking publicly for the first time since his release Thursday, he traced his journey from eager soldier to war resister, and wore an outfit to match: an Army camouflage hat and a black T-shirt decorated with a large peace symbol.
He said he left his unit for moral reasons, not because he was afraid of combat. “Nobody wants to get shot at. Everybody is afraid. Anybody who says they aren't is full of it. But,” he said, “that's not the point."...snip.
sw
I do as well. That is why I was dismayed that President and Mrs. Obama would allow one of their children to leave the hotel room with a **large** peace symbol on her tee-shirt.
What on earth were the Obama’s thinking?!!
President and Mrs.Obama poked the eye of every military person who is currently serving or has served. The controversy wasn't about their innocent little girl it was about them as **parents** and leaders of the free world. Unbelievable!
>>Oh, you mean the upside-down chicken’s foot?<<
It’s Jane Fonda’s footprint and I will hate (yes hate; may God forgive me)that POS as long as I live.
sw
Me either!!
My friend Joe, who passed away earlier this year, was an artilleryman in Vietnam (’68-’69) and he had a peace symbol accompanied by “Peace On You” on the 105mm howitzer he manned. He said it was for the irony as well as the “peace” a 105 shell brought to the enemy.
Like a lot of vets, he seemed pretty tolerant of the morons back then. Even until recently, he said, “People have to learn to be morons before they smarten up; heaven forbid they should learn from the mistake of others.”
“Peace I leave with you and my peace I give you.’ John 14:27
“I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world.” John 16:33.
Just like Rebel Flag
I see it as southern pride, I don't look at it as some see slavery and racist. I won't let clan/racist High jack my southern pride.
Peace is a good thing but sometimes can only be brought about by war. Most vets hate war more then those who used peace sign for antiwar cause, Different is the vets love freedom more ad are willing to fight for it.
What's wrong is that it portrays one as a intellectual/political lightweight. Satirist Tom Lehrer put it well:
We are the Folk Song Army.What those waving the symbol do not realize:
Everyone of us cares.
We all hate poverty, war, and injustice,
Unlike the rest of you squares.
Everyone waving that symbol would happily tell you how, in their own naive terminology, they want to impose their own form of peace upon others under threat of police or military violence. They want peace - so long as everyone does things their way. Those few who truly disavow all violence in pursuit of peace are impotent, merely flotsam of history.
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