Oh, that's GOOD!
I may plagiarize it...
Posted on 11/08/2007 11:07:21 AM PST by pabianice
Point/Counterpoint: When an inch is worth a mile
Sick of Humans v. Zombies? There's a better game in town. For the low, low price of your life as you know it, you could become a U.S. Marine. After a short period of basic training, and an all-expenses-paid flight aboard a luxurious transport jet, you could be living out your wildest "Operation: Iraqi Freedom" fantasies in a fully simulated Iraqi village environment. Your safety is 100 percent guaranteed.
Such are the thoughts that danced through my head after reading up on "Operation Mojave Viper," the U.S military's premier simulated-combat exercise. To make a terrible story short, "Mojave" is a series of patrol drills conducted in a mock-up Iraqi township smack in the middle of the California desert. The drills cover all the basics. They've got real soldiers toting real guns. They've got real Iraqis speaking real Arabic. They've got real everything you need, from combat boots to air support, except, of course, for a few key items: blood, fear, shock, death and war, to name a few.
(Excerpt) Read more at media.www.dailycollegian.com ...
Put your iPod back on and go back to your local Starbucks and let the Brave Men and Women of the U.S. Armed Forces do their job.
I give this article 8 1/2 BARFIES.
Young people usually know too little and say too much. James Mathews is young.
I didn’t read the full article because, as a general rule, I don’t want to support leftist websites with my internet presence. However, if there is a point to his story, it seems to be that United States military personnel should not engage in exercises that simulate their probable missions unless the simulations include a real possibility of injury or death. In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny: “What a maroon.”
“Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, {Mr. Mathews}?
I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just
said thank you, and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to.”
Jack Nicholson, “A Few Good Men.”
TC
There is an abundance of 20-year-olds who actually have been to Iraq, involved in civic works programs as well as the fighting, who know perfectly well that Matthews is talking through his oversized hat. He should speak to a few of them some time if it is too inconvenient to interview their "victims."
Oh well. I guess in certain circles, farting out this sort of tripe can get a young man laid.
What a moron.
They've got real soldiers toting real guns.
It never fails ... the author describes some person or group as "toting" guns ... and the author proves to be an idiotic, pacifist, leftist.
I like that quote. Interesting to me, I just used Col. Jessup in a comparison as an illustration of the direction our country has taken.
Consider the Caine Mutiny. Commander Queeg is not a sympathetic figure. But at the end, the lawyer for the crew gives them heck for ruining a naval officer’s career.
In A Few Good Men, when Col. Jessup is broken down, it’s a climax and something the legal team aspired to. They wanted to get Jessup, Jessup was the bad guy.
In my estimation, Col. Jessup is a much more sympathetic character than Cmdr Queeg, yet we now celebrate taking such a man down. Any wonder we are where we are as a nation?
I just read this whole article. The word for it is pathetic.
The Unites States military has perfected the art of realistic training. From the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, to the US Navy and US Air Force Aggressor Squadrons our military has learned to train as it fights and fight as it trains.
The young Marines who go through this training will make mistakes and learn valuable lessons in an arena where it is not fatal to do so. They will then take those lessons and apply them to real life situations in Iraq.
This training saves Iraqi and American lives. It is a valuable tool, and for a wet-behind-the-ears college student, who knows nothing about military training or the purposes behind it, to be ridiculing it would be laughable, if it were not so tragic.
Oh, that's GOOD!
I may plagiarize it...
Tragic?? Sickening is the word.
I mean’t tragic for the country. I’m posting the same text as a comment on the newspaper website.
We should put teenagers in charge to solve all the world’s problems while they still know everything.
Age usually brings wisdom and the accompanying humility - unless you’re a liberal, then you never have to get out of the “I know better than anyone in history” mindset.
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