 Stamp honoring Heydrich the Hangman after his assassination by British and Czech agents |
Posted on 02/10/2012 4:37:35 AM PST by KantianBurke
SAN DIEGO – The Marine Corps on Thursday once again did damage control after a photograph surfaced of a sniper team in Afghanistan posing in front of a flag with a logo resembling that of the notorious Nazi SS -- a special unit that murdered millions of Jews, gypsies and others. The Corps said in a statement that using the symbol was not acceptable, but the Marines in the photograph taken in September 2010 will not be disciplined because investigators determined it was a naive mistake. The Marines believed the SS symbol was meant to represent sniper scouts and never intended to be associated with a racist organization, said Maj. Gabrielle Chapin, a spokeswoman at Camp Pendleton, where the Marines were based.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, headquartered in Los Angeles, said he does not buy the explanation that posing with the flag was an innocent mistake and insisted the American public has a right to know what happened.
"If you look at any book on the Nazi period, this is the dreaded symbol of the SS, and to have a Marine Corps unit adopt it and put it beside the American flag when 200,000 Americans died to free the world of that dreaded symbol is just beyond the pale," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
It was concluded that they were ignorant.
It’s pathetic that we have to keep making excuses for what is definitely stupid and intentional bad behavior that was not corrected by their own leadership.
It won’t be the 1st time a Marine compared himself to the SS. I’ve heard other marines boast about that in the past. One told me when he was in Northern Germany a German asked what uniform he was wearing and he told the party it was a unit like the SS. Seems like there are many out there that wish they were in the Waffen SS. Yeah, they were the best trained and weapon supplied troops of that war and admit-ably no one in WW II took them lightly when faced with them. We never had a force like that, that was so feared, so there is no real comparison. It was at the time a prestigious unit for the Germans to belong to. I’m sure the former members of the “Waffen” SS were proud of their battle field experiences.
I often listened to Germans who claim they had family members who were in the SS. I heard that so often (true or not)I began to think that the Wehrmacht didn’t exist. No one ever admitted that they or a family member were ever in the SS “SD” units, which is understandable. The marine SS flag with the runes is nothing more than youth bravado. I’d say; “OK you had your fun with it, so, now can it.” I seem to recall that in the movie Platoon, there was a scene where an APC came to the rescue flying a WWII German battle flag, so maybe he got the idea after watching it?
BTW, I was assigned to US Army Special Services as an enlisted man, Gee, why didn’t I think of that? So all this time I too can say I was in the American Army SS. LOL.
What really needs to happen is careful indoctrination on what is not an appropriate photo to pose for.
“sniper scouts”
Another stupid reporter.
Scout/Sniper, not “sniper scouts”. They probably did take it from the Nazi SS. Bad choice considering history but considering that 99.9% of the US doesn’t know a thing about history they probably thought they could get away with it. I highly doubt they were trying to relate their unit to the Nazi SS but instead just thought it looked cool.
My son was a Marine Scout/ Sniper and this symbol was common. As your guide on shows, why didn’t the Marine Corps say anything then, it’s only when the libs and media stir up the s—t to portray our military as murderers.
Looks like the SS from the Kiss (rock band) logo.....more likely than a 70 year old flag.....
Political Correctness will cripple our military even more in addition to what FUBO is doing. Nothing we do or say will ever endear us to our enemies, so I’d prefer they fear and respect us. I want American “barbarians” to strike fear into muslim hearts for the next thousand years. I don’t care what others think so long as our military remember who they are working for and kill the right bastards. You mileage may vary.
“Start making examples.”
Of whom? Our enemy, or the soldiers protecting us from them?
I hope you didn’t mean the latter.
Oops, muh bad...
Looking back at it, and I swear, every “s” I am needing to hit the key is sticking on this keyboard, really...
I just put in a few “s”, that and the “d” key are doing funny things...Even the “spacebar” is having fits...Time to call Roto-Rooter I suppose...
From the “Scout Sniper PLT” graphic that 2ndamendmentpa posted at #52, and what gunner03 posted on Friday, February 10, 2012 11:51:53 AM at #130...
“...My son was a Marine Scout/Sniper and this symbol was common. As your guide on shows, why didn’t the Marine Corps say anything then, it’s only when the libs and media stir up the s—t to portray our military as murderers...”
... I think it's now clear that the Scout Snipers have a history in the Marine Corps of at least occasionally using the thunderbolt SS symbol.
Here's what the 45th Infantry division did to change its swastika symbol, which predated the rise of the Nazi Party:
http://www.45thdivisionmuseum.com/History/SwastikaToThunderbird.html
Use of the SS “thunderbolt” symbol is already right on the Marine Corps list of inappropriate symbols, linked here: http://www.yuma.usmc.mil/services/eo/documents/tattoos.ppt
If symbols are irrelevant, then why don't we encourage and endorse people waving green Islamic flags showing the Twin Towers burning, or wearing T-shirts of the Ayatollah Khomeini with pro-Islamic slogans? Obviously that's unacceptable. We're at war with Islamofascism, whether our leadership wants to acknowledge it or not, and displaying Islamofascist symbols should result in a strong pushback by patriotic Americans. Same for Nazi symbols, Communist symbols, or other wars we've fought against foreign enemies.
Pushback against the symbol is not the same as punishing the Marines involved. They're not the problem.
It looks like this is mostly a matter of a group of young people who don't know their history due to bad teaching in the school system, and secondarily, that there's a need to follow the 45th Infantry Division in changing the symbol.
As conservatives, however, we should note that we have a more serious underlying issue that can't be solved so quickly. I think the real problem is that we've got soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who don't know their own country's history. Teaching people to be technically proficient snipers is flat-out dangerous if they don't have the knowledge of American history and values to know why we're telling them to shoot people... and perhaps more importantly, why it's okay to shoot our enemies and not okay to shoot in some circumstances no matter what the commander says.
The Nazis caused their soldiers to follow orders out of fear. It's also possible to cause soldiers to follow orders out of ignorance. Do we want that?
There was a day that an educated American citizen voluntarily choosing to enlist in the military could be assumed to know their history. That's no longer true or this wouldn't have happened.
The Marines in the picture would not have posed for this photograph had they been familiar with the symbolism used.
Stamp honoring Heydrich the Hangman after his assassination by British and Czech agents |
I used to change taglines for my amusment. I think this one is so important that I will keep it for a very long time as a memorial and a warning.
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