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 ...
Hitler was obsessed with the occult, and he bastardized other symbols as well. The Swastika just happens to be the most prominent.
On 19 October 1920, the Oklahoma State militia was organized as the 45th Infantry Division of the Oklahoma Army National Guard and organized with troops from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.
The division was organized and federally recognized on 3 August 1923 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was assigned the 89th Infantry Brigade of the Colorado and Arizona National Guards, and the 90th Infantry Brigade of the Oklahoma National Guard.
A red diamond with a yellow swastika inside it. Before the 1930s, the division's symbol was a red square with a yellow right-facing swastika, a tribute to the large Native American population in the south-western United States.
The division's original shoulder sleeve insignia featured a right-facing swastika, a common Native American symbol, as a tribute to the south-western United States region which had a large population of Native Americans.
“Considering such a symbol was responsible for the murders of millions of innocent people and the combat deaths of thousands of American GI’s, its use was and is unacceptable.”
Ok. So what should be done to them? What would be “acceptable” punishment for this, in your opinion?
It could have worse — it could have been the Stars and Bars.
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We went to war and thousands of US soldiers were killed because of the Nazis. Who knows? Maybe 50 years from now, US soldiers will stand behind an al qaeda flag and not remember what it once stood for. :/
“I do not think it was meant to glorify the ideals of Nazi Germany”
Of course it wasn’t. But that’s not what is being implied by the criticism. Sorry, if folks want to draw one conclusion “It’s the Waffen SS symbol” to proudly serving snipers, I think these folks should also make clear whether or not they think these US Marines are Nazi sympathizers.
If you don’t think they are Nazi sympathizers, then STFU, and accept whatever (hopefully) minor dressing down they might have received and move on.
NON STORY.
They have these things nowadays called books, and I heard of this one thing called the interwebs or something. Supposedly these doohickeys are filled up with information of all sorts, some of which is historical in nature.
Man, that was dumb. There’s no defense for this one.
It seems entirely feasible to me that most of these young men were unaware of the evil which is associated with the letters ‘SS’ (in this case standing for 'Scout Sniper') when they are depicted using that particular style/font.
I have to say that even though I KNOW what a nazi SS logo looks like, the blue field on the flag actually ‘threw’ me for a few seconds. When the picture came up on the TV screen this morning and the newscaster excitedly reported on the new Marine Corps ‘controversy’, I had to look at the flag at least twice before the thought “oh, yeah, that looks like an SS logo” triggered in my mind and I understood why the reporter seemed to be on the verge of an apoplectic fit.
In Korea the swastika symbol in used to denote churches on their maps.
Well with the repeal of DADT the booty bandits may be coming out of the closets in force. Peeing on the dead, the SS symbol can all be signs that the Pink Swastika is starting to take over. I hope I’m wrong.
“It seems entirely feasible to me that most of these young men were unaware of the evil which is associated with the letters ‘SS’”
Entirely feasible? These men are not Nazi’s. There is ZERO chance that they are associated with anything Nazi.
I’m with you man. My grandpa and the thousands like him did not die so that we could abolish letters. Otherwise..we’d have no “SS” chevelles.
It does resemble an 'SS' logo but it is by no means identical.
It’s to close to the double lightining bolts no matter what the color. This is just stupidity on their parts.
This is like wearing a cross or symbol like a cross in a Saudi Arabia. A mushroom cloud T-shirt in Japan. (One dummy I worked with did this and ended up in intensive care)
Some things you just dont do.
SS=SCOUT SNIPER!
didn’t any of these guys get a history book in school?
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