WWII I see as an exception, because that was one of the few times U. S. soldiers actually WERE protecting OUR freedom. But Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait. That had nothing to do with protecting OUR freedom. Even Iraq and Afghanistan, I can argue they were protecting our SECURITY, but not our freedom. ANTIFA and Democrats are a bigger threat to our freedom. But even security, 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan didn't make us any safer.
I think WWII has become irrelevant, as there are so few veterans left from that war. That being said, there were a lot of war criminals. My French friend said so many French women were raped by American soldiers, but the French government kept quiet about it, because they needed the support of U. S. troops.
I think young people in general have lost respect for the military and veterans of ALL wars as they've started to learn about all the war crimes they've committed and crimes off the battlefield too. Literally the only people who see US soldiers as "heros" are Conservative Americans.
Also, a lot of young people have finally started to realize our wars have done nothing to benefit the U. S. Why should they enlist and risk losing their lives to fight for some Arabs?
Lastly, the introduction of things like restaurant discounts, free camping and priority boarding, has made veterans entitled. It's never enough. I'm not against the GI bill or some sort of compensation for the draft, but it should be coming from the FEDERAL Government, not State or private businesses. Also, if you enlisted by your own free will, you knew what you were getting into. Why should I give you special treatment?
If I had a dollar for everytime some stupid veteran at my work threw a hissy fit because he wasn't getting his "Veteran privlige". You'd think veterans of all people would respect procedure and rules.
Also, if you're driving a car and operating a boat, you're NOT "100% Disabled".
No one owes you respect. You have to earn that with every person you encounter. It doesn't matter if you are a civilian or a solider. While civilians might not understand what you go through in war, and you might come back jaded after losing friends while everyone at home is so care free and detached from what you went through and you might get pissed off about the stupid little shit they complain about, that doesn't mean they owe you anything. You still got to build relationships with the people you meet in life and earn their trust and respect one person at a time. Even then not every person that puts on a uniform is worthy of respect... Maybe you have a point if when push comes to shove and we are all called to fight, if they cower in a hole somewhere and just expect you to go do the heavy lifting... If they aren't willing to risk dying to stay free, then they don't deserve to stay free but that doesn't mean they owe you personally respect.
Hard to build relationships with people when you died fighting a war to protect the next generation and their kids.
I never knew my Great Grandfather as he died in 1918 after four years in the Somme. My Grandfather fought in the desert against Rommel and then on the D Day beaches. He was one of the few who survived, dying in 1988.
My question is not about respecting individuals, but rather what those people did en masse to make sure there was freedom for their children and afterwards. Especially for us who are descendants of them.
Yeah my family was there as well. I still have my Grandfather’s Navy manual from WWII. His brother Frank was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 during the attack by the Japs. He survived and fraught in the Pacific War as well. My Grandmother was a nurse during WWII. My grandfather on my Mom’s side was a Naval electrician on submarines. Most people’s family kicked in for the cause. But service is suppose to be selfless… People don’t owe you for your service, and respect is suppose to be mutual and you earn it by being competent and leading your men well. You don’t just get it for showing up. I don’t know your family, so they could have been great or they could have been assholes. None the less if they did well by their men, I’m sure they have plenty of men that respected them. You don’t need me to tell their stories, that’s your job. All I’m saying is douches bags end up in the service as well. Not everyone earns respect, but obviously we all come together for the larger effort.
You said that perfectly. They act like they don't know what they were signing up for.
Freedom is a basic human right. Soldiers fight either because they're paid to or made to, they don't fight for my rights or me, that's a dumbass sentiment that's been pushed for decades.
You want respect? You earn it like everyone else. Having a dangerous occupation or being made it fight, does not in any way give you automatic respect.
It's funny, your sentiments about Hiroshima and Nagasaki prompted me to ask this question. I'm honestly glad you chose to respond.
Every "Right" comes with a corresponding "Responsibility". Your "right" to flail your arms about ends at the point when you make contact with someone's nose, so you - as an individual - have the "responsibility" to not hit the other person.
Scale that up to a World War and the "Right" of humanity to Freedom - however you define it - comes with the "Responsibility" of the strong and free to defend the Freedom of the oppressed.
During the World Wars the vast majority of the soldiers fighting volunteered to go, not because they were going to be paid to be soldiers, but because they wanted to take a stand against the tyrannical force aligned against their families and future.
"They're not fighting for me" is the sentiment started by the people who were running scared of going to Vietnam in the 60s, or Iraq in the 90s. Especially the ones trying to dodge the Draft.
JFK tried to stay out. Hardly a coincidence that within days of his death the position was reversed.
I commented here because I know it inspired this stupid question.
The sense of responsibility is a social norm, not something inherent. Freedoms are what we are entitled to from birth. Society may try to restrict them or add conditions, but they cannot be forced without risking backlash.
And lastly, as I said before, just because you're made to fight or you're paid to fight, has no impact on me. You aren't doing it for me or my loved ones, so I have 0 reason to give respect until I feel you have earned it. Same goes for firefighters, cops or the cashier at McDonald's.
Unfortunately humans have a short memory even for significant events. If the value isn't handed down it is lost. Is the fault on these people who were not educated or the educators?
Thank you for mho
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I’ll always respect our vets, though I can only imagine what they see and how odd life at home must be for them after they see battle. Thankfully there are better VA services now than there used to be in the 40s-70s, but it’s still not what is should be. :(
Job, school, family services… they should be able to get the help they need in a more timely manner. One guy from our church is literally homeless and dependent on the church for everything because VA takes months to help. 😠
More veterans (and their families) have to speak up….
Of course not- because there aren't any. The first world war was just a series of naked power grabs, coupled with a clusterfuck of alliances crashing down on itself. They didn't fight for "freedom" any more than the medieval soldiers who died to take a castle because the local baron's great-grandfather once had sex with the ancestor of the regional duke. The second world war was just revenge for the first.
My country gained its freedom in 1815; yours... well, yours isn't quite there yet, but you're not too far off, and all that happened in 1960.
A national that enslaves its populace and forces them into battle is not fighting FOR freedom, but against it. Some went willingly, but that just means they were duped. The men of both our countries sold their lives, and yes, their freedom, for statues and abstract social praise from "leaders" who to this day throw their lives away like pocket change. Hardly praiseworthy.
I'll assume you're American.
Which country are you thinking I'm from?
"Freedom" in the USA was relative in 1815. Arguably it's still relative.
1939-45 wasn't exactly a "duped" population of the Allies. Hitler had to be stopped.
What freedom we have in the UK and USA today was bought at the price of a generation of young men. Not for statues. Not for an abstract. For a very real freedom.
The "leaders" since - with one or two exceptions - I agree aren't really worthy of praise
South Africa, like your profile says. And freedom is always relative.
And if Hitler "had to be stopped" in 1939, then why did no one try? A dozen-odd people can claim they did, but the soldiers you blow sunshine up the butts of died trying to kill Hans, Gunter, and Johann- not Hitler. You can argue that they died for SAFETY, but not freedom. Hell, my country never even declared war on the Nazis until they'd done it to us first.
Freedom in the USA was bought with the blood of a generation and a half of men, yes- but that was the Revolution. The world wars had nothing to do with us, and had we simply stayed out, nothing would've changed but the position of some lines on a map- and a hell of a lot of dead people.
Freedom comes from checking and controlling the expansion of government power. Armies are the means of enforcement of government power. Thanking them for bringing you freedom is like thanking wildfires for not burning you.
While I live in South Africa, I'm English by birth. Was over 30 when I moved here.
To believe the World Wars had nothing to do with you is like an ostrich with it's head in the sand. Pearl Harbour forced FDR to do something. If your troops hadn't been brought in and Hitler had taken Europe and Britain do you seriously believe he'd have left America alone?
The British would have relocated to Canada. The war would have continued from there. And Germany would have done to New York what Japan did to Pearl Harbour.
Your nation's sense of "freedom" didn't extend to people with more melanin in their skin for another 40 years on paper and over a century in practice after 1815. That "freedom" took a LOT longer than a generation and a half.
Pearl Harbor was an attempt by the Japanese to do to the US what they'd done to the Russians a generation earlier: defeat the Pacific fleet in an opening strike, send their fleet in to occupy the captured territory, wait for the enemy's Atlantic fleet to arrive to fight your entrenched one, then destroy it and have the enemy sue for peace, because they're decadent and rich and don't have the stomach for a real fight. Plenty to do with American hegemony over the Pacific; nothing whatsoever to do with freedom.
Hitler had neither intention nor ability to attack the US; you don't attack a nation several times your size with dozens of times your manpower and manufacturing capability, that's on the other side of the planet. Again, nothing to do with freedom; everything to do with hegemony.
My nation's legal freedoms STILL DON'T extend to many parts of the country, even when they're explicitly promised by the Constitution; try buying a gun in California, and you'll see. Hell, even the anti-slavery Amendments (and that war started in 1865, not 1855) don't apply when the government needs soldiers and claims that your life is public property- and you're forced into becoming a soldier, as happened, among many other times, in both world wars.
So, once more: governments TAKE freedom, they don't give it. Soldiers do when they're working against governments, not for them. My country nominally won its freedom from yours (well, the predecessor of yours) in 1783, but then your king decided "Nah, they're still our slaves" and we had to fight again. THAT, I will concede, was soldiers giving freedom. But it hasn't happened here since.
@Dongie Yes, they would've. It wasn't the US that stopped them in the East, or drove them out of Africa, or took Berlin. Despite their rhetoric, they weren't ACTUALLY supermen.
@Dongie No, Hitler declared war on the US after the US DECLARED WAR on Japan.
Oh no. We were supplying both England and Russia for over a year before Peral Harbor. The Russians were provided with trucks and boots, an essential commodity in that region. I guess we lost hundreds of ships from nazi U-boats before entering. Rosie should have listened to Churchill and entered May of 1940. we'd have stopped them a few years and thousands of lives earlier. Sending those kids into the teeth of MG-42s was merely using up lives to overrun Normandy. A waste of 10,000 kids lives.
And the civil war ended in 1865.
Of course, Hitler declared war on us about the same time as we did Japan. He may even have beat us but took a little more time due to the business at the time. He didn't think we'd stop with little ol Japan. He'll if they'd defeated us all he was going to finish off Japan. He thought they could do it. And they may could have had he kept his little corporal hand out of it.
@Dongie The lend-lease program was doing just fine before the US got involved; the German push to break Soviet resistance would've faltered even if Stalingrad had been LOST, just later on.
And no, we wouldn't've had fewer deaths if we'd gotten involved earlier- frankly should've stayed out of the war altogether, since it had nothing to do with us. Wilson dragging the country into the FIRST world war- even AFTER his disastrous invasion of Mexico showed him he wasn't the diplomatic genius he thought- prevented a white peace that would've let Kerensky crush the rebels, turning Russia into an actual democratic country, forced the French out of Indochina, and prevented the rise of Hitler in the first place.
It was only Hitler's idiotic decision to declare war on the US that pushed Roosevelt to return the favor, and only Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor that pushed the Overton window back to public acceptance of battle slavery again.
World War 2 ended in 1946. What's your point?
If they'd have not blamed Germany for a war started by a Bosnian assassin on the Archduke of Austro-, Hungary there never would have been a rise by Hitler. Why did they put blame on Germany. England and stinking France as well as Russia should have minded their own business and let the Germans and Hungarians fought their battle.
@Dongie They blame Germany because Germany caused it. They invaded France to prevent their joining the war, and did so through Belgium and Holland, like every mainland attempt to invade France for the past two thousand years, which catapulted England into the fight.
England had a functional alliance with Holland, Russia a full alliance with Croatia, and the Austrians with Germany; you can't blame a country for sticking by the terms of an agreement it made.
France, by contrast, is functionally blameless; they're easily the least "stinking" party involved.
@Dongie That's exactly my point- no US involvement in THAT war would've saved hundreds of thousands of innocent lives directly, and an uncountable amount indirectly. Staying out of World War 2 would've saved even more.
France declared war on Germany, not the other way around. You say Germany did not have a right to defend the German people of Austria after Russia declared war on them. The Serbian and Austrians should have been left alone. That's why they attacked France by way of Belgium. Then England joined in. The problem is that it's too easy for politicians and kings to send people to do their fighting for them. The Treaty of Versailles was a horrid and terrible way to treat civilians. Wouldn't you agree. If France had left it alone, it would have been Russia, Serbia, Bosnia, and Austria, I suppose. Then England wouldn't have gotten into it nor America. Germany would have taken Russia, and the cousins could have worked something out. But woulda could've shoulda. But for the Paris Treaty, no Hitler to power. Even dumb ass Wilson was against such harsh terms by France. Pissed Japan off in the process. That Treaty laid the foundation for the Holocaust and what over 70 million deaths?
@Dongie Austria declared war on Serbia; they couldn't be "left alone". Russia and Germany had to honor their alliances. Why do you struggle iwth this so much?
Yes. Even more so, in fact, as they picked a better career than go fight for some rich mans money.
It's a myth that soldiers "fight for freedom". More often than not, they are off committing wars and crime on behalf of the state. It's why 95% of soldiers suffer depression and PTSD at some point.
A solider these days is just a mercenary that follows orders without questions. But when they have to face up to the decisions, and realise they are as human as the people they killed - it's what often breaks them.
It's the only thing Trump was right on. We need these fools to be willing to kill for money.
I say yes they have the right as that's what those brave soldiers fought and so many young lads died for the freedom here in America.
They have the right to shuffle their sick disgusting ass out of America too. But they have the right to be this way as that is one of the many costs of freedom.
Every Veterans Day I always think about my father and uncles and all the guys in the old neighborhood that served in WW2. I imagine they would be pretty angry to see what the government had turned into.
I respect them and I don't deserve their sacrifice. It's sad to hear so many people spew their venom and display their attitude of entitlement.
No, they don't deserve shit. A part of me wants the draft to come back.
@snacktime
You want to get drafted?
You did a part of u wants the draft to come back.
So you're pro war? They draft when there's a big war and in need of men.
I hate war, and I hate the politicians that cause them. My point was that you don’t have to respect our service personnel’s, but just don’t disrespect them. When our troops came home from Vietnam, a lot of jackasses spit in their faces. Those are the people I want to get drafted and thrown into a war.
I dislike the military and even I admit that was crossing the line, especially considering most of those soldiers were drafted and didn't even want to be there. It's the politicians who should have been getting spit on. It does fascinate me how attitude towards soldiers have shifted. Though now it's cops getting spit on
Yes.
Any gap in the front line of freedom is a death sentence for everyone.
Absolutely not but they are indoctrinated liberals who believe Hitler was misunderstood and that Stalin was a hero hence the spewing of communist dogma
freedom is deserved. even for rotten ingrates!
Well I know they won't last a minute in trenches
Yes, that would include Trump who referred to soldiers as" suckers.
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