Just a reminder … keep your word
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Are you sure the best way to “support our troops” is to not allow them to practice their trade? 
Russell Ward
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Care packages for those in country, I’m fond of donating to Fisher House among a few select others, charity events for fundraisers, train with those that are home… and that FFDP song really gets you.
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I find it sad that so many of our veterans and troops have to rely on charity when our government can’t fulfill their promise to take care of them.
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Fixed. We certainly have the capability, just not the will.
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+1.
I thought onion cutting ninja’s were in the vicinity. 
P.S. Thanks for introducing 5FDP’s music. The message of the band’s music videos seem to be insightful of things happening in society and inciteful of thought to the issues than much of what today’s popular music seems to espouse.
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I’m a veteran. Nobody promised me anything.
(Edit: when I was in the Army, I was promised a place to sleep, enough food to keep me alive, and medical/dental care. And a great fitness program. nobody ever promised to take care of me.)
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That!
I have heard of people paying a veteran’s check in restaurants and giving up their first class seat on a flight to a soldier in uniform.
There are the various wounded warrior programs, flying veterans to events, donating frequent flyer miles, etc.
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I subscribe to the theory that the small wars and military actions are a safety valve that prevent the really big wars from happening. In a sense, the peace has to be actively managed by some measure of force. Pulling U.S. troops out of all the little conflicts will only invite more war, not less. It’s all too easy to throw around the idiot label when leaders send troops into conflict. Even Vietnam, which is painted as a dismal failure, really helped show American resolve in the greater Cold War and ultimately helped bring about the fall of the Soviet Union.
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Yeah, I’m gonna have to disagree with this. Punching someone in the nose every now and again to show how tough you are only makes everyone think you’re a bully.
All those “little conflicts” are rarely our affair. They are our “business,” however, because usually one participant is using weapons we sold them.
The Soviet Union fell because we could borrow more money to build more weapons than they could. Their economy and then their state collapsed. We are still paying for all those expensive toys, and borrowing to build more now.
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It’s fine to be in disagreement but I do think if America hadn’t been involved at all, the entire region woud have fallen to Communism and that would have greatly encouraged the global spread of that movement while strengthening the Soviet Union as well. It’s painted as just a civil war but no, it was also a great proxy battle of the Cold War. You know the North signed a peace treaty which they completely violated after the U.S. left. Where’s the ethics in that! With all due respect, you’re buying into Soviet propaganda of the era. Further, it’s clear now from Soviet era documents that some of the social chaos, the anti-war movement especially, was motivated, coordinated and energized with help from the Soviet Union. It was certainly not unethical to defend South Vietnam against aggression from the North, which both started the war. South Vietnam did not attack North Vietnam and sponsor viscous terrorist attacks in major cities.
What was unethical, tragic and horrible was the way returning soldiers were vilified, spat on and treated by the anti-war protesters at the time.
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We generally get involved to stop the bully’s from doing the punching. Like Bosnia, Afghanistan, Syria and where we are needed. Can anyone seriously claim the U.S. shouldn’t have pushed out the Taliban for supporting Bin Laden? The world is complex and interwoven. We have to be involved just as the police can’t simply ignore dangerous areas of the city. We are the worlds police, like it or not and it’s not moral to just let the rest of the world rot in hell while we enjoy our riches.
We are the worlds police
The Constitution says otherwise. Our actions also don’t back this up. We are the “world’s police” when something we want is on the line. Otherwise we do let the rest of the world “rot in hell.” Rwandan genocide? Where were we? Oh that’s right there’s no oil in Rwanda. Ongoing case in point: South Sudan. Where are “the police”? Oh, right, no real resources or economic interests for us to exploit, no big purchaser of American arms to defend, we’ll sit this one out.
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I can quite easily separate supporting our troops/sailors/airmen from supporting the various missions that the branches are tasked with. The former is a matter of obligations we routinely shirk. The latter is largely one of imperial hubris the past ~65 years.
The VA should stop sucking and we should stop throwing lives away because they caught an IED, were involved in an aircraft crash, vehicle accident, or grappling the demons of surviving combat in the service of our country. The fact that there are the likes of the Wounded Warrior Foundation shows how badly our priorities are askew come when it “supporting our troops”.
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The world would be very different that’s for sure.
Probably no Samsung, LG, Hyundai, or K-Pop.
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Exactly where does the Constitution say the U.S. cannot get involved? Would you have had the U.S. sit out WWII?
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The United States is not the Evil Empire. It’s imperfect and messy sometimes, but it’s the hope of the world. That’s apparently unpopular these days. So when Governor Cuomo says America was ‘never that great’ and gets a loud gasp from his own supporters, of course he backtracks, hedges, says how great America really is, because his bluff was called. If his audience cheered his belief would have been confirmed. Perhaps he should have spoken at Berkeley. But we now know what he really thinks and that won’t be forgotten. He’s just killed his chance of ever getting elected president.
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My point that I’m trying to make is that an army that sits in their barracks will become an impotent army. If you take the attitude that an army shouldn’t be used you need to just disband the army. The US "almost’ did that between WW1 and WW2. We went down to a very small, 10’s of thousands of troops, professional army. The government didn’t use them very often, other than to protect the United Fruit Company.
Which isn’t your ideal but it is closer than what we have now. The main difference is that between the wars citizens wouldn’t tolerate anyone but the professional military to be involved in other countries problems. Our military was so small that there wasn’t much they could do.
Too many people today believe we should bring low the proud and humble anyone that disagrees with us. We need to learn to not get involved unless our ox is gored.
Russell Ward
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I have neither stated nor implied as much.
Don’t give a cr_p about Governor Cuomo’s thoughts nor his political prospects. I imagine it was a field day of righteous indignation on FOX and generated a great gnashing of teeth on talk radio - heck, even CNN seemed to be nattering on about it - but it’s a non sequitur.
Much like how he boar sharpens its tusks as an act of readiness rather than in reaction to a threat, a standing army is a necessity in the industrial era that all but the most vociferous peaceniks will acknowledge the need for. If its purpose is to provide ultimate security for the nation then its public existence is a first line of defense by acting as a credible deterrent.
While there’s probably nothing quite like a real operation for gaining experience, modern operational exercises are far better at simulating combat than in centuries past where the resemblance to reality was far far lower. This is not to say that we should never deploy the military.
The really big favor done for United Fruit Company was in 1954, however that was principally the Dulles brothers’ doing.
Thus my deliberate use of the phrase imperial hubris. Our interpretation of national interest - a concept removed from the “defending our freedom” canard I see advanced so often - has … drifted … over the decades. At least once a generation we seem to feel the need to deliver freedom via fighter-bombers or otherwise advance some bright boy’s foreign policy thesis intervening in some country out of a tortured sense of national interest.
The trend lately seems to be to greatly expand the ranks and scope of special forces, whom operate in secrecy and thus are isolated from scrutiny and to a large degree accountability. I do not feel that this bodes well.
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