MovieChat Forums > We Were Soldiers (2002) Discussion > God help America if we are ever truly te...

God help America if we are ever truly tested again


Judging by some of the nasty comments on this board in regards to Hal Moore and from what I see and hear every day I would not be lying if I felt that this country would be in some serious *beep* if we were ever really tested militarily ...
Kids ..aww young adults jerkin off too video games and the twitter accounts, lack of work ethic, the ever growing trend of what seems too be disdain for America as a nation...
Baffles me... People and there sense of entitlements..lazy.. Politically correct intellectuals who god forbid would have to stand up and fight for this country..
I swear what I see out there today makes me believe we are f^cked as a country
God help us

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I agree with the overall sentiment of your post about Americans becoming too soft but you are forgetting that the men in the military today are just as brave as the men in this movie.

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No..... Their not

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Kids ..aww young adults jerkin off too video games and the twitter accounts, lack of work ethic, the ever growing trend of what seems too be disdain for America as a nation...


I agree 100%

There's no way this generation could survive tough times if technology would ever be stripped away from them.

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There's no way this generation could survive tough times if technology would ever be stripped away from them.


Well, the 7th cavalry wouldn't have survived stripped of all their technology. Air strikes, med evacs and resupply by helo, artillery, etc... They would have been over run and slaughtered without that technology.

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The reason the kids of today have all this tech, freedom, lack of fear, is because these brave soldiers laid their lives down for them to have that freedom.
You've got to remember, Vietnam didn't invade America, it was the other way around. Nobody has invaded America since pearl harbour. It's the Americans that tend to "step in" as when required. But they only seem to do so when it suits them. Usually when there's oil involved.
Why did they sit back and watch Syria burn?
They spin it in such a way that they're rushing to people's aid, but there's always a bigger agenda, that is FACT.

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The US never "invaded" South Vietnam, Chomsky...

In fact, it was our restraint in NOT invading North Vietnam that prevented our turning Vietnam from a tactical victory to a strategic one.

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Oil in South Vietnam? Wow who Knew.

/sarc

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[deleted]

You have to realize we are two Americas and the majority being those who have never seen or will ever see combat...the others being the few who join our military today. I retired five years ago and the unit I commanded list three men in combat. They were our finest and cut from the same cloth as American heroes from all our wars. Try joining the military. You will find no more capable or dedicated force in the world, though Obama and Hagel are working hard to hollow out the force with anemic funding and allowing the VA to mistreat those who have served.

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Respect dude.
Sorry to hear about your brothers. Where did you serve? Afganhistan?

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please understand i was obviously not speaking of the men and women who make up are volunteer armed forces.. Absolutely nothing but respect for them and they are no less brave than that of any other generation...
My statement was just talking about where we are as a society today. i truly believe that there is a growing segment of the population that do not even like the country they are so lucky to reside in...
After just watching the amazing documentry "Vietnam in HD" i was thinking to myself if there ever were to ever be another draft for a unpopular war or any war, what would the extent of the public backlash? I think the Vietnam protests would pale in comparison... Not that anyone wants to get drafted to armed service but I think we would have serious problems if the military needed men and women outside of the all volunteer army. there are very real cultural problems in America today...

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Somebody else at another site chatted about reinstating the draft to 'reinforce' the sense of nationhood & shared experience. I had to add that I thought two things:

1) It would be VERY hard to use such forces outside the US or in combat (maybe not a bad thing...)

2) Basic training might have to be a lot longer or even broken up into "categories of fitness" to bring lots of non athletic youth into conditioning to even enter into training.




Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?

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I'm thinking that if a situation would to occur were a draft was needed these kids would protest way beyond what we saw during the "Occupy wall Street" protests... I think they would riot for sure... They dont want to be bothered with anything like a war or national security..
Interesting though the thought of how back in the days of Rome all citizens were required to spend 10-16 years in the military, that is excessive but a program such as the Swiss use were all of its citizens do a year or so in one of the branches of the armed forces I would imagine is a great investment for a multitude of reasons most important the sense of "Nationhood"

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They should think of it as summer camp on steroids.





Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?

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By volunteered armed forces, are you talking about reservists? Or just people that aren't drafted? If you're talking about reservists, they screwed up a lot during Afghan and Iraq War including mass friendly fire by both reservists and by their own company on orders of their own officers.

We had a lot of heroes in Afghanistan War. If you truly believe people from our generation can't handle war, you should seriously check out the details of what happened in Afghanistan and you'd come out to admit how dumb and ignorant you are OP. Afghanistan War was brutal in its own way. However, our military and warfare methods have changed significantly. It doesn't change the fact that war is still war only this time we have less men. There are many ops in Afghan that was insane but Korengal Valley is possibly the most mention-worthy one as it does appeal to Hollywood-style audiences for war films.

In Iraq, I'm not too detailed with what happened after the fall of Bagdhad but I know during those 2-3 week invasion, Iraq War was filled with bunch of incompetent officers in the ranks of ELITE MARINE RECONS. They constantly got lost, was responsible for losing vast amounts of equipment that would later be used against them, was the first few to begin the invasion but got stuck behind a large invading force, committed war crimes, called fire missions on civilian villages that clearly had no men in it (and US Marine RECON were scouting the village to make sure and knew it was not a target), and their own incompetence actually got a lot of their own men in trouble while these officers walked scott-free. Despite these officers, the NCO's and few commissioned officers along with your average infantrymen were all brave/capable. In fact, today's soldiers/marines might be better than those in WWII and Vietnam primarily because we are less susceptible to commit war crimes in such a large number. Majority of war crimes that were reported were by our own men in the military. Of course, a lot of these would be attempted to be covered up and there are still isolated incidents of war crime (like Abu Ghraib prison and taking body trophies of dead enemies). On top of that, our men are working with significantly better equipment than in the past. This means they are more capable and less likely to commit flaying/mass gang rape/mass execution of civilians/etc than the average men in Vietnam (not to accuse all men to be war criminals).

People who think today's generation of armed forces can't handle *beep* because of how entitled pricks in college who think they can kick everyone's ass and knows everything... just don't know anything. You clearly have not researched any military activities past Vietnam War and the only reason you think like that is because you probably just watch a lot of overly dramatized portrayal of WWII and Vietnam War. Research the works in Somalia, Gulf War, isolated incidents such as rescuing hostages/POWs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq had its crazy moments too and several people are definitely worth mentioning. Afghanistan however, would be the landmark for military of our generation.

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It's all over people. Kiss the America that we knew and loved goodbye.

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Strange comments on this tread. South Vietnam lost the VIETNAM CIVIL WAR. America's defined mission was [Military Assistance]. Any of you creative history revisionists remember that part? 58,000 Americans gave their lives...for what? Fill me in. If you see a significant number of Americans not joining the military, maybe it's because they're smart enough not to get sucked into a political meat grinder that killed 58,000 Americans in the VIETNAM CIVIL WAR. Not to mention all the Americans that came back missing body parts, losing their minds and Agent Orange. Your Congress didn't declare war, remember? That's why the military resorted to squirrely tactics like the 7th dumping 400 men into a meat grinder. The communist flag still flies over Vietnam, and I don't recall the men and women of South Vietnam stepping up to the front line to fight. They didn't have video games back then, so what was their excuse? And who's winning in Afghanistan and Iraq? Who gets to decide how many tens of thousands of Americans get sacrificed for lame military objectives and lousy field strategies? Why should so many Americans be sent to other countries to fight other people's battles? I think there should be an international military. A military where people from all over the world pitch in to do their part. Grab a gun and a uniform if you want a safe planet with freedoms. Seems fair to me. Share the wealth - share the risk. I've met these young Americans who didn't join the military that you people have been bad mouthing. And not only do they have enough horse sense not to get sucked into a meat grinder, but I'll bet they know more about computers used in the 21st century military than anything of you grunts put together. And I know they're a lot smarter than your generals.

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I doubt that. Most people in the Military I know have Masters Degrees and such. Some Generals have Doctorates and almost all have college degrees. Also look at West Point and Annapolis and how hard it is to get in there and how high your test scores have to be. You have to score high to be a Pilot or Tank Commander also. I know many Generals way smarter than you!

"May God have mercy on my enemies as I shall have none"
"George S Patton"

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[deleted]

Amen.

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Have a little faith, humans are extremely adaptable, today's kids may be cynical, knowing the questionable, political objectives of these last wars[Vietnam, Iraq, but they'd step up in a heart-beat to really defend freedom, especially their own.

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The OP is a coward and a disgrace to the real heroes of the Nam era, the draft dodgers, like Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney.

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If the war was actually justifiable and not someone's boondoggle excuse to fight someone. But go ahead and generalize if that makes you feel better.

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[deleted]

OP's just mad cause he's old and knows his kind is a dying breed. The future doesn't belong to your kind.


SMUG ALERT!!






Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?

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OP's just mad cause he's old and knows his kind is a dying breed. The future doesn't belong to your kind.


SMUG ALERT!!


Nickm2:

He's hardly worth the time to respond to. He is so smug and has such a deep craniorectal insertion he'll never know what hit him. He's the one who's going to die clueless when the day of reckoning does come. And anybody with any grasp of history and the Bible (particularly Matthew Chapter 25) knows that the day is coming sooner rather than later. It's old guys like you, me and the OP who are going to be ready for it.

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