Why do the soldiers serve?

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: Marilyn Monroe Actually most of the vets I know never speak negativly about Vietnam, but not everybody had a bad time over there. Not everybody is having a bad time in Iraq. Some do, some don't. It is dangerous, I have no doubt about that.

That is true. Not everyone WILL have a bad time, but it depends on your mindset and where you actually were, of course. In Iraq, I'm sure many people are FAR from the actual fighting as there were people who served most of their tour in Saigoine back then..
And it depends on your mindset while you are there of course.

I think with Iraq, you either think we do have a large terrorist threat that needed calmed, or you don't.

I think the latter. There was no apparent terrorist threat because the dictator didn't want terrorists IN Iraq. We went in because the stated threat was an attack BY Iraq on US. When the WMD thing didn't pan out Bush said it was because we needed to "free" the Iraqis because off SADDAM and no terrorists. It's all about terrorsm NOW because there are/were NO WMD and our people are still getting killed even though Saddam is gone. Terrorism always sells, even when Bush applies this name to people in their own country who want us OUT of their own country.

You may think we could have done it differently, say with intelligence, not force. You also may think that we didn't need to mess with Iraq cause it was no threat, and I understand that, but some may think it's more that Iraq was vulnerable, and we could get in the area and be visible

And literally HIJACKING another country in order to be "visible" runs counter to everything we ever stood for. What you describe is a criminal act, plain and simple. It was no our country to invade just to be "visible".

plus if Saddam had had weapons everything would have gotten all the more dangerous for us.

He didn't HAVE them though, did he? There isn't any point you bringing that up. Iraq was a beaten country after Desert Storm and it was under our thumb for the ten years AFTER that. Don't forget we had a presence there the whole time. How do you think we could enforce no-fly zones? We had troop IN THE COUNTRY the whole time!! How much of a threat could Iraq BE with us THERE on a daily basis?
I know you desperately WANT to believe George Bush, but there is just too much evidence saying Iraq was NO threat to us and we had no business overthrowing the only government that kept Iraq stable! The facts are clear, Saddam Hussein kept the groups from slaughtering each other and we cannot do it. Our people are dying over there to do what their own nasty little bastard easily did. WE aren't killing Iraqis on buses, IRAQIS are! And we just cannot help those people who are being killed. I don't see any evidence on this forum that we are even WORRYING about dead Iraqi civilians anyway.

I'm probably as old as you are. I grew up with Vietnam on the TV every night.

Sounds about right.

[Nono]

Quote by: Marilyn My understanding of Vietnam was the South Vietnamese asked us for help.

I wonder. Seems to me the Americans moved in more or less as the French moved out, filling the void as it were.

My understanding is that the North Vietnamese (well, the Viet Minh since there was no North at the time) first asked the US to help them get rid of the French colonialists, way back in the late 1940s. Naive, eh?

[Osborn F Enready]

Well said Nono.

Let us not forget the very valid intent by Kellog, Brown and Root.

[brien]

Quote by: Nono I wonder. Seems to me the Americans moved in more or less as the French moved out, filling the void as it were. My understanding is that the North Vietnamese (well, the Viet Minh since there was no North at the time) first asked the US to help them get rid of the French colonialists, way back in the late 1940s. Naive, eh?

Furthermore, the ever paranoid "Domino Theory" was prevalent during the early 50's. Senator McCarthy was holding hearings looking to blacklist the "commies" not only in Hollywood, but where ever he could imagine they existed in the US.

The involvement in Viet Nam by the US was not an invasion as is what happened in Iraq. It was a gradual sinking into a quagmire of quicksand in which the more we became involved, the deeper the US sank.

See this link Marilyn for some relevant historical information:

http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietna...ory/index.html

From the link:

The Second Indochina War, 1954-1975, grew out of the long conflict between France and Vietnam. In July 1954, after one hundred years of colonial rule, a defeated France was forced to leave Vietnam. Nationalist forces under the direction of General Vo Nguyen Giap trounced the allied French troops at the remote mountain outpost of Dien Bien Phu in the northwest corner of Vietnam. This decisive battle convinced the French that they could no longer maintain their Indochinese colonies and Paris quickly sued for peace. As the two sides came together in Geneva, Switzerland, international events were already shaping the future of Vietnam's modern revolution.

This link succinctly sums up the Conflict in Viet Nam and the participation by the US. You may do well to read it.

[Cephus]

Quote by: Marilyn Monroe The people who go in make very low wages. They have some perks, but they should have perks they are defending our country whether you believe in what they are doing or not, they are still sacrificing a normal life, so you can sit in front of your TV, or hop in your car to get a can of soda.

Not really, considering all the perks they get. In addition to their salary, they get free room and board, free food, free medical coverage for themselves and their families. They get on-the-job training that likely rivals the best training programs out there and the only ones I've seen who couldn't get a good job upon getting out are the ones who had problems before going in.

They're not sacrificing a normal life, they chose to be in the military. Nobody held a gun to their heads, they signed their names on the dotted line all by their lonesome. Anyone who puts on that uniform and doesn't realize that part of the job description is "getting your ass shot off any time the President decides to go off with his personal agenda" needs to have their heads examined.

[Marilyn Monroe]

Quote by: Cephus Not really, considering all the perks they get. In addition to their salary, they get free room and board, free food, free medical coverage for themselves and their families. They get on-the-job training that likely rivals the best training programs out there and the only ones I've seen who couldn't get a good job upon getting out are the ones who had problems before going in. They're not sacrificing a normal life, they chose to be in the military. Nobody held a gun to their heads, they signed their names on the dotted line all by their lonesome. Anyone who puts on that uniform and doesn't realize that part of the job description is "getting your ass shot off any time the President decides to go off with his personal agenda" needs to have their heads examined.

They may make the choice, but it's a huge choice, and it's still a sacrifice. We all make sacrifices in our daily lives, either for ourselves or our children's sakes. Some sacrifices are bigger than others, and going in the military is still a sacrifice no matter how you slice it. It hasn't always been a choice, either, although there were always ways to get out of it, for most guys in major conflicts, it wasn't a choice.

The training they get doesn't always compute to a job on the outside.

[Marilyn Monroe]

Quote by: Nono I wonder. Seems to me the Americans moved in more or less as the French moved out, filling the void as it were. My understanding is that the North Vietnamese (well, the Viet Minh since there was no North at the time) first asked the US to help them get rid of the French colonialists, way back in the late 1940s. Naive, eh?

I don't know all the whys of Vietnam.

This is from lecture 102, session 28, whatever that is.

Why did JFK support the Vietnam War?

1. He wanted to reassert American military might following the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Berlin Crisis, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

2. JFK was an ardent "Cold Warrior" who drew on the lessons of Britain's failed appeasement of Hitler at Munich in 1938 and who supported containment. He viewed North Vietnam as a communist aggressor and a Soviet pawn. In Kennedy's mind, containment depended on American support of South Vietnam against Northern aggression.

3. He supported "limited brushfire wars" in the age of a nuclear threat. Kennedy believed governments would have to develop mobile forces to deal with small international problems before they developed into global nuclear war. For this reason, he created the Special Forces, otherwise known as the Green Berets. Kennedy used Vietnam as a testing ground for his "new toys." On the morning of November 22, 1963, he spoke to his aides about his desire to experiment with new troops and weapons in South Vietnam.

1963: When Johnson becomes president after Kennedy's assassination, he stresses the importance of continuing JFK's foreign policies. On a 1962 fact-finding tour of Southeast Asia, Johnson visited Vietnam and felt that South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem was the "George Washington of Asia." For this reason, he supports the South Vietnamese. He wants to improve medical care, build schools, and create an Rural Electrification Administration, a sort of Tennessee Valley Authority, in Vietnam. Johnson said,

"I want to leave the footprints of America in Vietnam. We're going to turn Mekong Delta into the Tennessee Valley."

[Nono]

Quote by: LBJ as quoted by Marilyn We're going to turn Mekong Delta into the Tennessee Valley.

Thanks, M, hadn't seen that one before. Very revealing about where LBJ was really coming from. One thing that kept him in VN against his better instincts was pressure from the Goldwater Right -- he didn't want to cave in on Nam for fear of not getting his Great Society legislation through.

LBJ didn't know much about foreign policy, and was dependent on the likes of McNamara and other JFK holdovers, whom he felt obliged to keep as part of the JFK legacy. They led him astray, though he consistently resisted the advice of wackjobs like Westmoreland to vastly widen the war (into Laos for example).

After the Tet Offensive, LBJ had the good political sense to call it a day. This was a golden opportunity for the US to cut its (and the Vietnamese') losses and end the war. But instead, that wicked idiot Nixon doubled US casualties and kept the nightmare grinding on for Four More Years.

JFK: It's their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it.
At least in the case of JFK/LBJ, US involvement was understandable: memories of the Korean War and Castro's success as a guerilla were fresh. JFK/LBJ figured that things in Vietnam could be turned around.

The true criminal was Nixon, and Kissinger.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Quote by: Marilyn Monroe They may make the choice, but it's a huge choice, and it's still a sacrifice. We all make sacrifices in our daily lives, either for ourselves or our children's sakes. Some sacrifices are bigger than others, and going in the military is still a sacrifice no matter how you slice it.

[abub]

another reason why people join the army is to gain physical strength and stamina. a few buddies of mine are currently in the army and i've got one in the marines. a couple of them are the eagle scout types, those who love to venture through forests and mountains, shoot rifles at the range or at a farm, and hike through rural areas for sheer enjoyment. perhaps, also, some people join the military to escape from their current life, get their ass in gear physically and mentally, and start fresh once they have completed their service.

[Autolykos]

Quote by: Marilyn Monroe Has your freedom or your ancestor's freedom always been independent of the US?

I remembered that I hadn't responded to this post, even though I intended to. Better late than never?

Well now, I can say confidently that my and my ancestors' freedom has always been independent of the US and all other countries. Government does not give me freedom of action. That freedom, as RickSp so eloquently put it, is inalienable.

- Rob

[jose]

Sgt. Plouhar, 30, of Lake Orion was killed in combat Monday by an improvised explosive device, or IED, in the Anbar province of Iraq,

His work as a Marine recruiter in Michigan was featured in Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11."
"He wanted to serve his country ... he was so gung-ho about it," his father said.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic...73249028425075