Sheep/Wolves

[sg1987]

Originally Posted by x SF med

Nothing profound, just observations/questions that are rattling around in my steel pot placement area.

What’s a steel pot?

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by Surgicalcric

Its often different when someone is thrust into that role or when they chose it and cant live up to it. Jessica Lynch! Need I say more?

Crip

You need to learn the "combat" role vs. the "service support" roles. I would not expect support soldiers to go toe to toe with hardcore fighters and win, especially when their leaders led them into an ambush from hell. That is the role of the combat MOS's, to fight and win in those sort of situations.

Without those support soldiers we (the combat MOS's) could not hope to win any war. They have a job to do and we have ours. Not every soldiers is given million dollar training and years of combat schooling. Remember that.

TS

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by dennisw

To reiterate, if someone views themselves as a sheep, does that mean they no longer have a duty as a citizen to serve and protect their country when their service is needed? If only the sheepdogs serve, once they return, should they not be afforded some special privileges for providing this service and protection?

There are greater rewards, like every time you look in the mirror and know that you served with honor, that you and other like you stood together to stem the tide of terror and fear while others huddled behind protest signs and clouds of marijuana hurling insults at the very men and women that volunteered to stand between them and a gruesome beheading.

We have forever earned the right to be called a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine and the “reward” being that those men and women can take pride that fact that while some left wing liberal professor or journalist write down our exploits in some slanted fashion we take heart knowing it is these same left wing cowards are the same that if confronted by the same evil men would go out on their knees screaming like a three year old with their hair on fire begging for their lives.

While some read about our exploits, we and only we will be telling our children and grandchildren that it was us that faced the evil men while others read about it. It was us that made history and while history may not remember who wrote it, it does remember who fought, we will not be forgotten, ever.

De Oppresso Liber,

Team Sergeant



“The General paused. His eagle like eyes swept over the hillside. He said with pride, "There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON'T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, "Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana." No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, "Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned-Bitch named Georgie Patton!"”
General George Patton

[sg1987]

Well said TS. Extremely WELL Said!! Hoooooooah!

[Surgicalcric]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

You need to learn the "combat" role vs. the "service support" roles. I would not expect support soldiers to go toe to toe with hardcore fighters and win, especially when their leaders led them into an ambush from hell. That is the role of the combat MOS's, to fight and win in those sort of situations.

Without those support soldiers we (the combat MOS's) could not hope to win any war. They have a job to do and we have ours. Not every soldiers is given million dollar training and years of combat schooling. Remember that.

TS

I am well aware of the difference between CA, CS, and CSS personnel. I was simply trying to reinforce my point that sometime people find themselves forced into a situation where they never intended themselves to be, such was the instance PFC Lynch's unit.

Nothing more or less.

Crip

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by Surgicalcric

I am well aware of the difference between CA, CS, and CSS personnel. I was simply trying to reinforce my point that sometime people find themselves forced into a situation where they never intended themselves to be, such was the instance PFC Lynch's unit.

Nothing more or less.

Crip

I doubt that PFC Lynch "never" thought she might someday be facing an armed and evil adversary. I am sure once they knew they were "lost" that they quickly realized they were in deep shit. Since it started this has been a fight without a front and most understand that danger can come from any direction.

This is also the reason we arm our support troops, not to go on the offensive but to defend themselves well enough until the combat troops arrive.

[Surgicalcric]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

...This is also the reason we arm our support troops, not to go on the offensive but to defend themselves well enough until the combat troops arrive.

Completely agree MSG.

[dennisw]

There are greater rewards, like every time you look in the mirror and know that you served with honor, that you and other like you stood together to stem the tide of terror and fear while others huddled behind protest signs and clouds of marijuana hurling insults at the very men and women that volunteered to stand between them and a gruesome beheading.

We have forever earned the right to be called a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine and the “reward” being that those men and women can take pride that fact that while some left wing liberal professor or journalist write down our exploits in some slanted fashion we take heart knowing it is these same left wing cowards are the same that if confronted by the same evil men would go out on their knees screaming like a three year old with their hair on fire begging for their lives.

While some read about our exploits, we and only we will be telling our children and grandchildren that it was us that faced the evil men while others read about it. It was us that made history and while history may not remember who wrote it, it does remember who fought, we will not be forgotten, ever.

De Oppresso Liber,

Team Sergeant

There is no discounting the truth in the quote above. The value of which is impossible to well...value. In Don Quixote when he is on his way home he tells his companion, Sancho Panza, that the earth holds two things in its bosom which are of the highest value - freedom and honor - and a man ought to die for either. The above quote smacks of something Miquel Cerventes might have written.

I believe I understand the passion behind the quote. He wants this service to be peerless, without the stigma of personal gain; to be sacrosanct. The humble acts of a free people which offers themselves for what? Probably the most noblest of motives: love of country, courage on behalf of brothers in arms, hatred of the bullies who try and use the helpless to further their own nefarious plans, selfless sacrifice for something which when history has ended will be one of the diamonds shining in the mire of human malaise: The American experiment providing a glimpse of the heights a people or civilization can achieve.

By honoring those who voluntarily put themselves in harms way on our behalf, we as a nation do ourselves proud, and in my opinion a simple act of generosity does not taint or diminish the heroioc acts of our soldiers. On the other hand, it allows a us the chance at nobility; an opportunity to express our capacity for life by evidencing our appreciation of a sacred thing through our generosity. It is also a practical solution. You, our noble warriors, who can no longer provide for your children because of your service on our behalf, allow us the privilege of doing this as to do any less is a blemish on our honor, and if we do not take up this obligation, we did not deserve your service at all.

[Hipshot]

You do have a way with words - well spoken. Has wayward QP son checked in yet?

[dennisw]

Has wayward QP son checked in yet?

Finally got a call. Seems they had to wait on some pilots after St. Paddy's day before they could make the final leg. First deployment is officially in the books.

[The Reaper]

I would just add that the parents who have lost their loved ones who served, and who go on television berating the POTUS and the war appear to me to be dishonoring their children's sacrifice and their memory.

The force is all volunteer, those who go all chose to serve. If their kids felt that serving in wartime was the right thing to do, the parents protesting after the fact seems to take away from the nobility of their service and sacrifice. The military does not pick when to go to war or where, the elected civilian leadership does that. I am certain that in almost all cases, their kids did the very best they could and the chain of command protected tham as best they could while working to accomplish the mission. If there is anyone to be angry with or to protest, logically, it should be the Islamic terrorists who planted the VBIED or who shot their kids. Where is the outrage against them? Can you imagine a WW II Gold Star Mom protesting FDR, rather than the Germans or the Japanese who killed their son? How about a group claiming that Pearl Harbor was staged, that it wasn't really the Japanese, and the US Government was actually behind the attack?

I have kids myself, and I would miss them in a way only a parent could know, but I would never second guess their choice to serve, especially after they were lost.

Cindy Sheehan, simple-minded sheeple, has totally dedicated herself to dishonoring the sacrifice of her son, whatever she may think she is doing, and is being used in the process, like a borrowed mule.

The Sixties liberals continue to try and ruin this country, and they as well as their legacy of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

The group of nutcases calling themselves socialists, marxists, communists, and anarchists at the core of this movement are using the sheeple to damage the foundations of this country and to attempt to revive failed political experiments. These people are actually Anti-American, whatever we do or fail to, and need to review history before slinking back under whatever rock they crawled out from underneath.

These assclowns will be the downfall of freedom in this country, when no cause is worthy of service anymore and no one is willing to pay the price.

Sorry for the rant.

TR

[frostfire]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Anytime that thought or something close to it passed through my mind all I did was think of the children. I and most soldiers I know would trade their lives for a childs.

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Plus - Life really sucks to be a kid in some parks of the world. Sucks to be a kid in some homes of the USA. Kids I feel sorry for because most of what swirls around them is beyond their control.

The conditions are beyond their control, but they're very much in control of how they respond to it. Maybe I'm slow today, but until which age or numbers of poor choices made are they still considered kids? 9? 17? Kids grow up real fast today (physically and amount of exposure to knowedge), and they can get real nasty beyond belief.

I am a proponent of free will, you play, you pay etc. Yes, sheep parents will likely condition the kids to be sheeps as well, but don't the kids have mind of their own? nature vs. nurture?

To stretch it even furher, 5-years-old kids who are conditioned by HAMAS and similar group to be a US-hater. Does "leave the kids alone, it's not their war," still apply? Don't they at some point make that conscious choice and therefore are accountable for any consequences. OK, maybe this one is out of topic.

Please note that I'm not challenging anyone's stance. Rather, I'm seeking clarity to maintain a clear conviction in the path I've chosen:

Originally Posted by x SF med

we just do what we do, as we are genetically programmed (it seems) to protect the sheep?

[frostfire]

Originally Posted by Peregrino

Despite the sentiments expressed in the D of I, all men are not created equal. Indisputable FACT: not everyone can be a sheepdog. Actually, I would contend that very few people are endowed (by temperament or training) with those unique qualities that predispose them to being a "sheepdog". (Even then, you never know how the dice will fall until the moment arrives.) This might be the one time Karl Marx got the Socialist ideal right: "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" (or something like that ). Somebody else said "the burden falls heaviest on those best able to bear it". IOW - life's not fair. I'm with TS on this one. I don't want sheep backing my play against the wolves either. Peregrino

Nothing but the truth. To quote an ancient book:
"to whom much is given, much is demanded"

[KClapp]

A very interesting thread.

In 1974 I enlisted, not because I was looking for something from the nation I served, but to have the honor of serving with those of like mind. The writers of the movie "Blackhawk Down" expressed it best when Hoot made the comment to Eversman, "When the bullets start flyin' then all the politics and shit go out the window and it's about the man next to ya."

As a sheepdog, it is not the approval, admiration, or affirmation of the sheep that I seek. I do what I do for the approval, admiration, and affirmation of the Shepherd.

[sg1987]

Originally Posted by KClapp

As a sheepdog, it is not the approval, admiration, or affirmation of the sheep that I seek. I do what I do for the approval, admiration, and affirmation of the Shepherd.

WOW.....