Bono's American Wife said:
hiphop, come on now. Think what you will about the US and its military but there have been a lot of men and women who have served with honor over the years. Is it too much to ask that a simple Memorial Day thread proceed without controversy?
Mrs BAW: Controversy is not my intention.
It´s a fact that from a veteran you can learn. As nbcrusader pointed out, there are Veterans who will tell you about courage, determination and self-sacrifice. There are Veterans who will tell you how great a soldier´s life is, and who will be admired by children because they served in a war.
Also, there are Veterans who will tell you dark, cruel stuff about when they were in Vietnam. There are Veterans who will tell you horrible stories about Iraq, too. Well, only if you are interested in hearing their story.
Does that 103 y.o. men tell you of mustard gas? Of his buddies hanging themselves because they could not bear the creulties around them anymore? Does he tell of the wounded? What about their honor? Aren´t they the most honorable of all? And do you know that most of them would spit in our faces if we tell them about honor?
If any memorial day in any country misses to acknowledge those cruelties, I say, what is it a Memorial day for? Just to remember we are all so happy and proud of our nation?
I don´t see where the controversy is. But I understand the motive: you want this thread to stay a clean and nice and perfect Memorial thread, so we can all hail our wonderful God-blessed troops and honored armies, hooray! and God forbid anyone says anything negative about fighting or soldiers or war or your fucking American nationalism that really makes me vomit.
Dead soldiers don´t speak, you know.
And Mister Hendrix there should be reminded that Jimi Hendrix served in Vietnam. From what I heard, it wasn´t his hobby, and he did not think of it as an honorable thing to do.