Posted by CalAbDiver on September 15, 2001 at 19:30:00:
In Reply to: Re: sounds like the real thing was similar to the subsequent training posted by retrodiver on September 15, 2001 at 13:41:58:
you learn that in Latin I in catholic high school, ReTRo. it was indeed what the gladiators spake before they began their combat in the Roman Coliseum. they were the precursors to the NFL.
i personally am appalled at the present "hate" frenzy that the news media and our politicians are currently whipping our american public into. and before we even have much confirmed evidence that Bin Laudin was even behind the airliner crashes, already the news media and the government leaders are squaking about going after him with combat troops. this premature sabre rattling stinks to high heaven.
if we find out he is indeed the one who did this, then fine, attack him. but we dont even know that yet. and every freaking moron is jumping on the bandwagon of hate already.
[when i think of freaking morons, JRM and JeffB and all the other anonymous posters on this web site come to mind, who criticize others, safe from reprisal or disclosure behind their P/C screens.]
Marine, it sounds like you paid a very high price in terms of Wounded In Action during your war. i feel that it is terrible that JFK and LBJ and Nixon were so arrogant about sending precious american fighting men and women into that war in Viet Nam.
i read or heard somewhere that Bobby Kennedy had gone over there and come to his own conclusion that the situation was hopeless and that the USA should pull out. maybe JFK if he had lived would have had the courage to do that and spare a lot of american KIAs and WIAs. sure hindsight is 20-20, but one good President with courage might have made a difference. instead we had wimps for president after JFK's death and more and more good people just got KIA-ed or WIA-ed over there.
i remember how much i hated the war years during 1964 - 1973. i therefore dread the upcoming war that is being triggered now over the airliner crashes. i personally hope we find out that Saddam Hussein was behind this, because he will be a whole lot easier to hunt down and kill.
if it turns out to be Bin Lauden, and the US Armed Forces have to go into Afghanistan, then there is a very good chance that kind of mountain/desert war could go on forever, just like Viet Nam did under the jungle canopy, just like when the Russians were in Afghanistan fighting and being easy targets from mountain hideouts.
I dont have the taste for war that you sound like you have, Marine. I learned to kill in the Navy, but I am not proud that I know how to kill nor that as I stood my watch from 1974 to 1980, that I was ready and willing to kill then. Im glad that I was in the Navy during peacetime between wars, not wartime. I thank God that I was lucky that way.
Before our Nation runs off to war again, i wish someone in D.C. would ask themselves, what was it that pissed off the urban guerrillas who did this enough to sacrifice their own lives to get back at the USA.
was it the missile strikes on Afghanistan? was it the bombings of Iraq? somebody had to sell them on the idea that something was worth dying for in order to get back at us and kill about 5,000 civilians and humiliate the USA in front of the whole world. i wouldnt want to die for that. but they sure did.
i was willing to die defending or rescuing my buddies in the Navy. i am willing to die defending my family and my friends. i hope to kill anyone trying to kill any of them as i myself might very well be killed in the process.
but not to incinerate 2 office towers and kill 5,000 civilians. so those who did this must have been really pissed off about something. what did we do? thats what i wish someone in D.C. would think about.
war is the failure of diplomacy.
are we overrun by idiots in D.C. and in the whole USA now too???
that all does not have a lot to do with diving.
the beach cleanup that happened today was great. it was great to be diving and working at the same time again. working to clean up the underwater junk that human beings deposit in our Oceans. being able to serve in that capacity made me forget about the two towers incinerated and collapsing on top of 5,000 civilians in New York City. and i am going to try not to remember it for as long as i can this weekend. i might even go abalone freediving tomorrow, because i know good and well that at church tomorrow the subject of the two towers will invariable come up again. and when i see the war madness growing across the USA i get sick to my stomach about it.
i hate war, and i hate idiots that rush into war.
good luck, Marine. have a good day and a good weekend. thank you for putting your own ass on the line in Viet Nam.
/s/ Karl S.