Lawman

And yet they still execute it. Make no mistake, Honor Killings... Female Circumcision.... These acts happen despite the social disincentive of it being illegal. Take a look at the albeit anecdotal evidence from our friends over in Europe.... the people executing these acts and this drive to change us have no give a shit whether or not you accept the idea or not. They are using our inability to confront them directly due to our overwhelming drive to be politically correct like its the way to sneak under the radar until they get their way through a growing majority. There are places in England which have de facto Sharia law... where in any level of western society is something like that ok .... not a damn place. But if you call it as you see it your to busy defending yourself from the people quick to call you out as a racist to pay any attention to the real issue... that somebody is cutting of women's who-ha parts or that they are murdering daughters for blowing a white guy in college because of some 12th century honor code. Immigration is a fine thing, it allows a culture to not remain stagnant... but at the same time to sit around and try and defend their beliefs as a viable and compatible way of life is just a joke. These people are ignorant scum, no different than a bunch of white people who think we should burn a woman as a witch after she doesn't sink in the river quickly enough.

Thats a bit of a red herring argument to make when the idea being pushed here is Political Insubordination to actions viewed as non constitutional because they take place where "we have no business." Thats the problem with the Oath Keeper argument, nobody in the military is condoning the idea of a President declaring themselves king or violating Posse Commitatus in order to impose some sort of political agenda of a tyrant on the citizens you swore to protect. But the Oath Keepers seem to pervert that into "we should refuse any order that doesnt abide our narrow and specific interpretation of executive powers." The Authorization to use force was approved by congress, and acted on by the executive branch which is exactly the way the use of our military was designed from the get go. The question posed up was should Military Officers be questioning authority publicly and vocally thereby making themselves part of the political sphere of decision making as to whether or not we should go do something, not what will we do when asked to go do something. Absolutely not. No different than it is completely inappropriate to stand up and tell the boss "Hey I dont agree with ____ and you should change your mind and if you dont Im not carrying out your order" in front of your subordinates. There is a difference between standing up as the final back stop between some obviously illegal activity (anybody get ordered to drop a bomb on protestors?) and putting on your uniform to lend credibility to your argument of "I dont like this guys decision to go into country X, and I think its wrong so Im saying something (as a member of the military)." You have the right to disagree with whatever you like as a citizen, when you put on the uniform those rights and responsibilities change.

Thats about what I figured.... Anybody in the room who doesnt see your view point obviously isnt as smart as you... thats exactly how your opinion comes off in these threads. Like every action is a narrative and your the guy that can see through it all. You repeatedly make comments along the lines of us being Mercenaries or unwilling accomplices to the global capitalist Machine of the 1% or something of that nature... So why the hell are you still here after you've seen the truth from the inside. Do you think that your service is the inside route to convince everybody that what we are doing is wrong? If your so bound and determined if there is some sort of moral high ground that you need to stand up on to challenge this status quo what are you doing wasting your time here? You make the statement like its somehow our job to stand up to the leadership to challenge the civil authority.... Thats the kind of shit you see in backward ass South American countries where the Military decides "F this guy we know better." A thorough understanding of the constitution would let you understand that just about everybody with the exception of Ron Paul understands that an Authorization to use Force (which was given for our little romp in Iraq) carries the same standing as a Declaration of War, the title is just more politically palatable in todays day and age. No different than its the Department of Defense but we have a hell of a lot of Offensive Firepower when it used to be the War Department. Words change, meanings are the same. What are we supposed to do the day that the people in charge tell you drop that weapon on XXX, not fly? Go on camera in your uniform like those asshats on Facebook and let yourself become a tool in another nation/force/regimes propaganda? Its the military, we are the ultimate force behind the political will of our nation. We are not beholden to ourselves and our decisions on how we should be doing things beyond executing a policy. If thats your attitude your in the same boat as Caesar. Your voice in the discussion is your vote, not your uniform. And your moral objection to a nation acting within its interests is just terrifyingly short sighted. Nationalism is not a goal I would support, but to be so naive to think that if we just take some sort of moral high ground and "let it be" that everything will work out is ridiculous. Stalin didnt respond to concessions he claimed half of Europe and would have taken all of it if we hadnt had tanks in the way. Putin has effectively annexed a chunk of Ukraine and the show isnt over while we have said its not our problem. What does that tell Lithuania or Finland when our national interest is to just wish real hard that everybody understands being nice to one another is the right thing to do. National prestige, power, influence, whatever you want to call it does not exist in a vacuum. Just because we vote ourselves out of the game doesnt mean we win because everybody else will keep playing. Do you think we should just show the world that we are out of the game? Should we have let Kuwait be annexed because hey bro not my problem? Do you think China is just going to stop trying to become the big player in Asia if we tell everybody over there "we are out guys, handle your business."

Im just curious because your posts all show a trend of an isolationist "this isnt our business and its amoral to try and push our national interests on anyone anywhere," attitude.... Why are you in the military? Are you even in the military? Do your bro's in the unit or does your chain of command understand that you seem to be morally apposed to any and all actions that the rest of us carry out willingly? Seriously, any time there is a thread about any kind of military action your quick to come in here and imply that we are all unknowing or ignorant conspirators in some sort of criminal/immoral activity. Im curious if and why you would continue to serve in such an organization.

But does it to justice to the fact that even though that region has been in constant turmoil for the last 60 years, everything that occurs is because of G. W. Bush, his dad, and Reagan? You know because nobody else has been in charge.

We had a girl say she gets hit harder when she burns dinner.... Half the instructors broke character on that one.

Operation Here We Go Again

Fixed it for you. Quotes because I've been to what used to be Clark AFB.

You guys can all start buying drinks. I shot Bin Laden!

Havent you seen First Blood? If they'd just listened to the Green Beret none of that bad stuff at the end would have happened.

Ill do it just for the joke.... Whats a dikfur?

Im from Dayton so I can try and help with the fun part. Kinda depends on what your scene is but there are really only two good locations to go out on a Friday in the area. 1. The Oregon district - This is in downtown Dayton about 25 minutes from the base when you factor in the time to get on 35 and head into the city. Mostly the combination of drunk college girls and guys from UD and hipsters from who cares because they are hipsters... Lot of bars down there ranging from the Dublin Pub which is a little expensive for an Irish bar to little hole in the wall dive bars. 2. The Greene - This is a new (last 5 years) upscale bar and shopping area off of I-675 in Beavercreek. Takes about 20 minutes from the base to get there. Lots of more higher end (IE higher prices) stores, upscale theme bars (The Pub, Bar Louis, Adobe Gilas), a really good theatre that serves booze, and a lot of nicer restaurants as well as a comedy club that gets major headliners sometimes. Other than that the only fun thing to do in Dayton is pack a bag and go the hell somewhere else.

The only reason they got EPE engines on the legacy 404 equipped Hornet was the Kuwaitis paid the bill for R&D. Guess they are hoping the Aussies or somebody will pick it up along with conformal tanks and the weapons bay.

Agreed. If you shoot reloads though the M1As tend to be a little bit nicer to the brass. At least that's what I've seen out of my DSA FAL... It likes to mangle the hell out of brass. HK91 pattern rifles are even worse for it.

Sell them to any Asian or African airline, they wouldn't know the difference.

Agreed. Find me a civilian helicopter pilot who is; Required to maintain a weekly organized regiment of physical training alon with a biannual review of his physical standard via a PT test. Told his hearing loss will no longer be covered as a disability directly linked to the performance of his duties (despite a Boeing paper stating the Army hearing protection is substandard ) Spends anywhere from 2-4 months of the year deployed away from home to live in a tent conducting demonstrations of his airmanship ability (gunnery, NTC, field problems, etc) Cannot leave his job until fulfilling an ever changing time table of service requirements while at the same time having no legal recourse to being forcibly downsized without appeal. Find me that guy with that job an we can start comparing pay and benefits. That doesn't even get into the knee and back issues I've had as a direct result of performing the Army lifestyle.

People like this piss me off in any profession. "I'm getting more than I deserve so let's look at everybody else and assume they feel the same way." Fuck this guy.

And I'm calling BS. There were quite a few missions actioned on "active intel" (I shouldn't have to go into what that is on here) not just OPs set out or random patrols. I'm talking the same complex air assaults and ground assaults stuff you would see for any other HVT mission. This whole "SF commander refused to send his people after a deserter" is crap to sell a story in the 24 hour news cycle.

Agreed. Anyone familiar with the task force missions going on at the time knows there were a lot of missions actioned on intel to try and get him back.

Poland was already explored a decade ago for the Army basing Aviation assets out there. I'd go for it just so my wife had a shorter drive and didn't burn my ration up to get her damn pottery.

People ignore the fact that this happened. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_hostages_in_Afghanistan Ransom is one of the oldest traditions in Warfare.

Oh of course he will be a hero for the sake of a political message. Just like Lynch was a Hero or Pat Tillman was a dead war hero who died "gloriously in combat".... Till we knew better. I can't fault a specific administration for making a political show out of it when each side has done it before. Hell if you watch the Pat Tillman story it'll piss you off just how much and many things were done to make they story a political victory. And I agree with you coming home does not change the actions and consequences you might face on the back end. But we decide what happens to you. We start letting the bad guys know that there are actions where we won't move heaven and earth for our people and they will start trying to determine what that is when they have our people. That puts all of us in the future at greater risk during isolation because our seemingly priceless value has been diminished.

Bristol brewing company actually.

Political posturing and garbage. You know how we got Durant back, direct negotiation with a non state actor (ie warlords). You know how we got our guys back who got lost in a Humvee in Bosnia, Jessie Jackson went their with the support and backing of he state dept. we have negotiated before and we will again. We negotiated to get our men back after Vietnam, including the ones that gave aid and comfort to the enemy for favors. We do that because they are our citizens and nobody else's. This political bickering on "it'll endanger troops," and "it's against long standing policy," is exactly that, bickering. We do not put a price on the lives of our citizens. To do so sets a precedent that there is a price we won't pay. How do we tell our service members or our civilians supporting us that there is a limit to the price we will pay to get you home. Is the Rated aircrew an worth 4 Taliban LTs? Is the Truck driver only worth an IED emplacer? What are you worth, what am I worth? I'm sure everybody here is familiar with all the stupidity of Ogrady's actions as an isolated person. Despite that we risked how many lives to bring him home because that's our part of the bargain. What happens when we tell them "nah you keep that guy Bergdahl he was an idiot/traitor/coward/etc and we don't want him back." Now you set a precedent that some people aren't worth it to us. What happens to the crew chief that isn't a high enough rank to be important, or the lone kid who wandered too far off an OP taking a piss and gets rolled up. Now they aren't worth keeping alive and instead are only worth a bullet (or worse).

He's back. And to those thinking we don't negotiate with terrorists or anybody else it's a movie line not a reality. The state department does it under the table all the time. We did it for Durant in Somalia, we did it for guys we know broke the faith in Vietnam. The important precedent is the enemy will never have to sit there and think "will this guy be worth anything to them or should I just kill him," when it's the next guy. Would I rather a dozen snake eaters come get him in the middle of the night, absolutely but sometimes it doesn't work out that way. What he did or didn't do, that will come out a the debrief. What happens because of it will play out after all the political show is over. The important thing is we are deciding the fate of one of our own and not some goat fucking shit head in some god forsaken shithole village. It's like the rule of I can hit my kids... You do it and I will f'ing murder you.