Galt's Gulch
13

It is an Honor and it is Humbling

Posted by mminnick 8 years ago to The Gulch: General
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President-elect Trump made the comment that it was an Honnor to lead the Armed Forces and it is also humbling. I could not agree more. The men and women of the armed forces are willing to put their life on the line to serve the wishes of the President of the United States. To realize that these same men ad women expect you to send them into harms way only in a just cause, one that is in the direct interest of the country and to keep the citizens of this great nation safe and free is humbling. They place great trust in the decisions of the President being correct and just. They do not expect to be court martialed for carrying out lawful orders of the Command structure acting on the order of the President. They expect for him to have their back just as any truly honest leader would.
That is humbling to any right thinking individual

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  • Posted by mminnick 8 years ago
    In my life time there have been two presidents that I thought totally despised the armed forces regardless of what they said in public. You could tell from the way they acted when the military was present in the day to day aspects of their lives. They were William Jefferson Clinton and Barak Hussein Obama. Watch tape and films of how they walk away from Marine 1 and how they act toward the honor guard present. Especially Billy boy. The disdain and contempt are obvious. It is not as obvious for HRH but look at the body language.
    I don't see that with Mr. Trump Perhaps it is there and I willfully turn a blind eye, but I just don't see it.
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    • Posted by $ Snezzy 8 years ago
      Around 1999 I asked a Marine who was doing Toys for Tots what he thought of his Commander in Chief. He said, "I am honored to serve for him, and I will be even more honored to serve for the next Commander in Chief."

      Another Marine said to me more bluntly, around the same time, to the same question, "I'm in uniform."
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  • Posted by Blanco 8 years ago
    Yes, did you see the Army/Navy game? Mr. Trump received a tumultuous welcome from the cadets when his name was announced. These young men and women indubitably know how blessed they are to have not gone into combat under Hussein's anti-military regime.

    Blanco
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 8 years ago
    I had really hoped the gravity of his office would begin to weigh on him and he would sober up a little (so to speak).

    This is a perfect example of this behavior. I hope it continues.
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    • Posted by IamTheBeav 8 years ago
      I hope you are correct about the office changing Mr. Trump's behavior, but I sincerely doubt it. We can hope for the best at this point, but I am expecting the worst from him. The man is a proven liar, business cheat, and sexual predator, and he has been for the entire adult life. To expect him to grow up at this point is naive, however much we may hope so.

      I am as certain now as I have ever been that whoever won between Trump and Hillary in November, the American people ultimately lose big time. I knew my vote would carry no weight, but I was happy to write in Ted Cruz's name, because I couldn't look myself in the mirror if I had voted for Mr. Bad or Mrs. Worse.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 8 years ago
    With a Commander-In-Chief that has the proper respect and understands the proper function of the military, we should be able to clean up the mess of politically appointed officers, who turn soldiers into baby sitters and equip them with the gear and backup they need. Also, those in charge should know when to let military power loose and when to reign it in. In those respects Obama hadn't had a clue. Hopefully the man in charge and his people do.
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  • Posted by coaldigger 8 years ago
    Without organized societies, there could be no wars. Governments, even those created to defend and protect individual rights, increase the risk of wars. To be the leader of one of the largest governments with the most powerful armies, that the world has ever known is truly an honor and it is humbling to know that your responsibility is to use that power for protection of rights, not personal glory or the advancement of ideologies.
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    • Posted by DrZarkov99 8 years ago
      George Washington said it best: "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."
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    • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 8 years ago
      Civilization is the invention that you call "organized societies." Individuals do aggress. But I agree that highly organized warfare required highly organized societies. However, to make civilization the cause of war is wrong.

      In fact, essentially, civilization - literally urbanization; "citi-fication" - brought an interesting lack of aggression. Cities bring strangers, even nominal enemies, together. Cities develop new cultures and new languages. The patois or creole that we call English pretty much was invented in London.
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      • Posted by coaldigger 8 years ago
        Tribes were at war and they created city-states which were constantly at war. They aggregated into kingdoms and had bigger wars. War justifies countries and alliances which have finally lead to threats of wars so large that they have to be contrives on a smaller scale to retain control of potentially free men. Civilization will commence when we attain a position where states, as we know them, are no longer necessary. For that to occur we will need to avoid blowing ourselves up.
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  • Posted by starznbarz 8 years ago
    "The men and women of the armed forces are willing to put their life on the line to serve the wishes of the President of the United States." All due respect, it is my belief the American military folks put their life on the line to carry out the orders of the elected commander in chief - who has sworn to uphold the Constitution, not the wishes of anyone. Although it would be nice to see a president actually serve according to the law ...we shall see.
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  • Posted by $ Radio_Randy 8 years ago
    I served under Jimmy Carter...couldn't wait to get out!
    I would have stayed in under Ronald Reagan.
    Bush, Sr. pissed me off, with the Iraq war and I voted for Clinton...OOPS!!!
    Bush, Jr. would have been better than Clinton, but I would not have had my dog serve under Obama.
    Serving under Trump remains to be seen, but his actions, so far, are eminently promising.
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  • Posted by mia767ca 8 years ago
    my band of brothers in Vietnam died in vain...
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    • Posted by bsmith51 8 years ago
      Excepting the rare Einstein, Beethoven, da Vinci and maybe even Rand, we all die in vain. That said, Vietnam was a horrific waste and testament to human failure and folly in so many ways.
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      • Posted by coaldigger 8 years ago
        No life is in vain. It took millions of years for our lifeform to develop and the brief time span each of us spends here trying to survive adds to the history of the human race. Our individual life is all we will ever know. What we do with it while we are here is all that matters to us as an individual. If there are things that are satisfying to us to believe that we are leaving behind, so be it but in the grand scheme of things it only matters that we were here. That any of us spends anytime killing other men, for any reason, is an atrocity. The only justification for violence is in the defense of our life, not treasure, not nation building, not territory and certainly not mystical beliefs.
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  • Posted by mia767ca 8 years ago
    remember....LBJ...Nixon...Carter...both Bushes...Clinton...Obama...threw the lives of American G.I.s under the bus and sacrificed them for senseless ideals...

    Truman understood that 10,000s of G.I.s in the Pacific theater would die trying to take Japan and choose instead to drop the bomb and end the war with Japan quickly at the cost of Japanese lives...not G.I.s....he understood how to respect our fighting men and women...

    will Trump have the same resolve and respect...????
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    • Posted by evlwhtguy 8 years ago
      Let's not be so hard on Old tricky dick, he's the one that got us out of Vietnam! He had the South Vietnamese running the war and doing an excellent job until Congress pulled all our money, you can't fight a war without money. Nixon didn't didn't throw any lives away he came into office with this disaster of a war already running and Vietnamized it and got us out.
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      • Posted by mia767ca 8 years ago
        i would have preferred that Nixon ended the war quickly with a victory...nuc Hiaphong...war over the next day with a victory...justifying that death of all the American soldiers who died...

        i flew next to Kissinger in the 80"s on a DC10 flight from the west coast to NYC while i was deadheading (i was a pilot for American Air after Vietnam) in first class...he is a very short dude...we had a conversation about the change in international use of American military after the end of WWII...he said they would never use the Nuclear bomb to stop conflicts around the world and would sacrifice as many American G.I.s as necessary to "diplomaticlly" solve "problems" with conflicts...
        i disagree with that philosophically...one American G.I. is worth more than any communist or islamic fanatic...overwhelming force stops conflicts quickly and saves the valuable lives of our fighting men and women...
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        • Posted by $ nickursis 8 years ago
          It has to do with "value". As Heinlein brought out in Starship Troopers, when he had a discussion in their officer school on the value of military lives and what happened after WW3. It was the root to why he had the idea off service to acquire citizenship, because you had to value the body politic. Therefor there was only one answer when asking how many prisoners were worth starting a war: 1. Our government does not understand this, nor do politicians. They still think in terms of "large numbers", hence the Benghazi incident and why it occurred. The numbers were too small for HRC to be worried about.
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  • Posted by GaryL 8 years ago
    Although I do agree with what you said it begs the question, why in this world did those serving now ever join while Zero was the Commander in Chief?

    I have 4 nephews that came of military age since 2008 and I advised each of them to avoid the military while Obama was in office. Two listened and two did not but wish they had.
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    • Posted by bsmith51 8 years ago
      I likewise spent time in my kitchen trying to dissuade a friend of my kids from joining up when he graduated high school. But he was determined; it was all he wanted to do. 60 days after he enlisted he came home to be buried, killed by an Iranian IED.
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      • Posted by GaryL 8 years ago
        After my draft lottery number was drawn in 1969 up in the 300s I knew I had dodged the bullet and ran right out and joined the USN. Back then it seemed like the thing to do if I ever would get to go to college. Too bad wars are no longer fought to be won but rather engaged in for some other nefarious reasons. Those we elect and send to DC don't have the stomachs for war and instead are armchair warriors who tie the hands of our trained soldiers who are willing to die but would much rather be killing the enemy. 18-20 year old men of my and before my generation showed bravery while the 18-20 year old gender challenged men today need safe spaces the military simply can't provide. Your kids friend died doing what his heart said he had to do but for all the wrong reasons.
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