Pat Tillman killed by 'friendly fire'

ceemes · December 28, 2004

Back to some semblance of being serious.....
A lot of points have been raised here, from heroism, to jingoism, to friendly fire, to under-training of troops.

But it seems that many have ventured into the territory of whether or not any soldier is heroic.

My spin is simple.

A soldier does not become a hero when he gets shot. He does not become a hero after committing some daring deed in battler.

To me, a soldier becomes a hero the moment he enlists, provided he enlists under the full knowledge and expectation that he may indeed be called upon to give his life for his fellow troops, his countrymen, his country.

Those few who enlist just because they expect to get a good education through the military, and don't expect to ever go into battle are a slightly different story.

But their time to prove their own heroism comes if and when they a called upon to go into a war zone.

They do not need to prove their courage to me, or to you, only to themselves.

Some have bailed out because they never expected to be called upon to fight, and when the time came, for some reason or other, they refused to go.

But I will give the benefit of the doubt to anyone who enlists no matter what their reason, because the bottom line is this; they have answered the call. They are in the forces, prepared to do their duty, to protect their homeland. They are the shield behind which we all stand safe and secure.

They have not the luxury to choose where they are sent, nor have they the power to determine the quality of their own training,

In this they are pawns to higher powers.

But the fact that they stand ready is, in and of itself, enough to warrant our respect.

I salute anyone who has enlisted.

I enlisted and served for a number of years, including one peacekeeping tour in a hell hole......

I salute those that also serve and especially those soldiers who refuse to obey an illegal order or refuse to participate in an illegal war or invasion.

All soldiers have a moral responsibility to refuse such orders.

kimmy · September 15, 2005

Looking back on this, I still agree with everything I wrote. Looking back on this, I think it's a shame that we never got to hear MapleBear explain why he thought John Walker-Lindh was so deserving of respect.

If it were possible, I'd still shake Pat Tillman's hand.

If it were possible, I'd shake John Walker-Lindh's hand too. I'd shake his hand as I kicked him in the groin, again and again and again, over and over until I was sure that there was no medical possibility of the little puke reproducing.

-kimmy

Argus · September 16, 2005

Looking back on this, I still agree with everything I wrote. Looking back on this, I think it's a shame that we never got to hear MapleBear explain why he thought John Walker-Lindh was so deserving of respect.
If it were possible, I'd still shake Pat Tillman's hand.

If it were possible, I'd shake John Walker-Lindh's hand too. I'd shake his hand as I kicked him in the groin, again and again and again, over and over until I was sure that there was no medical possibility of the little puke reproducing.

-kimmy

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm a little confused. What brought this on in a thread closed for 9 months? And while I think Walker-Lindh is a sorry little puke too I don't understand your antipathy towards him.

And what do you think of our own little Nicholas Ribic's 3 year sentence for taking Canadian UN observers hostage in Serbia?

moderateamericain · September 17, 2005

to the original poster. i can tell you have never served a day in your life in the military. People at home may call us heros, but we dont think about it that way. The people who make a big deal out of being in a wartime unit are those who are not there. I would never expect a canadian to "hero worship" an American. You have your own soilders in Afghanistan to worry about. I served in "wartime" arenas in Kosovo(border of), Mogadishu, and Kuwait. Their is nothing glorous about warfare. Heros are ways for people to grieve for the loved and lost, so they may live on forever.

kimmy · September 17, 2005

I'm a little confused. What brought this on in a thread closed for 9 months? And while I think Walker-Lindh is a sorry little puke too I don't understand your antipathy towards him.

I guess it was the start of the NFL season that reminded me of this discussion. Sunday NFL with dad is something of a tradition; once the snow falls and on days when I'm not working, at least. I think it's sometimes interesting to look back on things and see if you still feel the same way. And with Canadian troops taking a more dangerous role in Afghanistan, it is once again somewhat topical.

As for Walker-Lindh, what can be said.

I can at least kind of understand why people in dangerous, violent regions join terrorist groups. I can understand that some of them feel their very right to exist is being threatened and that they have to take extreme measures to (in their minds, at least) defend themselves. I don't support it, of course, but I can at least kind of get the thought-process and I can kind of get how they get to that.

But how can you empathize with somebody from a well-off family who decides that what he really needs to do is go to the other side of the world and join a group dedicated to blowing up buses of civilians in order to effect the independance of a region that he has no ties to at all? That's Walker Lindh. Before joining the Taliban and Al Qaeda, he went to Pakistan to join the Harkut ul Mujahideen, a group using terrorism to try to create an Islamist state in Kashmir. And then he went to Afghanistan and joined Al Qaeda.

And what do you think of our own little Nicholas Ribic's 3 year sentence for taking Canadian UN observers hostage in Serbia?

I'm not very familiar with the facts of the case. It must have been somewhat soft-pedalled in the news, because I can't recall it being much of an issue at the time.

But I sense that you've got a mistaken idea of what I find most offensive about Walker-Lindh. It's not that he put himself in a situation that ultimately led to him participating in armed conflict against his own country. It's that he grew up with all the advantages of education and religious freedom and personal security that a well-off American has... and decided that the right thing for him to do would be to travel to the other side of the world to join a group dedicated to murdering civilians. To me, that's loathesome.

-k