Re: Campaign 2016 Part XXIV: Both candidates are the same, but here's why yours is aw
Thanks for the military history lesson.
Being a war hero doesn't make his taste in politics any less stupid or dangerous.
Perhaps, but they are as entitled to voice their opinion as anyone, and especially given the sacrifices made, one should maybe consider giving them a fair hearing.
When I've talked to Vietnam Vets, this is what they tell me:
For one, they see the terrible problems at the VA and are ****ed.
But more to the point of this election, they see a lot of parallels with Iraq and Vietnam. And they look at what's happening right now and see that we have guys over there fighting over the same **** land that guys already bled and died for ten years ago. But the President gave it back. And as bad or worse, the lives of guys over there right now aren't in the hands of the best fighting force in the world, with the full weight and support of the US Government, as was promised to them when they joined up, but rather are in the hands of militias and an Iraqi military that has a long history of mistakes and failure and fleeing in the face of the enemy.
They look at Libya and think "Why the hell would we trust one American life to a bunch of clearly unreliable so called "security forces" which were nothing more than a handful of untrained hoodlums ready to turn tail and run when the **** hits the fan? And worse again, with absolutely zero back up or contingency plans in place? Which is exactly what they did. And the pols just let it happen and say "Oops. Sorry..." afterwards.
This stuff is seen as being done largely for political reasons and they are clearly disgusted by these types of policies. Especially in light of their Vietnam experience where most serious Vets will tell you they weren't allowed to win the fight for political reasons, and if they weren't going to be allowed to win, they sure as hell shouldn't be sent anywhere in the first place.
These guys now are continually asked to accomplish more and more dangerous jobs with less and less support. Which they will do but I bet they wouldn't mind at all if the President or Hils were to say, " Hey, you know, maybe we shouldn't have pulled everybody out. That was probably a mistake." and "Maybe we should have put a jump team on standby near Libya and cleared some fast movers into Libyan Air Space just in case things get hairy in a country that is in the midst of a civil war. That wasn't thought through very well." Military guys might feel a bit better since they're the ones we ask to pay the price for poor political decisions.
When I personally try and look at it from their point of view, I have no trouble understanding why they don't want to support the status quo.
