Combat and anger; making excuses for murderers
I guess CBS News is competing with CNN’s article about PTSD and the the Baton Rouge murderer today. They blame the murderous rampages of the Baton Rouge killer and the Dallas killer on anger issues that are common among combat veterans;
A study published by Army psychiatrists in 2015 found “anger and aggression are among the most common issues reported by returning service members from combat deployments.”
[…]
But a 2013 Army study of 2,000 combat veterans found thirty-five percent getting angry enough to kick or smash something, twenty-two percent angry enough to threaten someone with physical violence and seven percent angry enough to actually hit someone.
A separate study pointed to something called “trait anger,” defined as a propensity to become angry under stressful conditions. In other words, anger could have been a personality trait before they joined the military and the stress of service made it worse.
The Dallas murderer was an Army Reserve carpenter who was sent home from a deployment because of sexual harassment. The Baton Rouge murderer, a Marine veteran, was a “data network specialist”. Neither was involved in actual combat, however both were involved in the Black Lives Matter movement after their military service.
So, what, besides the fact that they both wore uniforms and fought boredom during their deployments, do they really have in common that would cause them to hate white cops to the point of murdering mostly white cops? Seriously. Sometimes the most obvious answer is the correct answer.
The stress of living among stupid pointy-headed civilian know-it-alls makes me angry.
Category: Politics
In complete agreement with you, Jonn. The media drum beat of disinformation makes me pretty angry. Willful ignorance, when your job (not coincidentally, one which is constitutionally protected) is supposed to include some level of truthfulness, is inexcusable.
Jonn,
Just remember Occam’s Razor (the simplest answer, etc), and use it to slit the LSM’s throats.
That is a good strategy, IMHO.
Part of the problem is that most civilians have no idea what deployment is like. A lot of them imagine guys with face-paint and five o’clock shadows sharing dip while hugging their rifles and MREs in foxholes on a desolate plot of no man’s land. They would be shocked to learn that, for many people, deployment consists of sitting in an air conditioned tent and sneaking off to Ruby Tuesdays on the KAF boardwalk for lunch.
That’s not at all to denigrate anyone’s experience. I just wish media and civilian types realized that if a non-combat arms type does something crazy, they probably got the crazy from some place that was not the armed forces.
You DAMNED sure never served with on-ground troops in Viet Nam. Particularly those up near the DMZ. Once when in DaNang for a day I was amazed to see they had such things as carpeted Enlisted Men’s clubs..complete with television. No doubt the same experience was shared by other troops in the Delta, the Highlands, etc.
The cake walk you are referring to NEVER existed for combat troops such as grunts, tankers, Corpsmen, etc.
Air conditioning….Never heard of it!!!!!!
Wasn’t in ‘Nam, don’t know what it was like. All I have is my time in Afghanistan in 2012-13. And while the vast majority of service members did vital jobs over there, a decent amount of them, myself included, had access to a pretty wide array of amenities (Internet, A/C, handstand toilets and DFACs, beds instead of cots or worse, etc).
Wasn’t Da Nang one of the major bases in Vietnam, along with Long Binh etc? Wouldn’t those bases be crawling with REMFs?
I don’t think that places like Khe Sanh had carpeted E-clubs. Could be wrong. Even if they had one, don’t think a carpet would have added much to the decor. I think it would have been added as a joke more than anything.
My brother was on Firebase 6 with the 1/92 artillery near the Cambodian border in 69/70. Seems that the interior decorator never made it there from all he’s told me.
Roger that
There I was! Downtown Baghdad, Corner of DurkaDurka Street and Mow Ham Mad Jeeehawd Boulevard… eatin’ a Ham Sandwich…. Buuuuuck Naked!
Somewhere I have a little set of black pajamas with Chu Lai embroidered on them that my uncle picked up for me in the late 60s on his way through.
Even many of us modern guys can relate, my experiences at the following places,
COP Anah
IPDHQ Anah
PB Darveshan
COP Koshtay
etc etc etc
The enemy may change, but life at the pointy end never does.
Then I had a deployment to Camp Phoenix in Kabul, and I got to see how the other half lived. It was amazing……
What actually is “the other half?” The Marines is a lot bigger than “infantry and everybody else”
Calm down, this isn’t a “you people” post.
Figures of speech. Maybe you have heard of them?
No air conditioning? Of course not! It wasn’t on your ration card. Besides, you couldn’t have carried the extension cord (it leaves a trail, ya know).
Fortunately I lost my ration card soon after I got there, so I didn’t have to hump that useless weight.
http://www.sofmilitary.co.uk/products/Vietnam-Ration-Card-190216-4.JPG
Say, do they have ration cards in A’stan?
They see pictures and videos of Infantrymen kicking in doors and clearing rooms and think that ever service member no matter what branch is a door kicker. They fail to realize that there are a lot of kick ass people in the rear busting their asses doing their jobs to support us so that we can do our.
Edit: I know there are plenty of other MOS’s outside the wire in danger besides just Infantry.
Yep and take contact, how do you think all the supply get to them and all the other COIN mission that are not direct action missions. Last time I was in Iraq there were all kind of task forces that had to work outside the wire and I was on one and we took complex hits a couple of times. Defensive combat is not the same as offensive but it is still combat and you can have more control when on offense vice defense.
Here we go again. I used to like seabees until you started posting trying to equal your little point a to point b missions with the actual infantry missions.
I have seen pogs take contact. You take cover and return fire, while calling to higher to dispatch the QRF to get you out of the ditch.
And you keep going if the hajj just fired a few rounds at you. You only stop if there is a vehicle mobility kill and you have to recover, otherwise just keep going, and maybe, maybe, your gunners in the hatchs return fire with the crew-served mounted in your vehicles.
There is no dismounting, no react to contact, no fire and manouver, no clearing of the enemy position, no chasing of enemy trying to break contac with you, no clearing of tall buildings to gain vertical superiority and re-acquire line of sight to the enemy, no terrain denial by quickly dividing your element in 2 or more mutually supporting positions to negate the enemy easy exfill routes, no tactical interrogation of nearby local nationals to gain intel on enemy TTPs for follow-on missions, basicly nothing to win the fight.
And by the way, everything i mentioned was “defensive”. If you think that fighting off an enemy attack is merely take cover and return fire, then no wonder you think you can do what the infantry does.
A defensive fight means react to contact fixing the enemy, achieve fire superiority to provide freedom of manouver for your assault element, out flank and roll out the enemy position.
You don’t win fights by merely taking cover and returning fire.
So, should we get into “offensive” operations now?
Nothing angrys me more than a pog pretending to do the same shit we do. If you wanted to be infantry you should have reclassed as 11B, and suck ass doing all the training we have to do before we put a foot on the battlefield. Every body wants to be the hero, but nobody wants to do the suck up to earn your crossed rifles.
Nothing “angers” me more than a dick with a chip on his shoulder putting down the rest of the service to inflate his ego. Because we don’t have the level of training or support that you did when we did get hit we had a far greater chance of death or severe injury. I know for a fact that attitudes like yours caused deaths in the ranks. Was lucky enough to serve with some of the best men I have ever seen in my life (even if they were Infantry 🙂 ), and unlucky enough to be attached to units filled with worthless fucks like you that didn’t give a shit about anyone that didn’t wear a blue disc and let that stupidity affect their operations and our lives. I don’t give a shit about heroes – I’m just looking for a professional soldier. Go and beat your chest at the local VFW – maybe they’ll enjoy your shit there.
Who the says i don’t care about pogs?
I am perfectly aware that i cannot accomplish my mission without your support.
But, BUT, don’t come to me with your little war stories about how you do the same shit i do. YOU DON’T.
So reclass if you want to be 11B. It is not that hard. I have none previous service pogs that have come back as 11B.
Oh, and i am a professional. I have always done my best to cover your asses when the shit hits the fan and you find yourself short because you didn’t do PCC/PCIs.
So stop bitching becuase i called you out on it.
Spoken like a true PVT just out of Benning. Stop listening to the BS your Drills told you and talk like an adult, from your own experiences.
This guy. Here’s your POG that reclassed 11B from Signal. Signal was too slow for him.
http://www.benning.army.mil/common/leaders/Bio/pdf/CSM%20Guden.pdf
Never said, do the same shit not even close to what you do. You have put down others that do not have your MOS, I GET IT. I will tell Marines have more respect when it comes to other MOS’s,Yes you are the ones in the shit but others work out there also and if they didn’t do PCI/PCC’s that fuck UP is on them and yes you as QRF need to pull them out.Those ass should be fried for dereliction of duty because you guy’s had to go pull them out for not knowing the shit they were going into.
I’ve noted Yef’s previous posts in which, basically, ‘if you ain’t infantry, you ain’t shit’. Well, isn’t that an immature as fuck mentality for a ‘member’ of the military? What’s next, Yef, we gonna have a caste system (look it up) with you at the top of the food chain? After all, you seem to want us to believe you’re the alpha dog, what with your vast experience. I love how you (apparently) heavily plagiarize and/or cut and paste from various military manuals. Is it necessary to do that to convey your importance to others ? Well, here’s the deal, you immature fuck: You are no better than any military member who served honorably. Not one fucking bit better. So return to your manuals for additional quotes and come back with yet another immature post. You know, just so we know you’re serious about proving to all of us that you’re a turd with a chip. Oh, and don’t you fucking even think of questioning MY military service, 1968-1991. You’re a fucking waste of space, you immature fuck. Anything need clarification, let me know. And the next time you need a corpsman or medic, or ammo, or chow, or transportation, or medevac, just go fuck yourself with your inflated, immature ego. In case I didn’t mention it, there are probably hundreds of seasoned vets on this blog who have done more than you will ever do, and I don’t recall them claiming to be the greatest military member since James Mattis. And, if others speaking of their military experiences bothers you, how about realizing you’re on the wrong blog? How dare you question the service of and contribution of any other veteran? Oh, I almost forgot … go fuck your immature self.
Well put Chief.
Hay ass hole I was working and attached to a SOF TASK FORCE NOT A SEABEE element at that time. Took TWO IED HITS and complex several RPG’s and machine gun fire we Killed the two PRG guys and doubled around to hit the Machine gun. I said Offensive is not the same as defensive ass hat. I also was attached to a Marine unit and yes we took hits and returned in kind with Marines and they didn’t have a problem with us fighting with them. We have lost troops also what the hell were they doing? Not saying we did same shit but in some cases our ass’s are hanging out without all the big time support you guys have.I have two CARS earned and approved by the Marines and two Fleet Marine Corps Combat operations insignia, earned when serving in ground combat with a Marine unit
Yef: I’m guessing that you’re in the Army since you’re talking about the 11B MOS.
That’s a good thing, because I would hate to think that a combat-experienced infantry Marine would ever consider making disparaging comments such as yours above about his fellow Marines serving in USMC Combat Support, USMC Combat Service Support, or USMC Aviation.
FYI, there are quite a few Marines around here who do not hold an 03XX Marine Corps infantry MOS, including Air Wingers, who have seen significant ground combat in Afghanistan and/or Iraq, and you’re unjustly denigrating their proven courage and combat service through your ill-advised commentary above. None of those non-infantry Marines have ever claimed to be “infantry”, yet they have picked up a rifle when they have had to do so, and with extremely rare exception they have performed well in direct ground combat operations. Some of them have even been assigned to USMC Provisional Infantry units (particularly USMC artillerymen), who, whether you like it or not, did perform actual infantry combat missions. It would serve you well in the future to remember that “Every Marine is a Rifleman” is more than just a motto on a bumper sticker to those of us who wear the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor.
I strongly recommend that you re-read NECCSEABEECPO’s post above, because it looks like you’re overreacting with your unwarranted “11B” indignation. The Chief never claimed in his post that the SeaBees are the same as infantry; he merely stated that they operated outside the wire and were in contact a couple of times.
In summary, your comments above are way out of line and you are insulting quite a few of your fellow combat-proven veterans of all of the U.S. armed services, regardless of MOS.
I recommend that you take a few moments to calm down and reflect, and then perhaps consider an apology/retraction.
Semper Fidelis.
Thank Mick, and much respect to 03xx Marines would never say I was one, as we support them and they take care of us and keep bad shit from comming our way.
That being said, The above was not about beinG a Seabee, as it was about all the Joint Task force mission in Iraq and AFG, mostly MITT team and training missions, PRT’s and Law and Order Task Forces that have all kind of MOS’S working in them.I would never say it is the same it’s just a lot of times troops that did those missions get no respect here from the real deal’s that have. I would never say it is the same but the risk are still there.
Well now, someones angry……
I’m a bit mystified by this idea that those who aren’t infantry-labeled aren’t on the same ‘special’ level as those who wear that INF title. I’m thinking of HMs (hospital corpsmen)and combat medics in Vietnam who were assigned to infantry units in Vietnam, whose entire job was to provide trauma aid to those who were hit by bullets, shrapnel, artillery – whatever, and whose lives were certainly at just as much risk as any combat infantryman.
Without those medics/Docs, the infantry don’t/didn’t make it back alive.
I’m also thinking of combat cameramen who were in the bush with soldiers and Marines, in just as much mortal danger as the bullet/arti slingers.
So where is this coming from, Yef? Perhaps you can explain it to me, as I have no combat experience at all, and have no idea where your attitude starts.
You see, shrapnel and bullets only hit targets, not CERTAIN people.
Well said, Ex-PH2.
Navy Hospital Corpsmen from a Marine’s perspective:
“Usually a young, long haired, bearded, Marine-hatin’ Sailor with certain medical skills, who will go through the very gates of Hell to get to a wounded Marine.”
-Major Gene Duncan USMC(Ret)-
But I guess that since those FMF Corpsmen are not officially designated as infantry by MOS…
“-Major Gene Duncan USMC(Ret)-”
Always was a big fan of his writing.
and I was one of those bearded Corpsmen
…before they made us shave Jan 1st 1985, the details of the beard shaving party are still hazy.
Aaah, the CNO Elmo Zumwalt effect. Z-Grams and all that. He became CNO early 70s and stuff changed immediately. Suddenly beards and long(er) hair were OK. I swear, IDC SARC, there were times I thought I was at Woodstock. Corpsmen had historically (IMO) pushed the limits on grooming regs, and during and after Z hair and beards were way beyond intended standards. By 1977, mine was so bad I voluntarily shaved it and got an authorized haircut.
Speaking as a career infantryman, we love our Corpsman and very much consider them one of us.
Even if they are a little weird.
Yeah, I tried to tell the Taliban that I was Civil Affairs when they shot at me. They didn’t seem to listen and just kept shooting.
They even caused fires right near our hooch a few times with rocket attacks. Bastards.
They really crossed the line when they shot RPGs at our convoys. I put in grievances with my CA Union Rep, but didn’t hear anything back.
A good friend of mine is a CA MAJ. I think that he’s up to 2 PHs now.
Ok gentlemen lets put it back in our pants and put the ruler up, shall we. We are all on the same side here.
no, were just gonna keep doing this? carry on gents.
“But a 2013 Army study of 2,000 combat veterans found thirty-five percent getting angry enough to kick or smash something, twenty-two percent angry enough to threaten someone with physical violence and seven percent angry enough to actually hit someone.”
Want to bet that a study of non-combat Veterans would have shown that 100% get angry to kick or smash something, 80% angry enough to threaten someone with a punch in the mouth, and 65% who did so. OI must ne missing something. Dafuq are they talking about? Angry? Go to hell!
That is the problem with the quotation. What percentage of non-veterans getting angry enough to kick or smash something? Do they mean combat veterans or just veterans? Without numbers for equivalent behavior from the general population, those stats mean absolutely nothing.
Probably safe to say that a higher percentage of NFL players beat their wives/girlfriends…
I thought that’s what the marijuana smoking and snorting cocaine off hooker’s asses was for? To level them out so they didn’t?
yup throwing out flashy stats with no context our baseline on which to judge those stats.
Our modern “journalists” at work.
If the people who come up with these things actually took a hard look at themselves, they might just shut their mouths.
Having only CAT5 when you really need CAT6 is enough to make anyone snap.
I’m tired of the media using “veteran” or “PTSD” as a qualifier. It’s a detractor.
Once you’ve been in the service, you will always be tagged with the veteran description. No matter what you did in the military, you will always be suspected of being ready to snap.
Cops go through the same thing. Our instructors in the academy told us that for the rest of our lives, if we ever get arrested for anything, we will always be described as a cop or ex-cop. Tru dat.
Yes, but they have NOTHING else they can use as a qualifying noun, except ‘vet’.
If this is coming from the leftieretard side of the media fence, it’s no surprise because it was the lefties who did the same thing to veterans during and after Vietnam.
I do not know what it takes to get them to stop using ‘veteran’ as a pejorative, other than continuing to be NOT the whack jobs that make the news spotlight.
Openly anti white black supremacists being the common link here.
Where are the calls to ban African pride flags from the media and politicians. Symbols of hate and all that jazz……
The double standards are now resulting in deaths.
Saying that there is a double-standard for them implies incorrectly that they have standards at all.
Remember when the expression “going postal” was popular? There was a period of 10 or so years beginning in 1986 in which, from time to time, a nutjob at the post office decided that it was time to kill. After some 40 postal employees had been murdered, the killing stopped for years. Then, in 2006, a former postal worker, a woman, went into a postal processing center and killed six people. What did they have in common? They were f’n nuts, that’s what.
Can’t believe this b.s. makes “news”. 99% of vets have the common sense and hold on reality to avoid the conflict if at all possible. And how to react should the situation require it. Like the focus of this situation, the BLS movement and liberal news probigate the advertisement -selling headline that less than a percent represents the whole. How stupid?!
History will generally repeat itself,especially among those who refuse to take the time to study it. During the 70’s, anytime there was a crime committed by a veteran, his veteran status was listed as a primary contributor. Evidently the media pundits thought our training and experience ensured we were borderline sociopaths. Hollywood also did not help with their depictions of veterans. I noticed the articles never mentioned their specialty or the nature of their discharges. It was enough that they were veterans. The greatest difference is that now the perpetrators of these crimes are being portrayed as victims due to PTSD etc (which was not recognized back than). What a strange evolution.
What LEO’s now face is far worse than what veterans faced upon return from Viet Nam. I think most veterans in my neck of the woods go out of our way to tell officers they are appreciated, and if needed, we have their 6.
Yep,here we go again.
Almost all the LEOs in my local PD are military vets. I find that to be a plus.
DITTO THAT, I wonder how soon we ME Vets will start seeing mess media and Hollywierd types campaigning to stereotype US like they did our Vietnam Vets, or has it already begun?
They already either portray vets as incompetent, murderous, shell shocked, or superhuman….everything is basically a caricature of some single facet of personality which becomes their raison d’être.
That’s why I rarely watch military movies of any sort.
Wait, what kind of raisins are they calling veterans? That’s bullshit, I’m not any kind of Raisin.
I had to laugh at the concerned young woman who offered her condolences when she found out that I had been to Iraq and Afghanistan – obviously I was a victim of a virtual involuntary draft by the evil government. The look on her face when I told her that I had volunteered to go all three times was priceless :).
It’s because they really have nothing to say in the first place, so they have to make something up. If we did a survey of TV ‘journalists’ and asked them the same questions they use, I believe we’d find a very large population group that is full of buttheads, prima donnas, attention whores, and ignorant, opinionated asswipes with brains the size of a pea, who regularly scream bloody murder at their assistants and the interns unfortunate to be suckered into working for them for nothing.
But that’s reality, and they don’t like it, so they make shit up all the time.
Name one person over the age of 18 months who doesn’t get angry over something. Go ahead. I dare you.
Using their logic (with the number of LEO’s who are either veterans or in the reserves) wouldn’t there be more police officers lighting people up on a daily basis? (Rhetorical question and not intended to insult LEOs who may visit here.
##@&%#!!!!!!
One of these days, I’m going to set aside a few hours to dedicate to this topic. The hypothesis, usually presented as a conclusion, is exceedingly vulnerable to shredding. Not that it will do any good. The media are no more interested in seeing the facts and the truth in this than they are in corroborating or verifying a valor thief’s claims before publishing them as factual. In both instances, some media types actually think they are doing a good thing in publishing this tripe.
Those of us who have spent some time on the streets of this great country know first hand just how hypocritical the lefties, their useful idiots and their sycophants in the media can be. While they constantly and loudly proclaim how we vets are all damaged, mentally unstable, and all that other clap trap of their daily screed, when you come face to face with them they do not hesitate to scream in our ears, spit in our faces, and send their children to call us names in language I would never contemplate using in polite society, and in some cases would never use at all.
Does that make any sense to sane people? They feign fear of us yet they conduct themselves deliberately in ways that were their public portrayal of us true, they would all be at least maimed if not terminally room temp. When asked about it, they just laugh.
Thank G-d that the American people are waking up to the danger the left poses and that we have no time left if what we once were is ever to be recovered.
^^^THIS^^^
If that percentage of veterans were truly a problem, meaning millions of vets, we’d have killed a helluva lot more people because of the PTS. If we really “wanted” to do it, that many of us could take over the country and make it the way we want with the 100 million guns we’ve got.
Right up there with firearms. If all guns were killing people, there wouldn’t be anyone alive in this country.
The media is just looking for the easy way out. They think the easy way is to divert attention to PTSD. They want to heap the blame on the military. They are trying to up sell the public into believing their ideas. Thankfully we have some who have come out against BLM, the media, Obama, holder and others who have fanned the flames of this racial hatred.
There was a similar sentiment on one of the Facebook news articles proclaiming the Baton Rouge murder’s PTSD status. One person replied that his PTSD might have been brought on by hearing that friends had died, another claimed that “He was well trained and very disillusioned about the military not living up to its ideals” but didn’t provide any source for statement of fact. Both of the commenters had a bunch of BLM stuff plastered on their walls.
PART I Veterans do not sport a V on our foreheads such that we can be immediately identified as Veterans. Yet, when a violent crime occurs and the culprit sought is known or is caught, if he is a Veteran, that fact is quickly learned by the media and the Veteran tag, in one form or another, is attached to the story. Do this enough times, and the association between violent crime and military service is locked subliminally, at least, into the readers’ or viewers’ heada. Add additional information about that military service, such as a deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan, and there is no further need for explanation. It goes without saying that the Veteran’s deployment explains his propensity for violence, if not his criminality. The angry, frustrated, pained Veteran, having experienced the level, extent, and constancy of violence reserved only for warring, simply cannot adjust to peaceful existence in the civil society at home and he vents his rage and anger the way he was taught by the military: violently. That’s the theory and theme, isn’t it? It certainly is presented that way in many books, articles, movies, television shows and, of course, the aforementioned news stories. But is it true? Are Veterans more likely to commit violent crimes than their non-Veteran counterparts? The answer is not as easy as yes or no, actually, due to a number of important factors. Foremost is the data factor. Reliable data are hard to come by and carry their own problems. For instance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) has for years tracked Veterans incarcerated in federal and state prisons. The data amassed come from surveys in which inmates are asked whether they ever served in the military. There is no corroboration whatsoever. What the inmate answers is accepted without verification. In the 2004 BJS survey questionnaire, inmates were asked whether they ever served in the US armed forces, which branch, how long, and whether they saw “combat in a combat or line unit.” They were also asked the type of discharge they received. No distinction was made regarding active duty,… Read more »
Add to the list of variables due to all the data being voluntarily given and not verified the question of whether it is more likely for non-veterans to claim veteran status or real veterans declining to participate for a variety of reasons. To say that the data is suspect is an understatement. The only possible value this survey has is to get a very rough idea how many individuals might be involved in the next phase of the collection of data. That value only relates to figuring out how many folks would be needed to gather meaningful data. Seriously. This information looks from here like bureaucrats making work for themselves with no goal of accomplishing anything substantive.
PART II
This will be brief. The reason is that there are few law enforcement agencies who inquire into whether an arrestee served in the military and, of those that do, it’s a matter of self reporting. The exception, in terms of verification, is the Veterans courts where proof of service is required. For this reason, there are no stats that tell us whether a person charged with a crime, violent or otherwise, served in the military. In many states, after a defendant is convicted of a violent crime, a pre-sentence investigation is conducted. These investigations capture such personal background elements as military service but they are usually, if not always, excepted from freedom of information law requests. Thus, self-reporting and anecdotal information are pretty much it. Sucks.
Postscript
Arrests for violent crimes contained in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report (i.e., murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) do not include military service but do include race. Did you know that Juan Gonzalez and his brother Raul, Mexican nationals working in living in the USA and both of whom were arrested for rape in 2013, are White? They are as far as the FBI violent crimes arrest reporting is concerned. That’s right. For decades, Latinos/Hispanics have been White for these arrest-reporting. In 2014, ethnicity, covering Latinos, began to be tracked. Now, one can back-out the Latino numbers from White for a more accurate picture. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Considering that after the end of the draft, the percentage of veterans in the county’s population has decreased at analogous if not identical rates, I suspect those numbers only reflect that veterans have about the same tendencies to becoming jailable ‘bad apples’ as civilians.
The funny thing as I see it is that the race, gender and age of the perpetrator of a violent crime is, statistically, the only things captured that one can hang his hat on (and gender is no longer 100% certain.) Veterans, however, real or phony (it doesn’t seem to matter) are fair game. But try and use race. A Memphis newspaper did after the Dallas shooting of the police officers by a black male who wanted to kill whites and, after protesters hit the place, the paper issued an apology for its insensitivity. What the paper wrote was true and accurate but it had to go. Veterans? No problem. The fact that years separated a crim from his service days or that his MOS had nothing to do with his crime aren’t factors.
“Despite these self-reported data, the BJS found that the percentage of inmates in prisons has dropped significantly over time.”
That’s funny. Read “Veterans” for inmates.
I know I was angry because I had to answer some dumb-ass questions by some pain in the ass head shrinker instead of getting home to my family.
If someone stood between you and an Ice Cold Beer and a Red Hot F*** with Honey after all those months? How would you react.
Well, the first thing I’d do is ask the shrink if he likes having sex with the spousal unit. If the answer is ‘yes’, the next questions you ask pertain to ‘What would you rather do, answer a bunch of stupid questions or go home and have dinner and get laid?’ And of course, you don’t let the shrink get a word in edgewise, because you take over the conversation.
Of course, if the shrink says ‘no signif other’ or ‘no, single at the momnent’, or ‘no, just broke up’, then you do the brotherly hug of sympathy, the whack on the shoulder, tell the shrink you can point him/her at some willing participants to relieve the stress of not getting laid for the very modest price of dinner and a movie.
It’s nice to be able to confuse shrinks when you can.
There’s a Greenpeace activist (one of those responsible for hanging off the bridge in Portland that prevented a Shell Oil vessel from leaving for the Arctic) who put out a moronic tweet about the two cop killers, saying something along the lines of “they were veterans… figures.” When confronted with the facts of their service all replies were deleted. Gutless.
Yeah, whenever we ran out of cow and had to switch over to death milk for two months, that made me want to punch something.
Nah, not really.
Women go through BCT. Many women have been deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. If combat arena, theater, zone, whatever, is the determinant, I guess violent crimes by Veterans who are women is noteworthy. Or not. Or it doesn’t fit the theme. Or something.
Okay, well, so far, I’m a female vet and yet, I haven’t done any of the following:
– held up a bank
– robbed a convenience store/gas station
– knocked down an old lady for her purse
– done driveby/random shootings in da ‘hoods
– taken potshots at cops
– plowed a truck through a crowd of festival attendees
– gone into a soccer stadium and tried to disrupt the soccer game with explosives
Those seem to be what the more spectacular acts consist of, and they sound like an awful lot of work.
yet…lolz
now…backing out slowly
Doc:
Have you seen what “Yef” is putting out up at the top of these comments?
Mick,
That was a joke at PH2’s comments…indicating there’s hellfire in there, so don’t piss her off…hence “yet”
yes I saw yef’s and found them contextually strange and thus, I’m not commenting on them, though some of them (not the disparaging ones) gave me a chub.
Overall if my comment was misunderstood, especially by PH2…I genuflect respectfully and apologize.
Doc:
No worries; I saw the joke and didn’t have any problem with your response to Ex-PH2. Nothing to apologize to me for.
I was just using my reply to your post as an opportunity to point out the “Yef” discussion to you since Corpsmen were being brought into the discussion. Was interested in what your take on all of that might be.
Thanks; Semper Fi.
Anything I’d have to say would be an obvious reiteration regarding the years and years of documented evidence readily available about the undeniable service and sacrifice of Hospital Corpsmen in combat. It is factual, immutable, undeniable. I will not attempt to defend that which stands on its own.
If others don’t see it, they don’t wish to.
Semper Fi
Yeah, PH2, but you make an awesome sammich. Which reminds me …
Bwhaaa
Jeez. I skipped most of the comments. Couldn’t take the whining. Dam near all of you VOLUNTEERED for that crap. My sympathies go to the draftees who did at least as much and didn’t (and still don’t), bitch and moan.
Dam special snowflakes.
Well, you are just a big tough keyboard warrior aren’t you.
Mommy must be so proud.
There always seems to be some jerk who accuses people of being chickenhawks if they aren’t toeing the company line.
What whining? Bitch and moan? “Dam special snowflakes”?
What are you talking about?
Mick, I guess my bad I have no right to say I have been in combat even though I have two Marine CARS and I won’t mention the other combat award I have. I will shut the fuck up as only combat MOS guys have been in danger and I will forget the 21 brothers I have lost and several more with life sustaining injuries and all the Purple harts because that was not combat.So my bad..
NECCSEABEECPO:
I hope that I’m misunderstanding your comment, because I’m certainly not trying to disparage your combat service in anything that I’ve written here today. I would never do that. I was replying to “timactual”.
I respect what you have done, and I wrote my reply to “Yef” up above in support of you. I’m on your side on this issue.
No, No devil Dog your good and I think you get it. I thought this was about the comments above and was just saying well according to YEF, it sounds like I don’t have a right to say anything about combat. I know you guys understand what we do, get it as you train us and helps us out all the time.
I placed the comment in wrong spot it should have been where you asked IDC, if he saw the comments above.
As I said before thank you and don’t and can’t hold myself up to Infantry guys I just think I may have done some shit or would not have been reorganized by the Marines and Navy, for doing so. I have said many times I know it is not direct action and not the same.
Yef has made many comments about how they are the only ones in the shit and I have said that is not true.
Thank you and S/F from Can Do…
Yeah, bitching and moaning and whining come with the job. It’s part of the PRIVILEGES we got then and get now.
And since the number of VOLUNTEERS during Vietnam was higher than the number of draftees, timmie, you don’t have a fucking leg to stand on.
How is that relevant?
I have done my share of bitching, but I don’t recall ever denigrating the service or opinions of others because they didn’t have the proper MOS.
How do you know? Started serving with bunch of Vietnam vets way back when and I never did learn to tell a draftee from a volunteer. Heard some terrific stories – some of how useless draftees were and others about how they pulled their weight superbly. Kinda suspect that draftees weren’t much different from everybody else. Even knew a couple personally who remained in service and later expressed much gratitude for having been drafted.
All just to say that as far as I know there was no way of knowing if the trooper was a draftee or a volunteer. Well, there were periods where drill instructors could tell for a while, but the good ones reversed things.
Are you saying, timactual, that behaviorally it was easy to pick out the draftees?
All but 7% of combat veterans are pussies?
Gosh darn it, I don’t even have to be all that mad to actually hit someone. Hell, I have done it a bunch of times with a smile.
I must have some of that “trait anger” and be in denial.
Nah, it was the military the fucked me up, I was calm, cool, and collected before that. I was told I was going to win the hearts and minds of everyone.
It just seems so much easier to do that after you shoot them in the face. That kinda calms them right down.
This just makes me so angry I could…get a puppy, join a circle jerk, develop menstrual cramps.
Never been an 11B…but it sounds scary. Particularly when it ends in 1P, now thats really scary.
7%, God damn it gents, you people are not even trying. A lousy 7%, get with the program and swing a little.
Just going to throw this out here even though it is not directly related to the topic. To all the combat vets who loudly proclaim that they are the only folks in the military who count and that the rest of us are nothing: I have never pretended that I wanted your job or could do it nearly as well as you did. However, I did become at least passingly familiar, and have a couple of documents which say that I learned to use some of them very well, with every armament which I might remotely ever use to defend myself, my position, or others should we be overrun. Did you do anything similar? Could you have performed any of those jobs that supported your position well enough to survive an attack, resupply yourself, support yourself financially, or get yourself home when it was over? No? Then quit acting as if all of us who were as far from home, family, and creature comforts as you were are somehow inferior to you because we were then and are now all small cogs in a giant wheel, all parts of which had to work together to survive whichever assignment we had. That makes us all about as equally important as we could possibly get. The same? Hardly, but there is a greater chance that I could still do my job in country without you than you could do yours without me and all the other pogues who supported you. Shame on any of you who must denigrate the service of others to make yourselves feel better about something. You are as bad as the valor thieves we all find so disgusting. ** **Most folks understand these principles. Many of my closest friends are combat vets, many of those from the infantry. They don’t believe that they were the only troopers who mattered, and perhaps that is why I hold them in such high esteem. I tend to value their service more than my own. It is they who finally made me come to realize that together we survived, together we mourn… Read more »
Day one at Parris Island I learned we were all equally worthless.
Some of the best days of my career were sitting behind a desk. I know I have said it before, but I loved my desk.
Cried like a little bitch when they took it away. We all served, that has always been good enough for me.
I think some of it is envy. Most of the sane people I ever met hoped to find a way to a rear area job after their first real firefight. Some even reenlisted to get out of the field.
Is this seriously turning into a POGs vs grunts thing? Of the 5 brothers I knew who gave the ultimate sacrifice, none were infantry. They were artillery, intel, a corpsman, and a harrier mech. Marines are Marines. Get over it.
It happens from time to time, but not often. My apology if my rant offended you. If you are not one who does that, then please just ignore it. This hasn’t been a very good week, so my fuse is unusually short.
Besides, it was my turn to do the in-defense-of thing. It will be up to someone else next time.
Much too much apologizing going on around here. It’s too f’n civil.
What do you expect from a site that is run by a guy with a man bun?
https://www.google.com/search?q=man+bun&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiagNqw_IXOAhXBdSYKHShKCL8Q_AUICCgB&biw=1014&bih=674
Kumite! Kumite! Kumite!
And in conclusion, Yef can go sit on a screwdriver and rotate on it.
I’m not apologizing for a damn thing. I did my job, you did yours, everybody has a part to play. Just cogs in the machine. I’m a career signal weenie, ran your comms when the population of Bagram AB was around 200. I had your phone waiting for you when you rolled into Baghdad. That’s my job, that’s what I did then and still do now albeit for a different agency. Be proud of what you do and if you have to put people down that made it possible for you to do your job, kindly go fuck yourself. I bet you believed that “Army of one” bullshit too.
I know a guy who got his draft notice and enlisted in the Signal Corps to avoid the Infantry. He happened to be TDY in Saigon on Jan. 30, 1968. They stuck him on the perimeter of Tan Son Nhut. Surprise!
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Yef: I’m waiting for your response to my post last night in which I called you an immature waste of space, among many other things. Haven’t you been able to find a response you can cut and paste to prove your alpha male status? In the unlikely event I didn’t make myself clear last night, be kind enough to go fuck yourself and your ‘if you ain’t infantry, you ain’t shit’ attitude.
So, Yef, read my post. Maybe it needs clarification. Let me say again you’re a turd with a chip if you believe that crap you posted.
As for draftees vs enlistees, back in the 60s and 70s when it was a thing, nobody cared. Do your job and all is well with no regard for how you got where you are. Never saw it happen. As for bitching and moaning, everyone did it. Old adage, probably still around today, is that ‘a bitching soldier is a happy soldier’.