conclusions of a war-in response to you hate america

Alex Lemons, a former Marine sergeant who deployed to Iraq three times -- including once as scout sniper -- reflects on the video of four Marines urinating on the corpses of three dead Taliban in Afghanistan:

This is all very painful to me on so many different levels. Back in 2004 one of my fellow snipers shot someone in a mosque in Fallujah. You will probably remember it getting on TV. It was very confusing. I have tried stopping things like this before or I've been a coward and let them happen. (See a graphic on storming Fallujah.)

In my eyes, there are several discomforting or significant things about this event:

-- If you aren't surprised and disgusted by this as a combatant, veteran or as a civilian whose country has been at war for a decade, then maybe you need to take a look in the mirror. Have you become this callous? (See pictures of the U.S. Marines' offensive in Afghanistan.)

-- I'd like to know how many tours those grunts have been on. Do we know what condition they are in mentally? Are any on medications?

-- This happened a lot in Fallujah II 2004 and I have a couple explanations. There were a lot of kids who imitated things they saw or read in Vietnam War films or literature. You always look back on the last war to explain your own.

Sometimes, Marines needed to take pictures and laugh about the death swirling around them because if they took it seriously and grieved then they would not be able to function and continue the fight.

Sometimes, Marines were simply brutal and took trophy photos or pissed or defecated on bodies because it actually felt good after you had been fighting someone for a hour or a day.

Maybe it was also the kind of fighting, insurgency, that produced experiences like this. You fight ghosts (IEDs, booby traps, snipers, potshots, loudspeaker recordings) and when you finally get one enemy grunt who isn't even in a uniform you choose to take out all the frustrations of fighting an invisible enemy on a lifeless but symbolic corpse. (See pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal Valley.)

-- Events like this have the power of a stone thrown into a calm lake. The circumstances and people that created the rippling effects are irrelevant. We don't know who the dead men are, if they had weapons or if they were simply pushing that wheelbarrow around. It's too late to ask those questions outside of a tribunal.

Anyone looking at the United States presence is going to hold this up as a symbol for all our actions past, present and future. That might sound like too high of a standard to measure ourselves against, but purportedly this is the principle we stand for and fight on.

-- War is not a moral agent. "War is hell, **** happens and trophies get taken," is a copout from an irresponsible person. War doesn't make anyone do anything because it is not a living thing.



People make war and they make choices in war. Most of these choices are made along the lines of rules of engagement, other war conventions, and training.

The Marine Corps doesn't teach anyone to do this.

Choices were made and they were not good ones. This is what maintains our moral high ground. It doesn't matter if the Taliban cut heads off and videotape them. (See pictures of the battle against the Taliban.)

The whole point, as I was told since 2001, was not to become like them, or to be comparable to them. <<<<

i concur with the sergeant. we are either better than them or we are not. adopting their same tactics, social structure or oppressive views, simple makes us the same.

it is my opinion that americans are better than those we fight. we can prove that by setting the standards. leading by example.

the nice thing about freedom, is that you are free to disagree with me.

the taliban would demand that i be silenced, incarcerated, deported or killed.

http://news.yahoo.com/outrage-video-...055500933.html

I wouldn't piss on a Muslim if there teeth were on fire. 3000 + dead Americans would agree with me. Now a dead one I could care less what happens to there body tear it apart for all I care. We should have shelled that country till it was a glass parking lot for a year straight.

Ive been in the Air Force for 20 years with one more to go, spent 2010 in Iraq doing convoys, bringing or crap out of the country, dont know if i personally ever got shot at but i know by the 6 inch hole in our lead vehicle that our convoy was targeted. Thank god that i never had to fire a shot, i dont condone these Marines actions but i do not condem them either. I do know that there needs to be some wall to wall counseling had with the one who posted the video.

We as a nation are suppose to be better than the enemy. We have our rules in the military on almost anything you can do wrong and the punishment. These Marines knew exactly what they were doing and what would happen to them if they got caught. Me personally, being in the military and being deployed 2 times for 26mths total, I hope they do get the max punishment. Every country is always looking at America's Armed Forces waiting for something like this to use to put us down. They think that if 1 individual messes up that's what we all are like in the military and it is definitely not that way what so ever. It doesn't matter what they been threw or how long they been there, you are always a soldier first, 24/7 and they stepped outside the lines completely. The same goes for the Army SSG (Staff Sergeant/E-6) that was cutting off fingers of dead civilians over there and saying they threw grenades at him and his squad when he was throwing them to make it look like the civilians did it. They all should get the max. If you do not agree with me than I am sorry but unless you been deployed before you don't know what it is like over there. They had a choice, they knew it was wrong but they did it any way. And PistoneScrapProcessing, I must disagree with you. You said "I wouldn't piss on a Muslim if there teeth were on fire" That is categorizing the whole Religion as terrorists and part of the Taliban and JAM. In fact, the majority of Iraqis and Afghanys want them gone because they do kill, torture, threaten, etc there families also. The best way to put it is saying you hate America because of the gangs when in fact very few are part of gangs. O fcourse, if you do disagree with what I am putting I would love everybody to comment why.

Sitting here, behind my laptop and a bottle of Beck's, it is easy to say how reprehensible the urination act is. That's because my life has an acceptable level of stress and I can think somewhat rationally. I've never been shot at, never saw a friend wounded, killed or worse yet, seen a friend blown to pieces. Never had to endure torture (well, except for 25 years of marriage), never had to shoot at anybody or kill anybody. So yeah, what they did was wrong but who am I to assume that I could even imagine the levels of stress that these soldiers go through. If they acted irrationally, well, they did but anyway I would imagine the horrors of war could do that to you. Hope I didn't offend anyone it's just that a walk in their shoes might shed more light on the matter.

while i was not at that particular site in iraq, i was at a few similar ones in nam. perhaps you should work on your reading comprehension skills. the article is written by a marine sargent. who was in iraq. i spent my time in the bush. with the all of the other soldiers. including those marines. not behind a desk or jockeying a wing.

i spent my time fighting for the freedom you take for granted and now want to restrict me from having.

if you do not like the comparisons that sergant

the comparison between the two threads is valid and easily validated. you want to remove all those who do not think like you. under the guise of patriotic freedom. the very same thing the enemy believes in. what is the difference between us and them.

what are we fighting for. a common phrase of my generation. the answer is just as ugly today as it was back then.

if you don't like the comparisons that sergeant lemons made, and that i concurred with, change the reasons for the comparison.

if it bothers you that much you can always ask the moderators to pull the thread and ban me. that is the freedom you are advocating.

i bagged too many in that f--king war to come back here and be suppressed or oppressed. i will not apologise for my opinions or my service to this country. i earned that right to speak.

As I was reading the comments above I was put in mind of cops after a long high speed chase using a little extra force or unnecessary kicks or hits. They know better, they have been trained better, yet it still happens. These Marines knew better, they had been trained better. The difference is a jury will many times let the cops slide, but the military will not. They fire Generals for making stupid comments. After the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, taking a video of this or letting your buddy film you doing something like this is as stupid as stupid gets. It does not matter what happened before this was filmed or whether it was justified or they felt it was justified, that video embarrassed the military and the military will not let it slide. Those Marines careers are over except for setting the exit date and will likely be accompanied by a bad conduct discharge and maybe jail time. And the last I looked the civilian job market for sniper positions was pretty thin even without a BCD.

Starbits

dont want to argue with any fellow bush babies, but you know as well as I do this is a minor pike in war time. was what they did right or smart, nope, but that is not so uncommon a practice and a whole lot worse, in the testostarone aftermath of battle.

what they will really be punished for is being stupid enough to take pictures of it. being in combat and blasing away at an obscure enemy in the heat of battle is one thing. hunting down another human being like a rabit then looking at his face through a scope while you blow the top of his skull off is another.

these guys are not G I joe, they are snake eaters 1 in 10,000, they are a necessary tool of war, and when the government is done with them they will throw them away like so much garbage. they are not to be reviled they are to be pittied, the things they have done in the "service " of you me and their country will never be but a quiet secound from their thought for the rest of their lives.

instead of being used a political fodder, they need to be quietly dismissed from the service not for what they did but for being stupid, and given the help to return to human race. just my .02

You must have missed the dumbing-down of your country. We're sorry but it was necessary in order for us to consolidate our power. Please refrain form using complex ideas in the public arena, it only confuses and then outrages the people. <<

so you are saying it was what i said and whom i directed to? lol.

drives em nuts.

the great part of my current situation, is that there is nothing they can do that will have any affect. i have my family. i do not have to work, i choose to. i have beaten 3 heart attacks. plus i am free and single.

you are right of course. and i did know better.

old dude. was not an argument. simply a heated discussion. a matter of a difference of opinions and a difference in views.

don't mean nothing.

as requested. a link to the story posted on times.

http://news.yahoo.com/outrage-video-...055500933.html

oh I wasent making or presenting an argument, just telling it like it is.

here is the best analogy I can think of, the military field command is like a father and daughter, or mother and son, they know their teen kids are having sex, they just dont want to be told about it, and they certainly dont want to see a video, or photo.