For the past several years as I’ve been traveling around the country, I’ve been approaching soldiers in the airports and thanking them for serving for us. On several occasions I have noticed that it felt a little awkward for both of us. There are several reasons, some of which I am even just now learning as I produce this film and talk to more soldiers. But they have always appreciated being thanked, and I have always felt better having expressed my gratitude.
I started to think that it would be nice if civilians had a gesture or sign that they could use to say “thank you” quickly and easily without even having to approach. I did some research and found the sign that we are now using.
Is this limited to the military? Not at all. If you look around you I’m sure that you’ll find lots of people who are serving their communities, from local to global. If you appreciate their service, give them a sign. Say “thank you.”
This US war in Iraq is an illegal war.
The participants in this war are war criminals… plain and simple.
Saying that “I’m just doing my job” didn’t cut it for any of the Nazi’s during the Nuremberg trial.
Ya’ll gotta remember that total passivists and isolationists like JPV, eaze, finger, etc. use 98% of their brain power simply to drive their hearts, lungs and other autonomous functions. Their ain’t a lot left for actual coherent thought, hence their comments….
I like JPV’s answer. Although yes thanks for protecting us, it’s time to act like an 80’s movie and put down your guns at the last minute and have some rent a cops take away the “evil generals”
#34 Protecting you from what?
#35 Do you honestly think that if we had no military we would be just fine?
With no military to protect us I’m sure that Russia and China would leave us alone and wouldn’t think of invading us.
iGlobalWarmer, I’m by no means a pacifist. I would gladly partake in personally defending my country from a REAL threat.
That being said, why did we attack Iraq again?
Rmember the drones that they were going to fly over US cities?
“UAVs outfitted with spray tanks constitute an ideal method for launching a terrorist attack using biological weapons,” Powell said during his speech. “Iraq could use these small UAVs, which have a wingspan of only a few meters, to deliver biological agents to its neighbors or, if transported, to other countries, including the United States.”
LOL…
#36 I never said a country should be without a defensive standing Army but, committing genocide on millions of muslims is not protecting you. It’s a war crime
If anything we should beef up our borders in order to protect our… oh shit… I forgot… Bush wants to keep our borders open.
Never mind.
#38
…committing genocide on millions of muslims
Wow, last week I read here that it was 650,000 innocent muslims. Are up another 350,000 already. Oh wait, that was this morning. Must be 1,500,000 by this afternoon.
More DU BS.
Yeah, 1 million is a meaningful number of deaths, 650,000 is inconsequential.
Good thing that you don’t try to revise the number of Jews that died in concentration camps that way. You would end up in jail for committing a hate crime.
#38 Oh yeah, by all means prove the US military has killed millions (that’s plural so it has to be more than one) of muslims in this “illegal” war.
You can’t so that pretty much wipes out any of the rest of your bullshit statements like “committing genocide”.
Major schism here is that YES every countries’ citizens should thank the troops that keep them free —-
but what IS the proper attitude towards troops that are being misused?
The General Interest is consumed by the specific instance?
I really do think “pity” for our abused troops rather than respect is the considered evaluation? They need more support during war and post-op for those wounded than they are getting.
Course, if you just want to be a patriot and turn your brain off to critical thinking==then strike up the band!
#40 Ya, wow, it’s actually 655,00 and that’s just pre invasion. Your killing Afghans as well and if you include the barbaric sanctions on Iraq in the 90’s the total is over two million.
#15 – Hiroshima and Nagasaki are events not to be reviled, but celebrated for the countless thousands of lives saved.
iGlobalWarmer said
#15 – Hiroshima and Nagasaki are events not to be reviled, but celebrated for the countless thousands of lives saved.
Spoken like a true sociopath.
46–Whats your point? That Hiroshima should have been a demonstration bomb in the ocean, or that more time should have been taken before Nagasaki?
I agree that could have been done and Japan may have surrendered with only a few 1000 more American dead.
You recommend charity, concern, and self sacrifice by death of our trooops for every country that attacks without a declaration of war in their quest for global domination?
Please give us your thinking.
“it would be nice if civilians had a gesture or sign that they could use to say “thank you” quickly and easily without even having to approach”
NO, it wouldn’t be nice. It would be LAZY. Just talk to them…
If “supporting the troops” means separating the actions of the government that ordered them into war from the sacrifices and actions those same troops committed in the conflict, why do we still harp on members of the Japanes government when it tries to honor their dead soldiers? Is it really a double standard or does it simply mean being patriotic is supporting your country whether it is right or wrong?
#49 “why do we still harp on members of the Japanes government when it tries to honor their dead soldiers?”
There is no “WE” harping on the Japanese, it’s only nut-jobs like JPV who harp on soldiers.
My God, there are some sorry bastards in DU.
JPV, JIM, FINGERFUCK, EAZE….your fully entitled to your opinions…but I agree with OFTLO, and am willing to bet the farm not a single one of you have the balls to make your asinine and asshole statements publically, without the internet to protect you.
The privledge and freedom of being able to say what you feel is one of those things that those **bloodthirsty, killer morans** as you call soldiers, have given their lives and blood to protect for you.
#51 Protect us from what? They gave their lives and blood because Americans are too easily fooled by the corporate elite who don’t give a dam about you. The world doesn’t want your “protecting”. It wants you to stop occupying and killing them.
As a current enlisted member of the US Coast Guard, I would like to thank all the people who thanked myself and my shipmates as we were traveling this holiday season.
That said, I do believe it’s time for a history lesson. I’m gonna focus on you, JPV, because you seem to be the main antagonist here. 😛
Firstly, you claim that the American military had something to do with unnecessary deaths in Hurricane Katrina. I should remind you that the US Coast Guard had rescue helicopters in the air and was lifting people off rooftops before the rain had even stopped falling. It was FEMA and the local government that screwed the proverbial pooch in that case.
Second, you have the gall to suggest that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were anything but the lesser of two evils, not keeping in mind that we (the US) had credible intelligence (which was confirmed after we’d won) that the Japanese were planning a massive counter-offensive that would’ve drawn out the war for many more years and killed many American and Japanese soldiers and civilians.
Also, in your comment #7, you abhor the concept of an American corporation making a profit. Since I’m guessing the keyboard you typed that on was bought and paid for, along with the computer, the internet connection, the switches and infrastructure which allows you to spout your bilious blatherings, with the consequences of the profit of American corporations, I suggest you rethink your standpoint.
Now to Jim, #44. You state that the US killed 655,000 Muslims, PRIOR to invading Iraq. I propose you find a text book and study the concept of linear and constantly forward moving time travel.
To #23 and #30, I wish I lived in your town, so you could pick up MY tab. 😀
Sorry for being so longwinded, but I had a lot to say.
Good lord, what’s up with all the hate toward our uniformed men and women doing jobs that have to be done? So what if they wanted to go serve our country to pay for school – not everyone was born with a silver spoon in their mouth and have mommy and daddy pay for it. Some people actually earn it.
Blasting our troops over foreign policy decisions is as stupid an argument as I’ve ever heard. These men and women on the ground aren’t making policy – where’s your hate towards the politicians deploying them in Iraq?
Grow up already and realize that thousands of these men and women you are bashing have given their lives for their country – a far greater sacrifice than I am sure you clowns would ever make.
Thank you to all our military personnel. You are there when we need you. You have given up safe civilian lives where you can be home every night. You are ready to go where you are told to go. You will do what you have to do.
I apologize for those that hate you for what your leaders have made you do. And I apologize for our leaders making you do what you had to.
But thank you for being there. All of you.
#44 Jim – Once again you quote the George Soros funded survey figures of approx. 650,000 dead since the war began.
The New England Journal of Medicine put the correct figure at approx. 151,000 dead Iraqis.
Funny, it still shows you are full of shit when it comes to “millions of dead”.
#53 Brandon – I’d buy you a beer or twelve and dinner. My youngest Godson wants to join the USCG.
Brandon,
**Raised a Glass**
Cheers to you and a hearty, thank you.
#56-
655,000 deaths as a consequence of the post war invasion, computed by John Hopkins and published by the Lancet after extensive peer review vs your countries self-interested and corrupted death counting . The rest of the world isn’t buying the crap your selling. http://www.medialens.org/alerts/07/071003_iraq_body_count.php. I doubt your likely to comprehend it though.
“Your” is a possessive adjective. “You’re” is a contraction denoting the two words “you” and “are”. Learn the difference, then get back to me on reading comprehension.
#58, jim,
I understand you don’t like American involvement in the Iraqi Civil War. Neither do I. America should not have gone in and would be better off getting out as fast as possible.
The Lancet article has been challenged though. What little I understand of the methodology leaves me to question it as well. But, I emphasize, what little I know.
The main complaint seems to be that the survey was conducted in areas of the highest violence and casualties and then extrapolated across the whole country.
A second complaint about these types of surveys is the question, “Do you know anyone or have any relatives who have been killed”. This can result in the same death being counted multiple times.
A third complaint is that the size of the survey was so small that errors are magnified too greatly. This results in a severely high margin of error.
Your source, Media lens.com, is not neutral and thus makes a poor citation.
***
#56, Steve,
It doesn’t matter if the true number is 150,000 or 650,000. If it is your mother, sister, or daughter that was killed you mourn. It doesn’t matter if it was from a stray “smart bomb”, a tank shell, a ricocheting bullet, a roadside bomb, or Blackwater spraying the street with bullets; she is dead.
BTW, George Soros did not fund the Lancet study. Some of the money came from a Fund supported by Soros, but that is not the same thing. Soros had no knowledge of the study until after it was published.
Before you totally dismiss the study because it disagrees with you, remember that these researchers and interviewers went into a violent Civil War without any protection. They were dodging bullets and bombs while all the doubters were sitting safe in their homes, half a world away. Those dismissing the study are generally the right wing organizations who, in turn, present no valid estimate of their own. All researched estimates greatly outnumber the “maximum 30,000” provided by President Bush.