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bongsaway

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When did our armed forces turn from being soldiers into warriors?

My almost father in law is a world war two combat vet. I asked him one day what did the guys call themselves, he said they were just soldiers doing their jobs. How did we go from that to warriors? I think the word sends a bad negative message.
 
"Warrior" is a PR term for millennials and zoomers.

We were soldiers in the seventies and eighties.
 
It sounds "cooler".

It's the same vein as "warfighter". Just making **** up to look tough.
 
bongsaway said:
When did our armed forces turn from being soldiers into warriors?

My almost father in law is a world war two combat vet. I asked him one day what did the guys call themselves, he said they were just soldiers doing their jobs. How did we go from that to warriors? I think the word sends a bad negative message.
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It changed when the US Army became a small army of mercenaries who are paid by the US government to do the dishonorable deeds that the regular Army doesn't want on their record. The U.S. doesn't count the numbers of deaths of contracted mercenaries. Between the US and Great Britain which also contracts private mercenary companies, it's a $250 billion a year business.

Think about something..... when was the last military effort that was put forth to protect democracy? When was our last 'honorable' war? Our men and women in the military these days aren't fighting for freedom and democracy as our men and women did in WW2. They gave their lives for a greater cause.
 
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When I was in Hood I used to piss off my LT a lot by using the Army's fetishized terminology a lot. One day she complained about one of our STT's issues and she asked why it couldn't be made simpler, to which I replied "Because then it's not a modular combat system for the 21st Century Warfighter".
 
bongsaway said:
When did our armed forces turn from being soldiers into warriors?

My almost father in law is a world war two combat vet. I asked him one day what did the guys call themselves, he said they were just soldiers doing their jobs. How did we go from that to warriors? I think the word sends a bad negative message.
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Native Americans were called warriors back in the 1800s.
 
bongsaway said:
When did our armed forces turn from being soldiers into warriors?

My almost father in law is a world war two combat vet. I asked him one day what did the guys call themselves, he said they were just soldiers doing their jobs. How did we go from that to warriors? I think the word sends a bad negative message.
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The recruitment ad’s never show warriors on the ground bleeding out and crying out for their mothers.
 
chuckiechan said:
The recruitment ad’s never show warriors on the ground bleeding out and crying out for their mothers.
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No they don't and at that point they are no longer warriors they are young folks hoping not to die.
 
bongsaway said:
When did our armed forces turn from being soldiers into warriors?

My almost father in law is a world war two combat vet. I asked him one day what did the guys call themselves, he said they were just soldiers doing their jobs. How did we go from that to warriors? I think the word sends a bad negative message.
Click to expand...

They were being drafted back then.
 
When I was a young teen, my parents would drive us to West Point Military Academy in New York. Besides being a nice drive there, there was a lot of history to absorb, and I like history. Once or twice, they brought us to one of the West Point dress parades of the graduating class. It was just so stunning, those young cadets graduating inspired patriotism and pride of our country. The last West Point graduation and dress parade was marred by several graduate cadets who dishonored their uniform and the legacy of West Point when they made the 'white power' sign with their hands. Sure, West Point did an 'investigation' of this and concluded that the hand gestures they were making were not racist.

The way our military in general has been transformed from one that was once distinguished and highly respected around the world, to one that is distrusted and degraded in the eyes of the world. And, we're responsible for that. Incidents involving the military -- what happened in 2004 in Abu Ghraib for example where prisoners weren't only tortured, they were deeply humiliated, which for a culture such as Iraq had, was far worse than torture or death. More recently, the Eddie Gallagher acquittal by Trump of war crimes which served to dismantle the unity among military officers within the Pentagon.

There's no discipline or respect in our youth anymore, why would we expect less from them as adults? There's no respect for authority. They have no fear of authoritarian figures in their lives whether it's teachers, parents or government.
 
HumblePi said:
There's no discipline or respect in our youth anymore, why would we expect less from them as adults?
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"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

-Socrates, 469–399 B.C
 
HumblePi said:
When I was a young teen, my parents would drive us to West Point Military Academy in New York. Besides being a nice drive there, there was a lot of history to absorb, and I like history. Once or twice, they brought us to one of the West Point dress parades of the graduating class. It was just so stunning, those young cadets graduating inspired patriotism and pride of our country. The last West Point graduation and dress parade was marred by several graduate cadets who dishonored their uniform and the legacy of West Point when they made the 'white power' sign with their hands. Sure, West Point did an 'investigation' of this and concluded that the hand gestures they were making were not racist.

The way our military in general has been transformed from one that was once distinguished and highly respected around the world, to one that is distrusted and degraded in the eyes of the world. And, we're responsible for that. Incidents involving the military -- what happened in 2004 in Abu Ghraib for example where prisoners weren't only tortured, they were deeply humiliated, which for a culture such as Iraq had, was far worse than torture or death. More recently, the Eddie Gallagher acquittal by Trump of war crimes which served to dismantle the unity among military officers within the Pentagon.

There's no discipline or respect in our youth anymore, why would we expect less from them as adults? There's no respect for authority. They have no fear of authoritarian figures in their lives whether it's teachers, parents or government.
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My grandparents are buried in the cemetery at the Old Chapel. Whenever we were close we would stop and pay respects. Walking that plot of ground is a lesson in history all by itself. There are many famous people resting there.
 
Rexedgar said:
My grandparents are buried in the cemetery at the Old Chapel. Whenever we were close we would stop and pay respects. Walking that plot of ground is a lesson in history all by itself. There are many famous people resting there.
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Isn't it amazing! Just to imagine walking on the same sidewalk where Dwight Eisenhower walked or look beyond the compound to the view of the Hudson River which looks pretty much the same as it did when Ulysses S. Grant looked at it. General Schwarzkopf, and in more recent time Buzz Aldrin all looked at that view. But these men were the honorable 'men of old' when politics was never a part of patriotism. There must be some men like these left in the country, no?
 
HumblePi said:
Isn't it amazing! Just to imagine walking on the same sidewalk where Dwight Eisenhower walked or look beyond the compound to the view of the Hudson River which looks pretty much the same as it did when Ulysses S. Grant looked at it. General Schwarzkopf, and in more recent time Buzz Aldrin all looked at that view. But these men were the honorable 'men of old' when politics was never a part of patriotism. There must be some men like these left in the country, no?
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There are two large statues, near the Plain, of Eisenhower and MacArthur. They are situated so that they are not in the line of sight of the other.

“Eisenhower was the best clerk I ever had.” -Douglas MacArthur
 
I'd argue that the First Gulf War was a just war. I'd also argue that going into Lebanon in the 1980s was a just cause. Hell, the Vietnam War was started for good reasons (just poorly executed), as well as the Korean War. Without the US military, how much of the world would the Soviets now be inhabiting? The Chinese?

I won't argue that everything that the US military has ever done has been good and just, but much of it has been.
 
gino said:
Without the US military, how much of the world would the Soviets now be inhabiting? The Chinese?
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None, because the USSR would still be gone.
 
Rexedgar said:
There are two large statues, near the Plain, of Eisenhower and MacArthur. They are situated so that they are not in the line of sight of the other.

“Eisenhower was the best clerk I ever had.” -Douglas MacArthur
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MacArthur obviously never met our guy Robertinfreemont did he. ;)
 
Jredbaron96 said:
None, because the USSR would still be gone.
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It largely was the military spending draining their economy that ended the Soviet Union. Without that drain (and with more satellite countries to suck off of) the Soviet Union might still be going today.

Interesting tidbit: in the 1989, Boris Yeltson was in Texas for some meeting and "just stepped out" to see a real American supermarket. When he saw how much food the average American was able to indulge in, he realized that the Soviet system was too inefficient and had to end.
 
gino said:
It largely was the military spending draining their economy that ended the Soviet Union. Without that drain (and with more satellite countries to suck off of) the Soviet Union might still be going today.
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That military spending was driven by Soviet experience in WW2, which informed them they needed a large standing military and extensive buffer space in order to provide strategic depth.

Had WWII not happened, and 15% of the Soviet population killed, the USSR would still be around today.
 
bongsaway said:
When did our armed forces turn from being soldiers into warriors?

My almost father in law is a world war two combat vet. I asked him one day what did the guys call themselves, he said they were just soldiers doing their jobs. How did we go from that to warriors? I think the word sends a bad negative message.
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Soldiers are warriors. The two words are synonymous.

What negative message does it send?
 
apdst said:
Soldiers are warriors. The two words are synonymous.

What negative message does it send?
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Maybe in your mind they are synonymous. After the second world war our soldiers helped build up both japan and europe. Warriors implies fighting, soldier doesn't.
 
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