| Has War become more safer and comfortable for the USA in modern times?From what we hear. Soldiers travel to war in nice comfortable Humvees. Aircon in the tanks. A massive massive combat armor.
Internet, telephone, 3 nice meals a day. Rest, Sleep in nice beds. health, dental care, Movies, nice nurses and Madams. Spend free time hobbys like Golf, Boxing, soccer etc..
It appears war is like a walk in the park nowadays. Also alot of the damage is done by the airforce guys and the marines confortably waltz in and take over the Arab country that they are fighting
Do you think war is more safer and a nicer vocation?
Gone are days of brutal trench warfare, the jungles of the Mekong delta where the Vietcong would kneecap the unassuming GI and then r-pe him in his tiger cage.
War is nothing like the IWO jima campaign in which 250'000 US marines perished in. So would you say you feel alot more safer, comfortable and well looked after?
Also do the nurses do all them things that we hear about? lucky dogs!
Asked By: Ivanthe Terrible - 12/23/2011 |
As someone who has just returned from his second tour in Iraq, let me clear up a few points for you:
war -
[wawr] noun, verb, warred, war·ring, adjective
1. a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation; warfare, as by land, sea, or air.
War is the intentional killing of people by other people. It is never pretty, it is never safe, and it is never easy. Men and women die in horrible conditions in horrible ways. Then we get to go home and think about it.
Now, the specifics of your questions:
One, anyone who says a hummer is comfortable is either the governor of California driving in his H3, or lying. There is nothing comfortable about driving around in a big metal box with eighty pounds of gear on. The armour technology has outstripped the suspension technology on the humvee, so the shocks don't really work. And in the middle east, "road" is more of a state of mind.
As for aircon in the tanks, yes, it's there. That's because temperatures in the middle east spike over one hundred forty degrees, which is literally hot enough to give you brain damage. Add to this armour that doesn't breathe and a big metal toaster oven, and aircon isn't so much a luxury as a requirement.
Yes. Massive. Combat. Armour. Our armour and full combat load weighs as much or more (depending on the period and personal finances) than the medieval knight. And they were generally on a horse, not on a foot patrol.
The more built up Forward Operating Bases have internet and telephone. In most Combat Outpost Bases, you are lucky to have reliable radio contact with your chain of command. Soldiers generally rotate from a FOB to a COB on week-to-month shifts, depending on command. Some soldiers spend the whole tour on a COB. Marines, I don't know if you use the same acronyms, but I'm not discounting you.
Meals are offered sometimes as much as four times a day, if you aren't on patrol for the forty-second day straight without a break, six hours out, six hours back for days at a time. Rest isn't bad if you get used to being woken up every night from mortars. I still wake up atleast once a week listening for "incoming". And the beds suck.
Combat medical care is the best in the world. I haven't got anything bad to say about Army medics or Navy corpsmen. Back on the FOB, you usually have atleast your unit's "Doc", a captain or so who is atleast an RN. One of the greatest life-saving tools that the military has developed for this conflict is the tourniquet. It has lead from alot of soldiers being dead to alot of soldiers up and moving a week later. I've been serving five years now and I've had dental care twice: Once in basic when they tore out all four of my wisdom teeth at once (wouldn't give them back either) and once for a cleaning after my first tour.
Movies were set up by my chaplain who brought a projector from home. We took four big sheets of plywood, painted them white and *made* a movie theatre on the side of our HQ building. Female medics are medics. Sometimes they put out, sometimes they don't. Honestly, if you're boning the medic you're not thinking about your job, and that'll get you killed.
Madams? You're a bit out of date there, boyo. We're in the Middle East. They'll throw rocks at their women for just *looking* at us, and blow up a convoy just because one of ours looked back.
We may not be in trenches any more, but we're also not fighting a uniformed enemy. This is like 'nam in that way. The public eye is on every little thing we do. We face a hostile press and very hostile factions in our government. This is also like 'nam. We're far away from home in a hostile land full of backward people being supported by a country that would like to see us and our way of life wiped from the earth. Again, like Nam. Our enemy is not an organized army. They're cowards who hide behind women and children led by thieves who hide their corruption behind masks of holiness. This enemy isn't waiting in a tiger pit with a knife, they're sitting behind a rock half a mile away with a cell phone. And men are still dying.
You think war is a walk in the park? Go enlist and take a walk with me. Or go to the park in Arlington and walk through those shiny new stones.
Answered By: Eewy - 12/24/2011 |