the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

roger hao wrote:I forgot one more lesson learned -

Bergdahl was traded because the US does not leave a POW behind - ever!

Is this true? Were all the Viet Nam POW's returned? Now I can tell all those MIA
kooks to stop their belly aching.

Lol... POTUS asserts a value. A normal value that any leader of any country, no matter how shabbily run, would put out there: We take back our own. And its like Juan Manuel Marquez is suddenly a political strategist, as POTUS gets hit from every conceivable angle, no matter how ridiculous. Yeah, let's go back and fact check the entire history of the country based on that to somehow detract from an obvious, almost clannish value that any country would stand by. We should try to get every person back here, period. If he's mentally ill or unbalanced somehow and it was evidenced before or during his deployment, its our fault he's there in the first place.

Correction! It's HIS fault that he was there in the first place. He wasn't drafted. He enlisted in a volunteer Army. Initially, he apparently wanted to go, but then decided he didn't like the horror of life in the war zone, just like damn near every other combat soldier past or present.

I sincerely hope that nobody here actually thinks that the vast majority of combat vets don't also feel sadness, anger and regret, even guilt or shame, about their participation in the inevitable death and destruction of any war. That's one of the major causes of PTSD, imo. My own son is still dealing with all of that more than three years after returning from Iraq. However, like most who serve honorably, he did not desert or go AWOL like Bergdahl did. Tough to have it both ways...volunteer to see combat action, but then decide you've changed your mind after getting a reality check in the field. Sheesh!

Does the man have a chance to speak for himself before being tried in the media?

I don't think that this story is going to disappear anytime soon. He will undoubtedly get more opportunities to speak on his own behalf than he even cares to before it's all said and done!

My point is that he hasn't spoken yet, and people are calling him this and that. And, this can't be because they personally know him or what happened. I can see, and still not agree with, the argument that too many bad guys were traded. But, otoh, if he wasn't guilty of anything, there's no reason to justify arguing that he shouldn't have been retrieved. The idea that I feel or think that way because of Obama is so far off. I don't really understand the blindness around the leave no man behind code except political blinders. I think there are only a few who go into the field knowing that no one will come if they caught. Otoh, I remember the story of Bat 21, so I have much respect for those who believe in it. Nothing to do with Obama or me being a "lefty" or any other name, and I haven't called anyone a racist yet.

Doc Stier wrote:Correction! It's HIS fault that he was there in the first place. He wasn't drafted. He enlisted in a volunteer Army. Initially, he apparently wanted to go, but then decided he didn't like the horror of life in the war zone, just like damn near every other combat soldier past or present.

I sincerely hope that nobody here actually thinks that the vast majority of combat vets don't also feel sadness, anger and regret, even guilt or shame, about their participation in the inevitable death and destruction of any war. That's one of the major causes of PTSD, imo. My own son is still dealing with all of that more than three years after returning from Iraq. However, like most who serve honorably, he did not desert or go AWOL like Bergdahl did. Tough to have it both ways...volunteer to see combat action, but then decide you've changed your mind after getting a reality check in the field. Sheesh!

No disrespect intened to you or your son, as both of you are enduring quite a lot, but your experience does not qualify you to pass judgement on the man. You are clearly informed about militsry life and conditions in Iraq, but that doesn't extend to intimate knowledge of this guy's particular circumstances. If a guy volunteers but is mentally ill and we didn't see that or becomes ill while serving, he is ours to care for. We have kept sick people at their posts before to disastrous results, for instance, the Fort Hood shooter. I have no idea what went on, but from the sounds of it, he certainly did not behave like someone making rational decisions. Whether that makes him incompetent or ill, I don't know, but you clearly are accusing him of a whole range of things that assume he was rational and that may not be the case. My bet is that this guy has a medical and discipline record a mile long and, because of understandable shortages and the insane challenges out there, he was one crisis on a heap of crises that get dealt with according to how severe they are thought to be. And someone in his case misjudged his particular severity.

Actually, allen, I am assuming nothing, but merely attempting to assess all of the varying opinions and information regarding this case which has been presented thus far on every major news media network, just like everyone else. At this point, we can't say with certainty what Bergdahl's reasons were for choosing his course of action. However, his written note, the emails to family members and the opinion of his fellow servicemen are tough to discount. The current available facts accuse him of either desertion or going AWOL, the reasons for doing so as yet inconclusive.

While I totally agree that his decisions and actions don't appear to have been rational, your assumptions regarding his mental health have yet to be validated as well. Time will tell. In the meantime, your opinion is exactly that, just your personal opinion, no more valid or authoritative than any other.

I wonder what the media and the right would be saying if the Taliban just shot the POW after five years.

Doc Stier wrote:While I totally agree that his decisions and actions don't appear to have been rational, your assumptions regarding his mental health have yet to be validated as well. Time will tell. In the meantime, your opinion is exactly that, just your personal opinion, no more valid or authoritative than any other.

Ooooh. OK. For a minute there, it mistakenly sounded to me, with your emphatic tone and exclamation points after "Correction" that you might have felt that your opinion was more authoritative than any other and I was walking you back from that. Crazy world we live in.

Slightly OT perhaps, but here is a perspective I don't often hear in all the banter:

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/article ... 27122491=1

-B.

Makes more sense to me than anything else I've heard.

As I recall the military lied about the death of Tillman. Seems to me perhaps they want to smear "Bowe" so he will shut up. It seems to me that he was morale and objected to what the military was doing.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/article/20140609/NEWS/306090040/Mattis-Bergdahl-release-makes-Taliban-vulnerable?sf27122491=1

retired Marine Gen. James Mattis said wrote:If they were real men, they would have gone down fighting.

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, Drill Instructor in the film Full Metal Jacket wrote:What is your major malfunction, numbnuts?

Intellectually equivalent comments, one from a fictional Marine, one from a real. Which is which?

Fitz: 500,000 “Impeach Obama for leaving an American behind in Afghanistan" protest signs found in dumpster behind RNC





http://azstarnet.com/news/blogs/fitz-bl ... e=comments

Ian Cipperly wrote:Fitz: 500,000 “Impeach Obama for leaving an American behind in Afghanistan" protest signs found in dumpster behind RNC





http://azstarnet.com/news/blogs/fitz-bl ... e=comments

Exactly!

grzegorz wrote:I wonder what the media and the right would be saying if the Taliban just shot the POW after five years.