What Is Wrong, The Students At This Southern California University?

seedcorn said:
No. Synopsis?
Click to expand...

It's based on a true story about a young marine who died in a roadside ambush in Iraq. Bacon plays a Lt. Col. with a desk job who volunteers to escort his remains home to his family. It deals with Bacon's character's feelings of guilt that he has not been in frontline battle and gets to go home to his family each night. He feels this funeral escort duty is one thing he can do that is worth something.

It was very enlightening to me to see the whole process of how the bodies of the fallen soldiers are so carefully prepared for burial, the ceremony and honor given to the deceased every step of the way as they are brought back home to their families. There is one scene in which the trip is delayed with a flight layover and Bacon's character stayed the night in the airport hanger with the casket rather than take a hotel room. Airport workers and some of the passengers would stand in silence and reverence as the casket was conveyed from one transport to another.

A very solemn and heavy movie, but it will renew your thankfulness for what our young men and women in uniform sacrifice for this country. And to remind you that this goes on behind the scenes (mostly unreported in the news) so often.

Here's another more complete synopsis, if you're interested. It was a very good movie, very well done. A friend recommended it and let us borrow it. I was very moved by it.
 
Thanks. PR has made the military change because we are fighting non-American wars.

I respect every military man-& appreciate their service. It's the $$$ boys in DC that make my blood boil. Fighting wars to protect corporate (& it's not just American corporate) interests. Let's put some of these rich boys out there in danger-but that isn't going to happen. Their kids/g'kids are safe partying in college living the life.
 
Seed, I'm not going to argue with you. I think you pretty much nailed it. One big difference in Vietnam and now is that we had the draft, based on randomly drawn birth dates. You can't imagine how thrilled I was to get a low draft number, which meant I was going in the military. The rich and connected could usually get out of it but those from poorer backgrounds had a lot more problems with that.

For the record, I was not sent to Vietnam. I don't want to imply otherwise. My foreign service was in Korea.

Years back a political candidate was accused of being one of these that avoided the draft and was taking a lot of heat for it. A guy I worked with had ridden a small patrol boat all around the Mekong Delta was having none of it. He said he didn't blame him. He'd tried the same trick but waited too long to start. To his credit when his number came up he did his duty, however reluctantly. Canada or Sweden were not options for him.

Military service has long been a route for people from poor backgrounds to escape and improve their prospects for life. It helped me. I used the GI Bill to pay for most of my college. You will get some people from more affluent families in the military for their own reasons, usually as officers, but most come from more humble backgrounds. If you ever plan to run for elected office it's really good to have military service on your record. Combat service is even better.

A flag is just a colored piece of cloth, but it is a strong symbol of a country, state, organization, whatever. A flag can stir up strong emotions. The Supreme Court has ruled because of freedom of speech you cannot force someone to respect the flag, so some people use it in a way to rub others' emotions raw. They are manipulating people emotionally, not rationally.

I'll hijack the thread a bit. Ho do you support the American military? I think it begins by pressuring the people we elect to justify sending Americans into harm's way. Why are you risking their lives, what do you hope to achieve, how do you hope to achieve It, and what is your exit strategy? Sometimes national interests do require sending them into combat. There are some really rotten people out there.

An equally important way to support them is to see that they have the ability to be successful. Give them the equipment, training, and supplies to do their job. If that means giving some lowlife dictator foreign aid so we can establish air bases or transport goods across their country, you do it. You do what it takes to see that they can do their job. You don't pinch pennies or stand on principle so rigid that you get them killed. Even if you disagree with why they are there you give them all the support you can while they are there. And maybe work to get them home.

Now I'm off my soap box. I think.
 
I was drafted at the middle of the Viet Nam war. However, I didn't pass the physical after 3 days of medical testing since I was rear ended on my way to my College class a month before my physical by an individual in a stolen car who took off limping down the road. I endured many months of painful back treatments and proceedures. I still suffer from back aches daily. In the most recent wars , the polititions huff and puff of how they are going to win the war, then tell the waco " militants" that we will tie our guys hands behind their backs and by such and such a date they will remove our troops out of harm's way ( so called exit strategy ) This is a NO win strategy that gives aid and comfort to the enemy who proceed with a hit and run tactic until our fearless leaders remove our military which allows the " militants" to take over who then take revenge on their own people who are branded as traitors or heretics or infidels. God help us all !
 
Setting a date is not what I meant by an exit strategy. How do you achieve the results so you can leave?

Maybe an example. Say a man comes to the military to tell them a bad guy is making bombs in Apartment 2B in a certain complex. He knows this because his daughter and her family live in 2A. How do you approach that? Do you take out Apartment 2B with heavy arms, whether or not his daughter's family is in 2A. Even if they are not home they have lost a place to live and their possessions because it has been destroyed. That's the safest way for American military personnel, at least in the short term.

Or do you verify the report is right and quietly remove the bad person. This way is a lot harder and puts American personnel in greater danger. It does not make terrorists out of all that daughter's relatives and friends however. Which strategy is most likely to allow you to leave and not leave a mess behind? This stuff is not simple or easy. That's why I view combat as the last resort, an admission that you have failed and can't go anywhere else.

This story was related to me by a stranger I met in a bar in Houston who claimed he was one of the first people in Baghdad after Sadam fled. He was pretty bitter about the way the war was going then.

I think our military wins wars which our politicians immediately lose.
 
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