Thanks for the support man. We appreciate it.

Motivational wrote

Trznce wrote
Interesting how you're comparing a life where you potentially have to use a gun to shoot another living breathing human being because you don't want them to hurt the people you're fighting for to a life of a person that's fighting trees to the death.

The majority of soldiers have absolutely nothing to do with fighting and are nowhere near close range combat. They're cooks, engineers, medics, officers, dog handlers and so on. Very few are actually within shooting range and have to kill other people.

This is the only part I was able to read of your entire message, because this alone proves your inexperience and scarce knowledge on the subject. When scrolling down, I saw something about the army being the majority where you live? Then you should know first hand about infantry, or even combat arms in general. Considering that you hopefully know what that is, you should also know of the steady flow of people in and out of combat arms, whether they're in DEPS or in reserves. Yes, there ARE different MOS's in the military, but you don't have to have a gun in aphgan shooting people, but that shouldnt matter. Without all of these different jobs, the military wouldn't be able to function properly. Every single person if every single branch also NEEDS firearm and combat training before even graduating basic training, because anything can happen when you're deployed.
I also have no idea where you live, so I'm also going to take that as a "not America" which would explain why you wouldn't fully support America's military.

Visxal wrote I dislike the police.

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And @motivational


I don't see how you can correlate deaths in a combat zone with deaths of lumber jacks from job related accidents. It's ignorant to compare the two when the factors involved are astronomically different.

Trznce wrote
This is the only part I was able to read of your entire message, because this alone proves your inexperience and scarce knowledge on the subject. When scrolling down, I saw something about the army being the majority where you live? Then you should know first hand about infantry, or even combat arms in general. Considering that you hopefully know what that is, you should also know of the steady flow of people in and out of combat arms, whether they're in DEPS or in reserves. Yes, there ARE different MOS's in the military, but you don't have to have a gun in aphgan shooting people, but that shouldnt matter. Without all of these different jobs, the military wouldn't be able to function properly. Every single person if every single branch also NEEDS firearm and combat training before even graduating basic training, because anything can happen when you're deployed.
I also have no idea where you live, so I'm also going to take that as a "not America" which would explain why you wouldn't fully support America's military.

Your whole post has absolutely nothing to do with this topic or what I said. That's the definition of strawmanning.

I said that someone who's a cook in the army obviously isn't as close to gunfights as a front line soldier. In no way did I say that cooks aren't important or that they were useless and didn't have any training. Cooks sign up to cook. They're not required to shoot people if they don't want to.

However, I don't see the incredible amount of bravery required to cook food for large amounts of people. Sure the conditions are bad but it doesn't warrant being praised constantly and it certainly isn't harder than any other job I can think of.

I'm not even going to mention the absolutely ridiculous amount of money being spent on the American military each year. You could cure world hunger about fifty times over with that budget.

I'm from Ireland and I have absolutely no idea why OP is thanking the American military either. If he was from America then I would have just left this thread alone but it makes no sense to praise another country's military more than your own.

Cincinnati-Bengals wrote
And @motivational

I don't see how you can correlate deaths in a combat zone with deaths of lumber jacks from job related accidents. It's ignorant to compare the two when the factors involved are astronomically different.

What's the difference between a soldier dying due to being shot in a combat zone and a woodcutter being crushed by a tree in forest? Both deaths are in dangerous areas and both deaths are accidents. The solider didn't go out with the intention of being shot, therefore his death is accidental, the same with a woodcutter being crushed by a tree.

It's not ignorant in anyway to compare them, otherwise I highly doubt that a study would have been conducted to show that there are more dangerous jobs than being in the military. The factors involved aren't astronomically different either. They're both workers who are just trying to do their job without being killed.

Motivational wrote And the people within shooting range, are armed with the best gear on the planet. Bullet proof vests, helmets and incredibly accurate rifles against people who have no armour, education or any military training. Not all the people you're also shooting necessarily want to harm America. Otherwise they'd be in America and you'd be shooting them and not the other way around. You're in their country, remember.

You probably haven't seen a lumberjack at work before, hands down the scariest job on the planet. The majority of people who're killed are crushed to death by 20ft trees and their bodies are completely destroyed. Others are killed by their chainsaws, meaning they're literally sawed to death which would also be unimaginabley painful and leave their bodies in a horrible state. At-least if you're killed in a warzone, your body isn't too badly damaged (most of the time) and you're buried with honour.

My god, man. You know nothing.
To start, we are absolutely not armed with the best gear in the world. We carry crappy old Colt M4's that are definitely not high-end. Better protective equipment could be bought online, too. Private military has the good stuff. The federal military has the mass-issued stuff.

And the statement about fighting against people who have no armour, education or any military training is completely wrong. Sure in the middle east, most of the terrorists don't have much of an education. But you're damned wrong about them not having armor, weapons, and training. They have tanks, bro. And the middle east is not the only threat. We could be fighting Russia, China, North Korea, anyone with a real military. So that comment is absolutely ridiculous.

I **** dare you to tell me how cutting down a tree is "the scariest job in the world" compared to a **** 18 year old kid who's sitting in a ditch in some hell with 7x62 flying towards him, watching his brothers being killed, and can't even hear because of all the explosions around him. Don't even **** start that. You want to talk about an unimaginably painful death, where the bodies can't even be recognized? Try sitting in a humvee when a 100-pound IED blows everyone to pieces- literally.

You just really pissed me off.

Illustrated wrote
My god, man. You know nothing.
To start, we are absolutely not armed with the best gear in the world. We carry crappy old Colt M4's that are definitely not high-end. Better protective equipment could be bought online, too. Private military has the good stuff. The federal military has the mass-issued stuff.

Crappy old colt m4s? An extremely accurate assault rifle capable of killing people from close, medium and long range. An m4 is one of the best all round weapons you could ask for and please, with a budget of that size there's no excuse to be complaining about your gear. You have far better weapons and gear the people you're fighting against.

To be fully honest, it would take a lot of expensive armour that would be too heavy for the majority of soldiers to carry to stop an ak47 round. It's extremely rare that anyone dies in a war situation where if they had better armour they would have lived.

Illustrated wrote And the statement about fighting against people who have no armour, education or any military training is completely wrong. Sure in the middle east, most of the terrorists don't have much of an education. But you're damned wrong about them not having armor, weapons, and training. They have tanks, bro. And the middle east is not the only threat. We could be fighting Russia, China, North Korea, anyone with a real military. So that comment is absolutely ridiculous.

Firstly, you stated that I was completely wrong, then in your next sentence you agreed that in the middle east they don't have much of an education(I think "much of an education" is a little bit of an understatement). So good job contradicting yourself.

Secondly, what's up with you guys twisting my words? I never said that they didn't have weapons or tanks? I said they have terrible military training and education which they do and their very light armour isn't going to stop M4 bullets or a grenade.

And no, they're not well trained. Nowhere near as well trained as soldier from the American or British army. Their training is probably just basic shooting and some exercise drills, nowhere near the standard of American training.

Did you also seriously just try and say that because Russia and China have armies too, you could be fighting them and because they're well trained and armed, it's an even fight? You're not fighting Russia or China and you won't be any time soon. That was the dumbest analogy I've ever seen. You're fighting civilians with weapons and very little education or military training. And a war with China wouldn't be fought on the ground, nor will it ever happen.

Illustrated wrote I **** dare you to tell me how cutting down a tree is "the scariest job in the world" compared to a **** 18 year old kid who's sitting in a ditch in some hell with 7x62 flying towards him, watching his brothers being killed, and can't even hear because of all the explosions around him. Don't even **** start that. You want to talk about an unimaginably painful death, where the bodies can't even be recognized? Try sitting in a humvee when a 100-pound IED blows everyone to pieces- literally.

Yet again, terrible example. The majority of soldiers aren't eighteen and aren't sitting in the middle of a ditch with bombs going off. The majority of soldiers are training or reading most of their time.

Let's make this a fair comparison. Would you rather be in a ditch watching explosions going off around you, or slowly watching a tree collapse on top of you, knowing that there's no way you're getting out from that situation alive, you won't have an honourable burial and your family won't recognise your body.

I'd rather be in the warzone. Use a fair example next time. The extremely low amount of soldiers killed per year also doesn't justify your statement. More people die in a year chopping down trees than in the army. It's obviously not as dangerous as you're making it out to be.

Illustrated wrote You just really pissed me off.

Obviously. You're a solider yourself, you're going to be annoyed with my post.

It's pretty clear that I'm upsetting/offending a lot of people here and I don't want to cause anymore arguments or offence. So I'll stop posting after this. I just disagree that because you had no other option for a career path (or you actually wanted to join the army) you're automatically a hero and extremely brave which is the way Americans treat soldiers.

Illustrated wrote

Motivational wrote And the people within shooting range, are armed with the best gear on the planet. Bullet proof vests, helmets and incredibly accurate rifles against people who have no armour, education or any military training. Not all the people you're also shooting necessarily want to harm America. Otherwise they'd be in America and you'd be shooting them and not the other way around. You're in their country, remember.

You probably haven't seen a lumberjack at work before, hands down the scariest job on the planet. The majority of people who're killed are crushed to death by 20ft trees and their bodies are completely destroyed. Others are killed by their chainsaws, meaning they're literally sawed to death which would also be unimaginabley painful and leave their bodies in a horrible state. At-least if you're killed in a warzone, your body isn't too badly damaged (most of the time) and you're buried with honour.

My god, man. You know nothing.
To start, we are absolutely not armed with the best gear in the world. We carry crappy old Colt M4's that are definitely not high-end. Better protective equipment could be bought online, too. Private military has the good stuff. The federal military has the mass-issued stuff.

And the statement about fighting against people who have no armour, education or any military training is completely wrong. Sure in the middle east, most of the terrorists don't have much of an education. But you're damned wrong about them not having armor, weapons, and training. They have tanks, bro. And the middle east is not the only threat. We could be fighting Russia, China, North Korea, anyone with a real military. So that comment is absolutely ridiculous.

I **** dare you to tell me how cutting down a tree is "the scariest job in the world" compared to a **** 18 year old kid who's sitting in a ditch in some hell with 7x62 flying towards him, watching his brothers being killed, and can't even hear because of all the explosions around him. Don't even **** start that. You want to talk about an unimaginably painful death, where the bodies can't even be recognized? Try sitting in a humvee when a 100-pound IED blows everyone to pieces- literally.

You just really pissed me off.

I hope you understand that your feelings have absolutely no bearing on what is factually accurate here.
There is no point in being emotionally obtuse about how you feel on this thread aside from trying to get it closed because the debate has got too heated for some people to handle.
If you can't restrain your emotional outbursts then don't reply.

I hope that I can quell some of the concerns you have about what Motivational is saying because it seems like you and others are, almost intentionally, misrepresenting or misinterpreting his position at every turn. You are taking what he is saying to be much more malicious and conniving than it actually is. Look at his tone, how he is putting his ideas across.
Does he seem like your typical American-military hating liberal you encounter in the public sphere? Of course not.

I don't agree with everything he is saying before you get the feeling that you are being ganged up on. For instance, I don't agree with his statement that the people the American military are fighting against are uneducated. There are a few studies I could point to which I feel indicate the opposite to be true. A lot of the people leaving modernized nations to fight alongside ISIS do have formal educations. Al Baghdadi has/had a degree in Islamic Studies.
These are not uneducated people. They may be savages, but educated people can be savages.
So there is one area in which Motivational and I might disagree, assuming I didn't just sway his opinion.

But that's beside the point. He is making probably one of the softest criticisms of the military that I have ever seen but you are acting like he is defecating on an American flag whilst standing on a medal of honor replica.

The key point he made to understanding his entire message is in this quote:

The majority of soldiers have absolutely nothing to do with fighting and are nowhere near close range combat.

Just think about that quote for a second. Is he wrong? No. He's absolutely right.
His lumberjack comparison was a good comparison because most lumberjacks do cut down trees.

Now if you wanted to criticize his position accurately, you could say, "If you narrowed the comparison to only include 'front line combat roles' then what would the death rate be as a comparison to all lumberjacks?"

So you only look at people in the military who do serve on the front line and you compare the amount of deaths within that group to the amount of deaths within the group of all lumberjacks.
I'm not aware if this comparison has been done but it wouldn't surprise me if there were more front line combat deaths than lumberjack deaths per 100,000.

This is the only rational way to combat his point that I can see, but then you would have to admit his larger message, and I don't think he would disagree with this statement, "Only front line soldiers who have endured combat should be hailed as heroes."

If you won't grant this point then at the very least understand that we have not grown up in the US surrounded by the military culture that you live in. Motivational is Irish so I think it is a miracle that he doesn't outright despise the military in general given the history that country has had with them.

We are not saying that heroes don't exist within the military, we are simply saying that just because someone joins the military that does not make them a hero.
Their actions and attitude within the military are what make them a hero.

Motivational wrote

Illustrated wrote
My god, man. You know nothing.
To start, we are absolutely not armed with the best gear in the world. We carry crappy old Colt M4's that are definitely not high-end. Better protective equipment could be bought online, too. Private military has the good stuff. The federal military has the mass-issued stuff.

Crappy old colt m4s? An extremely accurate assault rifle capable of killing people from close, medium and long range. An m4 is one of the best all round weapons you could ask for and please, with a budget of that size there's no excuse to be complaining about your gear. You have far better weapons and gear the people you're fighting against.

To be fully honest, it would take a lot of expensive armour that would be too heavy for the majority of soldiers to carry to stop an ak47 round. It's extremely rare that anyone dies in a war situation where if they had better armour they would have lived.

Illustrated wrote And the statement about fighting against people who have no armour, education or any military training is completely wrong. Sure in the middle east, most of the terrorists don't have much of an education. But you're damned wrong about them not having armor, weapons, and training. They have tanks, bro. And the middle east is not the only threat. We could be fighting Russia, China, North Korea, anyone with a real military. So that comment is absolutely ridiculous.

Firstly, you stated that I was completely wrong, then in your next sentence you agreed that in the middle east they don't have much of an education(I think "much of an education" is a little bit of an understatement). So good job contradicting yourself.

Secondly, what's up with you guys twisting my words? I never said that they didn't have weapons or tanks? I said they have terrible military training and education which they do and their very light armour isn't going to stop M4 bullets or a grenade.

And no, they're not well trained. Nowhere near as well trained as soldier from the American or British army. Their training is probably just basic shooting and some exercise drills, nowhere near the standard of American training.

Did you also seriously just try and say that because Russia and China have armies too, you could be fighting them and because they're well trained and armed, it's an even fight? You're not fighting Russia or China and you won't be any time soon. That was the dumbest analogy I've ever seen. You're fighting civilians with weapons and very little education or military training. And a war with China wouldn't be fought on the ground, nor will it ever happen.

Illustrated wrote I **** dare you to tell me how cutting down a tree is "the scariest job in the world" compared to a **** 18 year old kid who's sitting in a ditch in some hell with 7x62 flying towards him, watching his brothers being killed, and can't even hear because of all the explosions around him. Don't even **** start that. You want to talk about an unimaginably painful death, where the bodies can't even be recognized? Try sitting in a humvee when a 100-pound IED blows everyone to pieces- literally.

Yet again, terrible example. The majority of soldiers aren't eighteen and aren't sitting in the middle of a ditch with bombs going off. The majority of soldiers are training or reading most of their time.

Let's make this a fair comparison. Would you rather be in a ditch watching explosions going off around you, or slowly watching a tree collapse on top of you, knowing that there's no way you're getting out from that situation alive, you won't have an honourable burial and your family won't recognise your body.

I'd rather be in the warzone. Use a fair example next time. The extremely low amount of soldiers killed per year also doesn't justify your statement. More people die in a year chopping down trees than in the army. It's obviously not as dangerous as you're making it out to be.

Illustrated wrote You just really pissed me off.

Obviously. You're a solider yourself, you're going to be annoyed with my post.

It's pretty clear that I'm upsetting/offending a lot of people here and I don't want to cause anymore arguments or offence. So I'll stop posting after this. I just disagree that because you had no other option for a career path (or you actually wanted to join the army) you're automatically a hero and extremely brave which is the way Americans treat soldiers.

Your posts are so cringy it's difficult to read them all the way through.
First of all, I wasn't strawmanning with my last post, since I didn't bother to read your message at all whatsoever past your first paragraph, and I believe I hit all the points there.

I just have a question. Are you implying thr military shouldn't get praise? People in the military make on average around the amount of a person working at McDonalds. Only difference is while they're killin patties, military is under constant stress in a completely foreign continent, firefights daily, heavy physical labor and having to be away from their family for a long time.
Yes, obviously, they know what they're signing up for. They understand what they're going to do, and what needs to be done. Yes, some people get an MOS or a rate with cooking instead of shooting a gun, or maybe as an HM instead, the list goes on. But does that mean they shouldn't be getting praised because their jobs "arent hard enough"? That seems like an ultra douchey way to think. Remember that in war, every person there, no matter their job, is always on the ready to pick up a weapon and kill if needed. You don't need to praise, but If you can't even respect someone for doing that, you don't exist to me anymore, lmao.
Also, if you do continue posting, can you please stop saying "army" when talk about the general military? This topic is about military, not a specific branch.

Like, sure I know that most people in the military are in non combat roles and they dont garner as much respect as soldiers in combat roles, which is understandable. I'm an infantryman, and trust me, POGs get picked on for it. But when supply gets us our food, they're our heroes. And when Intelligence gets us our intel, they're our heroes. Sure, it's a different kind of hero, but not everyone can be a front line, medal of honor, war hero. Soldiers are heroes. Police officers are heroes. Period. Case closed.