PISSED!

Four Marines.... allegedly.... were caught on tape, peeing on the bodies of dead, presumably Taliban fighters. This has caused much gnashing of teeth.

My bottom line is that this was an ignorant thing to do. It's just not enough to kill a man? I don't know what the Uniform Code of Military Justice says about this but, the superior officers are pissed and there will be some sort of Hell to pay after the incident is studied and adjudicated. Until then, the Court of Public Opinion (still the highest court in the land!) will have to argue punishment somewhere between dishonorable discharges and Congressional Medals of Honor for the alleged perpetrators. I can live with whatever the high command determines as punishment.

Lots of nasty, despicable things happen in war. The vast majority of us never experience the horrors of war but, we have a pretty good idea of what goes on from the better war movies we have seen, as well as our imaginations. It's by no means limited to soldiers and Marines. We lost 4,000+ men and women in Iraq. The locals there lost more than 100,000 men, women and children. You don't have to be trained soldier to know the horror of scraping a buddy's body parts off of your body. You can be an Iraqi mother, mourning the loss of her child. It's no less horrific on the sidelines as it is on either side of the battlefield.

In the usual internet ramblings about this pissing incident, some asshole brought up the popular urban myth of the hippies spitting on returning soldiers in the Vietnam era.

I say "myth" because it didn't happen. I say "it didn't happen" because it's never been documented that it had happened. But, more directly, I say it didn't happen because I just cannot fathom a man, fresh from the jungles of Vietnam, fighting to survive on the razor's edge of war,  being spit upon by hippies and not ripping off their heads and shitting down their necks. What would you do, today, if someone spit on you, angry at your parking technique or support of a black presidents healthcare plan?

Yet some people perpetuate this myth because....it illustrates the communist disdain that liberal democrats have for Jesus Christ and the Goddamed FLAG!!?? I guess....

There'a a lot of fake veterans on Topix. It's a good place to be all that you can be. Not actually knowing these imaginary people in real life, there's always a chance that a certain someone really did fight in a war. But, sheesh....when a guy posts that he made 47 combat jumps with the Marines while serving in 'Nam and google tells you that the 173rd ARMY Airborne made the one combat jump in VietNam, well, who are you gonna believe? He's old war buddies with another Marine who managed to fight in 'Nam though only a year older than me while my candyass was dreaming about boning Suzy Rottencrotch in study hall. Ho hum. I'm not doubting they served, i'm just doubting their stories.

Could one guy- just one- post that he spent four years stateside during VietNam and that he pissed in the General's Cheerios one morning?

I'd believe that!