Daniel Almond

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since Jul 16, 2003
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Recent posts by Daniel Almond

plus, i think if it really had to be done it could have been taken care of through CIA/special forces ops and channeling support to insurgents already in country. it would have kept a lot of soldiers out of the line of fire and bush could have looked a lot more intelligent.
20 years ago
ya i'll tell you, i did nothing at all when in the service.i was lucky and there was no war while i was in. i was never claiming to be audie murphy or saying i was sent to combat zones and stuff. i was just trying to express an enthusiastic appreciation for US lives which i guess not too many people share as much as i do. they really are worth keeping alive. maybe the next einsteins, shakespeares etc. that are getting their lives cut short and potentials ruined. there are kids who aren't going to have dads and moms anymore. i would really rather have them all alive than have the muslim world even more pissed at us than they already were which seems to be all that is being accomplished. is that so bad? when i was in the service, it wasn't on my own personal terms, i would have gone somewhere if my number came up but it never did. as for joint operations, yes, i served with a lot of other people especially in the NG unit i was in after i got out of the reg army. by that time i was pretty much a peacenik but still wanted to help people in case of hurricanes and stuff. the marines i met had plenty of knowledge but the navy guys had a lot to learn about the infantry because their expertise was more mechanical and technical. useful on a ship, but not in the type of fighting we were training for. i never met an air force guy but was jealous they would drop us off in the middle of nowhere and they got to fly back to the base and go to sleep. now, i think the only service for me will be to volunteer for red cross in case of disasters.
20 years ago
i was in for 4 years, one enlistment, thats it. but as a paratrooper, not in the air force. did you fire that m16 you got to carry once on detail or was the quick class in the 6 week air force basic training the only time? i don't recall any air force computer geeks ever being in combat zones. bosnia certainly wasn't one and i really don't know what it was in southwest asia that you got deployed to. even my boss who was a paratrooper in GW-1 said all they did there was to ride around in trucks and i highly doubt any air force computer guys made the journey into iraq.
but, enlighten me as to your combat experience as i don't really know what it was that you did...
20 years ago
ok, i would like to define a US problem as one that affects people in the US, drugs(hence the police in mexico and cuba), crummy economy, no healthcare, no money for universities.
your next comment just reenforces the fact that you are ok with having others die in a war you support with no risk to your own person. just because they signed up to isn't a good enough reason for them to have to go. it would be better if they were rewarded just for signing up by getting to stay home while members of congress and other war "supporters" were deployed in their place. you can bet there wouldn't be any wars then. i guess i just care more about the soldiers than you do.
i too have heard the multiple fronts thing. maybe the US could pull it off but it sure makes things a lot harder.
20 years ago
you're right. police officers often have to deal with violent criminals. however, they are doing so on US soil and taking care of US problems. their enemies are well-defined by the laws that are in place when they sign up and they can quit their job anytime they don't feel like enforcing the law anymore if new ones are enacted that they don't agree with. of course this is not the case with soldiers as their lives can be ruined without a good DD214. i don't think anyone signed up for the army expecting that a policy of preemptive regime change would come into place to enforce UN resolutions. a better place for the troops i think would be at home where the threat of them being deployed against people who have actually threatened the US, like north korea, would see that they weren't going to be busy doing something else for the next 10 years which gives them plenty of bargaining power.
20 years ago
sorry to disappoint, but i am white. i am sure there must have been an afican-american posting somewhere though. i am liberal and don't get pushed around by conservatives. got really tired of people in my school classes shouting my ideas down as traitorous and unpatriotic just because peace wasn't too popular around march. and this at the time when i am going to school on the GI bill and they are blowing mommy and daddy's money. but you know they have those flag stickers on their SUV's so they must know more than i. its ok, i bet george washington was called unpatriotic too when he questioned the government in power.
i am having a good day though as the gay bishop has been approved. its a real victory for progressively thinking people everywhere.
20 years ago
so why did colin powell wan to wait things out? as secretary of state he must have been privy to even more info than bartenders on javaranch. oh yeah, he was also the only one in leadership with any significant military experience. i really don't recall anyone shooting rpg's and suicide bombing police officers who were sent to a foreign country, but however you justify your own actions is cool with me brother.
20 years ago
aren't there any other people on this website who like peace? maybe not....
thats ok, sometimes all it takes is army of one... going against the grain makes me feel as if someone wrote a book about my life, someone else would want to read it. if not, well, i'll try to get more posts in before 9am than most people do all day. i just have to keep my aims high and be all i can be and maybe, just maybe someone will come to my aid. then together we'd be the few and the proud and if only we were strong enough, we could.
thought that would motivate everyone for less talk and more action....
or at least for some republicans to accelerate their lives to support their chatter.

you don't have to argue with me anymore, you just have to look deep inside yourselves and see what you find. again, if people are ok with sending other people to die in their place then i can't change that.
20 years ago
if you sign up i will watch over the meaningless drivel post for you
20 years ago
no logic flaw, only a true or false statement:
you are either helping fight, or sending others to do your dirty work for you. i wouldn't send people to do something i wouldn't do myself, so i don't support this war. some people's character will allow them to do that because they don't mind sending other people to die in place of them and that is how they are. i can't change that but i wish i could....
20 years ago
just wondered how many people in here had looked at the book and wanted to know their thoughts on it. maybe mark herschberg used it at MIT? it is quite difficult i think. i would also like to hear people's strtegies for getting through it.
thanks
20 years ago
what can i say about joining me joining the army except that i didn't really have anything else to do(no money for school) and people mature a lot from 17-25 and what seems like a good idea at 17 can be totally different thing at 25. especially when you have had REAL experience in combat arms. not MOVIES, REAL. here that, not MOVIES, but actual REAL experience. most people i have seen who have been in a war like that can't even talk about it or break down crying when they do. you don't care about that stuff when you are 17 but i think i understand it more now. that is WWII, korea,vietnam, somalia. when i first got in i had a boss who would talk much smack about the first gulf war and show pictures all the time of dead bodies they passed in the desert. they don't look like they do in the MOVIES. that is why the goverment doesn't show any real pictures of casualties at home b/c no one would want to fight after that.
as for stake in the war, it isn't about the infantry on the ground its about politics but the the soldiers are the only ones who are going to die.
still, if you like war that much the recruiter's office is open with no wait...
since nobody has done that yet i think it is safe to assume that there isn't any real support for the war at all, just a bunch of people with opinions who let others do their fighting for them...
20 years ago
hey, i'm not saying clinton's call on the was perfect, but better getting out than staying there for at least 10 years like wwe will in iraq. 1 question, did you ever work on an armor railhead to unload to load on ship to unload to mount operation? if you did you would know urgent requests for armor in africa take at least 2 months. remember the 4th trying to unload in turkey and then having to sail aounr to kuwait to unload? that took four weeks to get from turkey and that was just to stage in the desert. i think two-bit dictators are still scared of sat photos and cruise missles and no americans are at risk. of course george still hasn't been able to bring in osama or saddam.
20 years ago
if i remember right there was, but that mission consisted of getting some food to some starving people and consisited of the deployment of a battalion of rangers and part of the 10th mountain , along with some indian troops to keep the thing multinational. the casualties all came on a raid that went bad because of some bad intelligence. but not i believe, constructed intelligence. the moral is stay home but i really don't think you can compare that deployment to 160,000 troops taking over a country. but, maybe you can, you are after all, canonized.
20 years ago
good answer, i would probably do the same for my little brother. i think i have already thoroughly convinced him that being peaceful is the way to go though. seems like the political decision to go to war went along with your views this time, maybe things will go my way the next time around; i'm not fighting but i hope every comes back soon. i just don't like using force to solve problems b/c usually i think it usually causes more and doesn't promote understanding of any issue. we have all been kept in the dark by the government as to what their real motives are and i just don't trust them but it is hard to prove things either way. it would do someting if they could just any large store of weapons that could be used for terrorism or something.
since you don't find the idea of injury to your loved ones a pleasant thought though, you should really consider voting dem in the next election.
20 years ago