Like I said. Came across a WWII vet at a store. He asked if I was in the military (I am) and thanked me for my service. I have never been one of those people who always thinks America is right and perfect all the time, but I was never one to believe we were evil or "the bad guys". Well me and this man were discussing WWII. He had a lot of interesting stories and eventually got on the topic of how he always believed we were fighting for the good, but as time went by he realized we were fighting for the bad. He believes that America had no reason to fight. He said that 80% of americans did not approve of fighting in the war so FDR did everything to piss off and provoke the japanese so they would attack. Now I've never been one to believe in all these conspiracy theories. The whole 9/11 being planned seems like a crock of shit. But the fact that an actual Vet was telling me this...is crazy. I have never heard someone who was actually apart of it denounce the USA like that. So my question is. Are we as a country incredibly delusional to who we really are and how we are viewed by the world? Are we in reality an evil country who has just been lucky/smart enough to conquer enough and become an untouchable super power? The argument could be made of course that we have an excellent standard of living. and there are places that are much worse as far as human rights are concerned. Also seeing that hitler started the holocaust and stalin killing so many of his citizens is a pretty good point to make that we werent the evil ones. But...what if we are? once again I am proud to serve my country and proud of who I am, but I feel it is okay to question.
A few questions. I am not being critical of the man or his opinions, I'd just like to pose a few questions. Did this vet say that he served overseas during WWII? Did he see the ovens in the German concentration camps which were used to burn the bodies of millions of people? Did he help to liberate the concentration camp victims who were literally starving to death? If he had done any of these things, I can't understand how he would say that we should not have gotten involved.
The American government has certainly done evil shit in the past. But the good (and bad) thing about our government is it is always evolving. Since the Cold War it seems America has been more willing to do immoral things for the sake of power. The American government isn't the best in its actions, but at the same time, it certainly isn't the worst. As for the American people, we seem to be very ignorant of the outside world and history. Sometimes this can cause us to disregard the rest of the world. This is due to ignorance though, and not entirely our fault. People don't know about the evil shit their country has done, and only hears good things, therefore become delusional, believing we are the best or most moral country. The more people get information from sources like the internet or the news, the more they shed this naivety. But people, in general, are ignorant of history and other places. Because America is such a big powerhouse, we don't feel like we have to know about other places. My guess would be people in other places, in Europe for example, are much more interdependent on other nations, therefore have more knowledge of the outside world.
What this guy said. If the Nazis had won the war, the world would be a terrible place today. I will say this, however: America's foreign policy oversteps the mark. The middle east, for example, has every right to hate you.
yea the shit with the japanese is pretty well documented, not in any history books you'd find in school(obviously gotta teach them little kiddies patriotism, seems sort of like religion in that aspect) but I'm sure you can dig around on google a bit and find it.
yeah as long as we weren't the actual bad guys im cool with it all. I just thought it was weird that an actual vet was saying we were fighting for the wrong side...
I hated history in high school. Now I look for opportunity to talk with older gentlemen about there up bringing and war they fought in, fukin blows me away what some fellows have been through. great story BTW>>
WWII vets come to my job all the time. And I had an old lady substitute at my high school once who was one of the first women to serve in WWII.
That's nothing knew really... I'm literally staring at a gun in the corner of my room. Twas my Grandfather's when he served in WWII. He was an American Jew, and he helped liberate at least 3 concentration camps throughout Germany. He even has patches from German soldiers' uniforms that he ripped off their bodies. He clams up and refuses to talk to you if you ever ask him any questions. But over the years things just come up I guess. pics or it didn't happen? http://i50.tinypic.com/mkxc35.jpg
i was in the military for over 15 yrs. and am a retired 100% disabled vet. i volunteered and went over to the middle east for the first go round with iraq. two different times i was out of the u.s.a. for over 2 years before i returned. you don't really know how much you love it, until you're away from it. i love the old u.s.a. but i think our gov has really screwed us all over. i also believe that we have evolved into a country that was/is, involved in some really evil shit. for instance, i read a long time ago somewhere, that the c.i.a. was into buying/selling mass quantities of heroin in s.e. asia back about the time the vietnam war broke out. why would the c.i.a. be involved in drugs like that? well, it's a very easy way to gather very sums of money, to fund special projects, like wars and overthrowing governments. projects that could in no way, be funded outright by our government. the stuff we see in movies hardly scratches the surface, of the things going on behind closed doors in washington! and no, i'm not a conspiracy nut.
The victors write the history books, we won so we will make ourselves out to be the best people in the world
That's awesome! True. To be fair, the Nazis were actually fucked up. But we fucked up when we nuked Japanese civilians twice.
I'm pretty sure tons of people of every nation in most every war feel like that guy did. I think it's probably natural too. How could you go and fight a war and see all that shit and feel like the good guys? There usually aren't any good guys in a war. I wouldn't say the majority of the country is ignorant as to what we are either. It annoys me when people go on and on and then on some more about how evil everything America does and then goes on and on how 99% of Americans are too stupid to see it. America isn't ALL fucked up and people know our government does shitty things once in a while. What major country doesn't do sketchy things though?
The Nazis and Japanese were trying to conquer the world, and were getting very close to accomplishing that goal. It's a no-brainer that we had to fight them.