Welcome To Baghdad, Montana

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/07/washington/07recruit.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Yes, but gay soldiers are threats to "unit cohesion."
Aryan Nations graffiti? Hearts and minds, foks.

 

Yawn, fucking yawn

 

Fenian, I'm gonna have to call you out on this one. I've been in the military and I served in the region during Desert Shield/Desert Storm and the follow-up in 1994.

The military does not want hate groups in its ranks. Plain and simple. They may be more tolerated in certain units, but as a whole, the military doesn't want them.

No need to bring up gays in the military at this point.

 

alley -
So I keep hearing, but the story seems to indicate that having these people in the service is a price that the military says we have to pay for Fredo's having broken the military in his excellent adventure. The military seems to be getting an awful lot of stuff it "really doesn't want" in this particular conflict. It doesn't want atrociities, but it's getting them. It doesn;t want white supremacist gang cultutre, but it's got it. And the AF seemed perfectly fine with running a Christianist boot camp out in the Springs.

 

Fenian, the military is always going to have things it doesn't want, just like any organization with as many people as the armed forces. I mean, really, think about how many people we have in uniform. It's next to impossible to totally rid the military of ugly spots.

That being said, it makes little difference if it's because of this particular war, or some other reason, the military has struggled to keep people in uniform and as such, some compromises HAVE to be made. There's just no way around it.

You always have to have prison guards, police officers and troops (Mariines, sailors, airmen, etc.). But sometimes to have enough to meet your absolute minimums, there's standards which have to be lowered, or accepted, in some respects.
(It's not a perfect or even legit comparison, but think Police Academy.)

That being said, I'll challenge anyone who claims there's more bad than good people in uniform.

 

We had enough trouble historically with sheriff's departments and police forces tolerating Klan membership in their ranks. So, if you're going to have Aryan Nations cells in the military -- and didn't Tim McVeigh show us how well that can work out -- what compromises DON'T you make? The "Moron Corps" in Vietnam? Check. AN cells in the army? Check. Apparently, gay people are the only compromises the military is not interested in making, which is why the comparison is relevant.
More bad than good?
I'd like to believe that's not the case in any organization.

 

I object to this thread title. The crazy people out here are not from here. They move to Montana from the Midwest or California.

 

Or Ohio? Sorry, had to do it.

 

Hey, I moved here from Indiana ;D

 

Oh, yeah. Shit, compared to the Haute, Montana is heaven on Earth.

 

Belinda was tres hot back in the day.

And that song will always be special to me. I remember lying in a hospital bed in London, Ontario, recovering from an aneurysm, when the doctor finally told me I could start listening to music. It was November 1987 and the first song I heard on the radio was "Heaven Is A Place On Earth." Heard it several more times over the next couple of weeks and it always made me feel better. Still does today.

 

Very hot back in the day, indeed.

However, she once appeared on the cover of Playboy, didn't she? Maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part.