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  #21  
Old 08-06-2009, 10:45 PM
Ace Oliveira Ace Oliveira is offline
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Grunt is a term to refer to any infantryman. Last time i checked Marines are infantryman.
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  #22  
Old 08-06-2009, 10:46 PM
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They'd rather be called Jarheads than Grunts.
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  #23  
Old 08-06-2009, 10:49 PM
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or Devil dogs. That's what they call each other. Grunts are what we call the lowly infantryman. Marines are not lowly infantrymen.
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“It is always wrong to use force, unless it is more wrong not to.”
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  #24  
Old 08-06-2009, 10:50 PM
Ace Oliveira Ace Oliveira is offline
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Well, i didn't know that. Army soldiers are almost the same in terms of humor. I read so much non-fiction books about the US army and the US Marines that they are almost the same. It just happens that the Marines seem to be The United States second Army.
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  #25  
Old 08-06-2009, 10:58 PM
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The Marines are a semi-autonomous organization that technically is a branch of the US Navy. They are a very large almost special forces unit with harder training and higher expectations.
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"There's a fine line between not listening and not caring...I like to think I walk that line everyday of my life."

Blessed be the LORD, my rock, Who trains my hands for war, And my fingers for battle
Psalm 144:1

“It is always wrong to use force, unless it is more wrong not to.”
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  #26  
Old 08-06-2009, 11:15 PM
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No amount of books read or movies seen allows one to fully understand or express what a soldier goes through, relative to death, coping, or their sense of humor. I myself am not a military man like some on here, or some I know, but I understand the basic principle that there is a difference in simulated experience, and practical, or real world experience, and that everything is fairly relative.

For example, my friends like to write stories from time to time, most of which are about mercenaries. They described the mercenaries taking apart their guns to clean them. A lot of those who read it were impressed because they liked that the author knew that guns were taken apart for cleaning. I wasn't, because I do it all the time, and having done it for real, I saw the passage as ambiguous and vague to the point where it was uninspired and bland.

You also fail to account for human distinction. It might not be hard for a soldier to kill someone, or to joke about what they do. All you have to go on is media depiction, which is more or less bullshit, or secondhand opinions, which belong to someone else. But until you as your own person experience it for yourself, you shouldn't take what you or anyone says about warfare and copy paste it as your own belief, opinion, or interpretation. You can try and understand it with everything you can get, but don't get hard set on it, because most of what you "know" is still, more or less, bullshit, or someone else's opinion.

I don't say this to shit on the real military men or their experiences, quite the contrary. They know themselves and know what they have seen, and they understand their own firsthand opinion, and that's exactly what I'm talking about. None of the civilians know shit, and as soon as we realize that, we can start being more intelligible about this, and everything.
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  #27  
Old 08-06-2009, 11:18 PM
Nyles Nyles is offline
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I've been in the army for 3 years. I have worked extensively with the Americans, I have worked with the Brits, and in a month and half I'm going to be posting from Kandahar. And I can tell you that the military is not like in the movies and the media. It's a job, we are professionals, and we act like it.

My roomate in the shacks is a 17 year old kid who just graduated high school and seems incapable of distinguishing between fantasy (movies, books, tv shows), and reality. Needless to say, he's not very popular.

Yournamehere, thank you for a great post. You get it. And by the way, I've never had to pull the trigger myself, but I know plenty who have and none of them are particularly happy about it. And that includes the guy who currently holds the world record for the longest sniper kill.

Last edited by Nyles; 08-06-2009 at 11:21 PM.
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  #28  
Old 08-06-2009, 11:19 PM
Ace Oliveira Ace Oliveira is offline
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Is Band of Brothers (the book) fiction? Is Dispatches fiction? is If I Die in a Combat Zone fiction? is Black Hawk Down fiction?
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  #29  
Old 08-06-2009, 11:21 PM
Ace Oliveira Ace Oliveira is offline
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Also, just because they kid around doesn't mean they aren't professionals. They actually seem really professional even with silly shit written on their helmets.
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  #30  
Old 08-06-2009, 11:22 PM
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But there's a difference in reading what happened and experiencing it
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"There's a fine line between not listening and not caring...I like to think I walk that line everyday of my life."

Blessed be the LORD, my rock, Who trains my hands for war, And my fingers for battle
Psalm 144:1

“It is always wrong to use force, unless it is more wrong not to.”
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