What's wrong with writing poetry on an aircraft carrier? I can't speak to being on an aircraft carrier, but on a submarine you are not in war mode 24/7; there's time to do ordinary things. (usually).
Let me guess: Tommy here hasn't ever served in the military, right? All he knows about it is from movies?
I wouldn't say 90% but it is significant. "Hurry up and wait" is a common phrase in the military - you don't exactly have much "free time" (where you could do as you please) but you do have a lot of time wasted because you have to be at this location at 5:30 so you can wait for an evolution at 6 that doesn't actually involve you doing anything until 7:30. So you just sit around waiting to do shit but can't go anywhere else. Poetry sounds like a better way to pass the time than what I did in those situations, which was usually nap or BS with the others waiting around.
Reminds me of the quote by Thucydides:
“The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools."
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Alan Turing, a mathematician and gay man, is right up there with Oppenheimer, Churchill, Macarthur, and Stalin in level of importance towards the allied victory in WW2.
I'm a veteran. A lot of really good troops in technical fields tended to not serve all that long due to better quality of life outside of the military. An ace technical troop is worth their weight in gold.
Various types of mechanics and technicians, logisticians, network admins, equipment operators, pilots, various engineers, and other technical troops are the real power of the US military. Most of those are more technical than physical.
It isn't brawn that keeps around 100 USN ships deployed around the world at any given time. It isn't brawn that gives the USAF a 48 hour turn around time for operating anywhere in the world. It isn't brawn that keeps large ground forces supplied at bases all around the world. It is education, brains, and training.
I agree with the sentiment here, but as a history fan I have to challenge MacArthur's place on that list.
He's well known for his personality, speeches and statements, not his performance on the battlefield, which resulted in the needless deaths of thousands of American servicemen simply following his unwise orders. MacArthur was a brilliant politician but a mediocre general, and should be remembered as such.
If you want to reach for an American WW2 general worth his stars, can go with Patton or Eisenhower. They did well, even with the benefit of hindsight. We also had a slew of amazing admirals around about that time. They weren't all good of course, but we had enough.
I remember when Putin’s War started. Over on that other site someone commented that one of the things that’ll make or break the war for Ukraine is:
Logistics!
To paraphrase, “The U.S. is many things but they’re inarguably the masters of logistics. They can get anything, anywhere, across the globe in a shockingly short amount of time. If they back Ukraine, Russia’s in a whole world of hurt.”
right now, we are so woke in the military we’re losing recruits right and left
Tuberville is blocking military promotions. If officers are not regularly promoted, they are discharged from the military. Tuberville is contributing to the discharge of US military persons and blaming it on "wokeness".
We’ve got people doing poems on aircraft carriers over the loudspeaker.
Tuberville portrays this as a problem contributing to "wokeness". As evidenced by this thread, there is a long storied tradition of war poetry. Including famous military persons.
After Ingraham asked, “Could we confidently take on China?” Tuberville replied, “Oh no. Oh no. No, and we’re running Russia into China."
This is false. Republicans don't always lie. If they did, literally nobody would believe them.
What they do is actually far worse. They tell just enough truth to make their lies seem believable. That's why they end up being dangerous: because they're believable.
I know you don't believe them or find them believable, but enough people do that they keep getting elected.
Mad Dog Mattis, the supposed most well known recent iteration of the warrior poet/scholar archetype, is probably pretty pissed while reading about this.
As a young Marine this guy was one of those guys you learned leadership examples from, I had the chance to hear him speak on several occasions while I served. It was pretty disappointing seeing him join the Trump administration, but made sense when you could plainly see that he and Trump absolutely did not get along, because Trump isn't a real leader by any stretch of imagination.
Tuberville is just another ignorant know-nothing Chickenhawk piece of shit, with extra racism and potential treason thrown in the mix to make him an extra large pile of shit.
Evidence? They haven't provided evidence of any of these absurd claims for years now.
Also this guy is too stupid to be doing this without a handler. I don't think he's pro China, I think he's pro hurting America as long as a Dem is in charge.
Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville is waging an unprecedented campaign to try to change Pentagon abortion policy by holding up hundreds of military nominations and promotions, forcing less experienced leaders into top jobs and raising concerns at the Pentagon about military readiness.
A piece of shit through and through. Another day another member of the GOP weaponizing congress by holding random unrelated shit hostage to get their ways. This shit to fuck with womans right to healthcare out of all things.
I love the irony of the man responsible for holding up officer promotions and DIRECTLY AN UNEQUIVOCALLY DAMAGING MILITARY READINESS FOR A CONFLICT OR EMERGENCY is criticizing service members who do more good for this country on a bathroom break than this shitheel will ever do in his entire life.
And even more so the irony that the Right's 'Anti-Woke' culture is just a woke culture of it's own on the other axis, but rather than standing for anything it just exist to oppose and stagnate. The sooner all these people retire and go back under what ever rock they came out from under, the sooner things start to improve across the board for the US.
American politics (I can’t speak for other companies sorry I meant countries) boil down to: do you want to make consistent, planned, and supported efforts to improve and progress the country or do you want to be the dumb fuck at the back of the stuck elevator yelling about how we should’ve just kept stairs.
Regress or progress. It’s simple. Republicans only care about upholding their status quo. You might think you’re their friends until one day you realize your position was never what you thought it was and there’s always more room for coal in their burning trash pit.
Don't forget this is the same rhetoric that right wingers used to compare Russia's military to the US. Russia is real men, the modern modern military in the world, the best trained, the US is falling behind. The West thought that Ukraine would fall in days in the event of a Russian invasion.
Then an invasion actually happened and the facade was stripped away.
Zero surprise they're recycling their old talking points for China instead.
Oh, come on, no Russian (with balls turning around the correct axes in the skull, so to say) would believe that, about modern and best trained and falling behind.
The West thought that Ukraine would fall in days in the event of a Russian invasion.
That was sufficiently close, if you remember news and videos from the first weeks. It could have happened for all or most of the Left Bank Ukraine, if the Russian military would be just a bit less shit.
That helicopter assault on Kyiv's suburbs was rather Hollywood worthy. Ended with wasting best assault troops for nothing, though.
I mean, returning to modern and so on, if an American believes that, then I'm not sure whether they've been to Mexico even, not anything in Europe, let alone Eastern Europe.
Zero surprise they’re recycling their old talking points for China instead.
Now about China they may be right. China manufactures lots of things. China has its own consumer electronics. China has everything for a bloody autarchy, though of course it would take decades more to reach that and I don't see that being useful for them.
China is much more serious than Russia. It really (as in many times confirmed) does things in terms of modern weaponry and control systems which Russia has been doing only on paper, which has become clear now for everybody.
And even more so the irony that the Right’s ‘Anti-Woke’ culture is just a woke culture of it’s own on the other access,
Unexpectedly agree.
but rather than standing for anything it just exist to oppose and stagnate.
And with this too. Just "standing for anything" as I see usually occurs about things that don't shoot back, but in general yee, that seems to be a correct description of most "right" folks I've met.
Really "right" views (as what LOTR hobbits have in the book, for example) I usually encounter from people with chaotic-good alignment who would themselves most likely identify politically as leftists. Because the "right" is occupied by that swamp now.
Tolkien was writing poetry in the trenches. The tradition of writing poetry in your spare time while serving in a military is probably as old as poetry itself.
Fuck Tuberville. UnAmerican blowhard asshole. Probably being blackmailed by someone.
Patton was a lot of things. Poet. General. Abusive asshole. Dumb enough to sincerely suggest putting the Nazis back in power and the Jews back in the camps. Car enthusiast. Woke sure as hell wasn't one of them.
Hemmingway didn’t do any of the things he said he did- or rather, paid people to take him there and show him things. He certainly wasn’t a skilled hunter, and he’ll was a merely adequate writer.
Which is why all the good bits were shadow written
Which, I can’t really disagree with your statement. Tuberville is that useless, after all.
Just like Josh Hawley who doesn’t even live in Missouri, Dr. Oz who didn’t even live in Pennsylvania, Herschel Walker didn’t live in Georgia, and Marge Traitor Green who doesn’t live in the district she “represents”.
Boy, republicans sure do love their carpetbaggers.
Hmmm I wonder which is a greater threat to military readiness, holding up ALL the military promotions that need senate approval or poems on aircraft carriers?
Right, it's the poetry degrading our military readiness, not some jackass former ponzi schemer's childish "I'm going to hold my breath until you give me what I want" tantrum that's interfering with promotions of qualified personnel in significant roles.
Thank God for Alabama. Now people can't look at my state (FL) like we've got all the idiots. We have a surplus, to be sure, but 'Bama has some stellar examples of their own.
Two of Britain's most highly-regarded poets, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, who I quoted above, both wrote their best poetry while serving in the trenches of WWI. Owen because he died going over the top.
Through the travail of the ages,
Midst the pomp and toil of war,
I have fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon this star.
In the form of many people
In all panoplies of time
Have I seen the luring vision
Of the Victory Maid, sublime.
I have battled for fresh mammoth,
I have warred for pastures new,
I have listened to the whispers
When the race trek instinct grew.
I have known the call to battle
In each changeless changing shape
From the high souled voice of conscience
To the beastly lust for rape.
I have sinned and I have suffered,
Played the hero and the knave;
Fought for belly, shame, or country,
And for each have found a grave.
I cannot name my battles
For the visions are not clear,
Yet, I see the twisted faces
And I feel the rending spear.
Perhaps I stabbed our Savior
In His sacred helpless side.
Yet, I’ve called His name in blessing
When in after times I died.
In the dimness of the shadows
Where we hairy heathens warred,
I can taste in thought the lifeblood;
We used teeth before the sword.
While in later clearer vision
I can sense the coppery sweat,
Feel the pikes grow wet and slippery
When our Phalanx, Cyrus met.
Hear the rattle of the harness
Where the Persian darts bounced clear,
See their chariots wheel in panic
From the Hoplite’s leveled spear.
See the goal grow monthly longer,
Reaching for the walls of Tyre.
Hear the crash of tons of granite,
Smell the quenchless eastern fire.
Still more clearly as a Roman,
Can I see the Legion close,
As our third rank moved in forward
And the short sword found our foes.
Once again I feel the anguish
Of that blistering treeless plain
When the Parthian showered death bolts,
And our discipline was in vain.
I remember all the suffering
Of those arrows in my neck.
Yet, I stabbed a grinning savage
As I died upon my back.
Once again I smell the heat sparks
When my Flemish plate gave way
And the lance ripped through my entrails
As on Crecy’s field I lay.
In the windless, blinding stillness
Of the glittering tropic sea
I can see the bubbles rising
Where we set the captives free.
Midst the spume of half a tempest
I have heard the bulwarks go
When the crashing, point blank round shot
Sent destruction to our foe.
I have fought with gun and cutlass
On the red and slippery deck
With all Hell aflame within me
And a rope around my neck.
And still later as a General
Have I galloped with Murat
When we laughed at death and numbers
Trusting in the Emperor’s Star.
Till at last our star faded,
And we shouted to our doom
Where the sunken road of Ohein
Closed us in its quivering gloom.
So but now with Tanks a’clatter
Have I waddled on the foe
Belching death at twenty paces,
By the star shell’s ghastly glow.
So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.
And I see not in my blindness
What the objects were I wrought,
But as God rules o’er our bickerings
It was through His will I fought.
So forever in the future,
Shall I battle as of yore,
Dying to be born a fighter,
But to die again, once more.
- General George S Patton
LOL. It's cute this guy thinks modern warfare is like tribal war with heroes squaring off mano a mano with each other. The US military is terrifying because of its logistics and intelligence apparatus, not its individual soldiers. It is the only country that can send a Burger King field catering unit 1000 miles behind enemy lines. The Russians use scoobydoo vans and dump trucks. The CCP talk big but their """"""""stealth fighter"""" is a stolen SU-30 reskinned with salvaged F-117 skin shot down in Serbia that has a RCS of the old F-18. Its first aircraft carrier was scammed from the Russians too. China is the ultimate cargo cult wrt tech. They copy the form, hoping to eventually understand the mechanisms.
China has working hypersonic missiles and USA doesn’t. Plus, USA just spent 20 years to lose a war to the Taliban. They’re “terrifying” in that they are good at wreaking death and destruction, but not in the sense that they’ve won any wars since like the 1940s.
China has untested hyper-sonic missiles that still require the Chinese asset to be well inside the detection range of US assets to be launched. Taking away 90% of the advantage a hyper-sonic would offer.
'Losing' to the Taliban comes down entirely to the singular US President in recent history who was Pro-Authoritarian, Pro-Tyranny, Pro-China decided to pull out of the conflict at the last minute because he couldn't throw his Diet Coke at it and since he lost the election he knew his base and the Pro-Authoritarian, Pro-Tyranny, Pro-China crowd would be stupid enough to blame it on the next guy.
So in short you have a bag full of propaganda that isn't even worth the retail cost of that bag. And since you're probably Chinese oriented, that bag is probably some plastic lump choking a sea turtle. Good for you.
We won the war, it's the nation building that failed. Something we don't have to worry about because the rural Chinese would favor a better pension scheme than the crummy deal they have now, and I doubt the CCCP leaders who only favor Bush Jr era business tax cuts would have the best time selling a war to a one-child policy population.
They can just go Dongfeng themselves some more instead of spreading anymore of their authoritarianism anywhere else.
20 years on the other side of the planet with the average citizen so uninterested that weeks would past without a news story on it. How is that not the definition of terrifying? Hell, it was terrifying to Americans who were paying attention.
I have a lot friends and family who served. I think its hilarious the way everyone but people who have been in service hold up the image pushed by recruitment efforts and Call of Duty and the like.
From everything I've been able to tell it's one of those "it's boring and sucks until its very very very NOT boring and then it can REALLY suck."
And I hope that doesn't come across as dismissive or something. It's meant to be the opposite. It seems absolutely more brutal to me and probably why it's not the part that makes the movies. Sit around in difficult conditions until some horrible fucking shit breaks the monotony... that sounds insane.
I have a friend whos a firefighter. Usually they're doing cooking, cleaning the truck, whatever... until they're watching a kid fucking die or something.
Fucking write poems, do some coloring books, fucking whatever gets your through it lmfao.
Imagine being a politician and going out and saying anything other than “our military is the greatest in the world.” Political discourse on the right is completely off the rails.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Edit: Kind internet stranger pointed out to fix the formatting issue,
Oh I know this one! Francis Scott Key was the badass sitting in jail watching the battle from his cell window and wrote it as the world exploded around him.
(Thank you Jimmy Williams of the 4th grade who got me into detention - teacher made me write an essay on Francis Scott Key. Jimmy thought it was funny, little did he know of the 2 Lemmy points I would eventually get for my endeavors 30 years later - oh ho ho - who is laughing now, Jimmy!?!)
Pretty sure those old timer GOPers are just afraid of people who read and understand art because they are barely literate and slightly insane from lead poisoning. That 5G and it's Wuhan Virus...... (angrily shakes arthritic fist).. will get you every time.
You've got 5 whole Lemmy bucks from where I'm standing! Don't spend them all in one place.
That Jimmy Williams sounds like a good guy. Maybe he didn't do things on purpose, but maybe he did. Sadly teachers aren't usually allowed to teach history and instead have to teach "history." He may have seen an opportunity to get you to see the real thing.
Pretty sure it sprang into existence from the frothing sea foam when America tm cut off England's balls and threw them into the Boston harber, a la Birth of Venus.
Diverse teams are more effective and deliver better results. A group of people with different backgrounds and experiences will come up with different solutions to a problem than a heterogeneous group. This is a well researched topic. It is why corporate America and the military are pushing for more DE&I.
We are all just feeding the rage machine right now. An entire class of people who just say snarky know-it-all things with no skillset making bank out of their ability to troll.
What's wrong with being poetic about your job? One would think it can possibly give you an edge of the true samurai kind?.. Something rather good for a military?
Tommy tubberville, Worst. Superhero. Ever. He will come up with stupid fantasies about how everyone will kill you unless you give your money to the rich.
Tommy Tuberville is the kind of cunt that would imply that strong people can't feel. Give me the poetic military members that will contemplate their actions, please.
"The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools" --Thucydides Sir William Francis Butler
Tommy should be happy they're writing poetry on aircraft carriers.
Flanders was what came to mind for me. This motherfucker needs to find out what kind of balls it takes to write poetry while being shelled into a state of permanent shock. I don't have words vulgar enough to say how much I hate this human.
It’s true that US would get wafflestomped by Chinna in a war, also part of the problem is too much wokeness. The military cares more now about being gay and doing crimes than they do about winning wars. 😢