Im unsure how I feel about this so far. I get that "celebrating the attack" = bad. But it was meant as a memorial, I've never been to a pleasant memorial, and some of them do show people being attacked.


https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/2/nurses-memorial-vietnam-war-memorial-in-washington-dc-ruth-hager.jpg


https://www.legion.org/sites/legion.org/files/memorial-photos/IMG_0074.JPG

https://www.newsherald.com/storyimage/DA/20190123/NEWS/190129403/AR/0/AR-190129403.jpg

I'm not sure exactly what is in bad taste about this. I see many war memorials where soldiers have either been attacked or in the middle of being attacked. I don't see the distinction between the buildings and the soldiers.

Hilarious….you need to ask why someone doesn’t like nazis?…but who said to kill them all? Wasn’t me.
Are you under the mistaken assumption that being a mine defuser is a death sentence, and they all died? Is that what happened in the movie? This was a German plan to have them earn their freedom and not starve to death in POW camps.

I can’t abide Nazis. If you feel the urge to defend nazis, that’s on you, buddy.

So, you’re just trolling then….or are you so dense you don’t see a difference between captive invading murderous soldiers who are around 16 and who were committing a genocide and non combatant children who are 10 and not indoctrinated into violent expansionist racist and murderous fascism? Nazi youth aren’t cub scouts….Jojo Rabbit wasn’t a historically accurate documentary.

If we had not abandoned Vietnam and our soldiers were captured instead, our soldiers there should have been forced to demine Vietnam and Cambodia, including the 15 year olds (the idea that non combatant children be sent there is brain numbingly ludicrous)(Dan Bullock (December 21, 1953 – June 7, 1969) was a United States Marine and the youngest U.S. serviceman killed in action during the Vietnam War, dying at the age of 15. Yes, we use youth soldiers too.).

The mines we left all over those countries have killed and maimed numerous generations, tens of thousands, and continue to do so to this day, and if I’m not mistaken, many POWs did clear mines during captivity. Leaving an active minefield on foreign soil should be a war crime if it isn’t already. It’s definitely targeting the civilian population once the war is over.

Wow. Remind me to never be around your family then. Everyone in my family knew it was wrong to invade and murder our neighbors because we like their stuff and land, and wrong to try to exterminate an entire ethnicity by the time we were 6. If you didn’t know that by 14, you have serious issues. Nazis exterminated the mentally feeble.

The young republicans aren’t a murderous group exterminating Jews, blacks, gays, and anyone not Republican…nazis were. If the young republicans were a murderous group like the nazis, any member should get the death penalty, even the murdering racist 15 year olds….young adults kill just as thoroughly as 35 year olds, their victims were just as terrified and are now just as dead.

The nazis didn’t have a tiny majority through which they controlled German politics, they had a monopoly. Another false equivelent. Christ on a cracker. If Trump had won in 2020, and used the Jan 6 attack on congress as a false pretext to outlaw any opposition to Republicans, taking over completely through violence and intimidation and held and consolidated power for nearly a decade you would be almost there. Holy Ghost on toast!

Are you shitting me. You equate these things, refusing vaccines, creating bad state laws disenfranchising voters, to accepting and participating in genocide. Just fucking wow, buddy. Stretch much? Almighty God on cod!

Old enough to murder, and you do it, you’re an adult. I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re 9. If you know what your doing when you put that gun to a Jews head and say “your children are next, you fucking kike” or a similar slur then pull the trigger, you just became an adult and eligible for the death penalty. We try 12 year olds as adults, but you would shield murderous hitler youth, many of whom turned in their own parents for liquidation, from responsibility from committing genocide among other disgusting atrocities. These kids aren’t Jojo Rabbit. Mother Mary with her cherry!

Besides…as I informed you, it was the German commander who had the idea and gave the order. At least get mad at the right nation.

You said “ but just can't get my head around putting children in a minefield. no matter the justification. that'd be just as bad as anything the nazis could ever do: lose any sense of humanity.”
1) you have lost your ever loving mind if you think a little danger is as bad as anything the nazis could ever do….you simply have no fucking idea what you’re talking about. The atrocities the nazis committed make clearing a minefield they layed look like a nice summer job with a friendly and generous boss by comparison. Try abasination, sewing twins together, seeing how long people can live without skin, raping people to death, melting people alive in acids, starving babies, stomping babies, gassing entire populations, etc. you really climbed so far up on that high horse you can’t see reality anymore. Sweet Zombie Jesus!
2) it was something the nazis did. This was a nazi plan from a nazi officer. Get it straight. The nazis did this, not the allies. That’s what I mean by learn the history instead of getting mad over a story….you are upset over fiction….and defending nazis in your outrage over nothing.

You have a problem. Your position is that nazis shouldn’t have to take any responsibility for their actions…apparently going so far as excusing college age men for fascist, racist genocide because you know some people that age who made some mistakes. (I say that proves my point that just as being older doesn’t mean making better decisions, being younger doesn’t mean you can’t make good decisions. I learned to not hurt other people except in defense in preschool.)

I say if you pick up that gun and march, you’re a soldier and responsible for your actions. If you kill, you’re a killer, no matter your age.

Technically no, but he is a Marine veteran who served during the Vietnam war. He says he's been clear about that and can't help it if people keep misstating the facts, not that this mistake makes a whit of difference.

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Pretty good video. Specific things:

Too many prostitutes: Most of the non-Thai people that complain about this went to the wrong places in Thailand. Pattaya was a tiny fishing village before the Vietnam war. Then, soldiers started getting shipped into the country for R&R. The Thai government didn't really know what to do with them, so they sorta passed the buck and decided to send them to Pattaya to relax. Bunch of stressed out dudes there, nothing to do, high demand for alternate activities ... the market answered.

Fast forward to today, and Pattaya knows exactly what put it on the map. I hate that place -- it is like what would happen if you took the worst/sleaziest elements of Vegas and Tijuana, and then built a "city" around it. Shittiest beach in Thailand, chock full of sleaze, disgusting. However, it is one of the most major tourist destinations. Gee, why could that be? Is it in spite of the nature of the place, or because of it? No false advertising here, you know what you're getting when you book a trip there. And if that is your thing, more power to ya.

Now, I don't want to act like prostitution exists in Pattaya and Soi Cowboy / Patpong in Bangkok, and is absent elsewhere. Far from it. Every town, down on to tiny ones, likely has a red-light district and brothels. The ones you hear about are sex tourism pits like those major ones, but the trade is alive and well pretty much everywhere -- and mostly caters to local Thais.

I've honestly never been to such an establishment or sought those services (in 11 years of being here), but I don't care that they are available. The most significant negative is that they are NOT well-regulated like, say, what I've heard about Amsterdam. Prostitution is technically illegal in Thailand. So the de-facto situation is that brothels have to pay protection money to police in order to avoid getting shut down or "inspected", etc.

Corruption is a major problem -- much worse than prostitution, in my opinion.


Too many ladyboys: It is certainly true that there are more trans people per capita here than pretty much anywhere else that I know of. It took me a while, being a country kid from Kansas, but I see that in pretty much the same light as the German narrator in the video at this point. Acceptance is good. You do you, man.

As a stereotype on the flip side of the coin, I think the ladyboys tend to be great in custom interaction kinds of jobs. Cashiers at 7-11, waitpeople at restaurants, etc. Polite, attentive, helpful. And often the most willing to attempt to use English. A lot of the best students that I've taught English to have been ladyboy leaning.


Freedom: I'm with @Mordhaus here. When your personal liberty is mainly due to the apathy / incompetence of the governing authority, and they may choose to get off their asses and revoke that at any time ... perhaps it isn't something to brag about. Very basic stuff like dissenting speech and protesting is met with being carted off for little re-education chats, etc. Pretty scary shit, actually.


Basically I tend to think that just like anywhere on Earth, there's a lot of good here and plenty of bad too. There's plenty of legitimate gripes with cultural elements and stuff in Thailand, but the most common ones (that the video pretty accurately listed) are pretty insignificant in my opinion.

"We need to find out how many vets are willing to do war crimes. Jesus."

You don't really follow current events, do you?

Since the Vietnam war, American soldiers have been rigorously trained to act instead of think. It's been very successful. So successful that the US is now the best country at the world when it comes to killing your own and accidentally targeting civilians. In the first gulf war, 12 Bradley AFVs were destroyed, NINE of them were by US troops. I saw a video during that war of a spotter for an A-10. Even on the poor-quality video we could see it was a Bradley (this was while I was working with an Armored regiment). The A-10 obliterates the Bradley and all the on board were certainly dead, he calls back over the radio, "I believe that was a friendly, over." To which the spotter says, "Oh shit, I was afraid of that."

Your soldiers kill eachother without fear of repercussions. Why the hell would they worry about war crimes against other people?

The Air Force is quite silly when it comes to close ground support. They never learn that the 'we'll be in and out before they can touch us' doesn't work well.

To give you an idea of what they are planning to return us to with this idea and plane, I refer you to the Vietnam War. The F4 was capable of fast fly-by's, but the problem was that in the foliage it was hard to hit targets at speed. Therefore the F4's had to start reducing speed and take higher attack angles, which caused an issue with the engines. Flameouts and stalls were rampant because the plane was designed for fast fly-by's, not the type of combat it was seeing. Additionally, the slow speed and high AoA EXPOSED the plane to severe enemy return fire. The F-4, by 1 January 1972, ranked second to the F-105 in SEA combat losses-362 (all models), most of them downed by the enemy. Later, in F-4Es alone, the Air Force lost eight in 2 months of intensive combat.

The Air Force found that relying extensively on Helicopters such as the Cobra was ineffective as well. They could deliver good anti-personnel coverage, but not hard targets. They were also slower to arrive to the combat arena. Finally, no helicopter we have ever put in combat, prior to the Apache, has been heavily armored. We don't use Hinds like Russia. The Apache is armored with Kevlar areas and reinforced armor around the cockpit, and has proven effective in open land combat, but has not been extensively tested in areas of high cover during actual combat.

Ironically, the painful lessons learned in Vietnam led to the development of another aircraft, The A-10. Sadly, we are going to waste a ton of money and probably quite a few pilots before we learn this lesson again.

It failed due to two reasons. The F4E was a two seater aircraft with a dedicated radar and weapons co-pilot, meaning it was really more comparable to an F15, and the weapons loadout that the F4 could carry was greater.

The only other area that the F4E was even close to the F16 in was rate of climb, and it still lost there. Now if you mean the German ICE F4E that was modified with better engines, etc, then yes, it was slightly better in RoC and turning radius.

The design and per unit cost of the F16 were much lower than the F35, because it was built on data learned from the Vietnam War, not theoretical data on a conflict that hasn't occurred yet (or may never occur). I agree we should update our weapons as needed, but we should only ever update with field tested data, not on theoretical combat.

For instance, if I came to you and said I predict our future soldiers will need to be protected from man portable rail guns, and that I needed a trillion dollars to make the new body armor, would you give it to me? Or would you say that manport rail guns are highly unlikely to be used in the near future and we need to wait and see?

Lol, I just had the same conversation with a friend!

My response was I'm not sure that comparison holds up.

Alien is a haunted house with a single killer.
Aliens is basically a vietnam war movie.
Different ideas, different directors and a completely different structure.

Whereas T1 and T2 are both chase movies by the same director.
T1 and T2 are much closer in structure.

"what is that? why is it trying to kill me?
run the hell away!
break in the middle for recuperation/exposition
chase scene in a truck
big explosion/crash
yay, it's dead! oh no, wait
final confrontation in factory"

Don't get me wrong... T2 is a great movie, but T1 has more menace.

Might be interesting to compare and contrast how we in the US have handled our laundry list of "bad things we've done in the past" compared to, say, Germany.

I know that the Nazi flag and other imagery are outright banned / censored in Germany. From what I understand, WW2 history taught in schools in Germany is handled very carefully, if not largely glossed over.

In the US, the only bit of history that gets treatment similar to that (in my experience/opinion) is the Vietnam war. I know my High School history classes definitely glossed over it and didn't want to get into any details about why, how, or whether or not we should have been in the war at all.

Compare that to WW2, which was covered in pretty great detail. Very much including actively encouraging students to consider their own thoughts on controversial things like dropping not just one but two atomic bombs on Japan.

The Civil War is also covered much more openly and honestly. I don't think I can recall anyone ever seriously suggesting that the single, most important root cause of the Civil War wasn't slavery. Other umbrella labels like "states rights" might be referred to as the impetus, but yes, any and all of those things really boil down to slavery.



One thing that scares me about the German approach (sweep under the rug and don't talk about it) is that it sort of all too conveniently ignores the reality that these terrible things were done by people who were (disturbingly) not very different from us. OK, Hitler himself might have been a 1 in a million or 1 in a billion combination of evil, crazy, and powerful. But Joe Average from today ... not so different from Hans Average from 1930s Germany.

Celebrating one's heritage and past is OK, sometimes even good. Especially when one can honestly own and try to understand the bad along with the good. I think it is OK to appreciate the Confederate flag, along with historical figures like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. It is possible to accept that their core motivations were done in support of a very bad and evil institution (slavery), but to still respect or even admire their accomplishments as human beings. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves too, but we are willing to look beyond that when considering his legacy.

Maybe the Confederate flag is tied too closely to the institution of slavery for it ever to be uncoupled from that. Maybe a government that prides itself on being democratic should consider that that connection creates a conflict with many of its constituents. But I hope we never sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened.

McCain served in the Vietnam war, was shot down and captured in October 1967, and was mistreated and tortured as a prisoner of war. This is the first hand knowledge he claims.

Although it's always hard to know how accurately the media portrays people, and especially in the U.S., he has always struck me as an honourable man and one who has the best interests of his country at heart.

I'm afraid I can't say the same of the men who supported mistreatment of prisoners, or those who attempted to hide it.

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Let's face it, a lot of people are lazy. Then again, we are kinda wired to be lazy, but jesus, more people complained about supplements being regulated than they did the Vietnam war?

"The Sam Adams Award is given annually by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, a group of retired CIA officers, to an intelligence professional who has taken a stand for integrity and ethics. It is named after Samuel A. Adams, a CIA whistle-blower during the Vietnam War, and takes the physical form of a "corner-brightener candlestick". Many recipients have been whistle-blowers. The 2012 Award was *presented at a ceremony at the Oxford Union in January 2013." -WIKI

*To one, Thomas Fingar, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council

This country could have hardly ever been called a Representative Democracy. I had the fortune to meet quite a number of WW1 vets in the 80s. More than a few of them told me stories that were more than shades of what happened during the Vietnam war, the first Iraq war, and now the last 10 years. Men who were more than 80 who recounted being sent to battle to protect the interests of the rich. This has been going on for a very long time.