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The Fighter

nytimes.com

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Re: The Fighter

#51

Post by rokosbasilisk »

mereWords wrote: post #48
james-watson wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me, friend, how does a group of people enforce their rights within a country against those who wish to deny those rights? ISIS wants a global Islamic caliphate, along with a Caliph at its head and Sharia law. They want this in the US, Europe, and every other country on the planet. They do not negotiate, because they believe they carry out the will of an omnipotent deity. And most importantly, they will brutally…

History, history, history. Observed as an apparition conjured in a vacuum, ISIS really looks like such a beast, that no one could have created it or prevented it, right? It seems like such an alien organization, that it must have always existed, but we know that's not true. But let's suspend disbelief, cast aside rational thought, grab a gun and do something, because something like this requires direct action before…

To be fair the news media spent an enormous time and effort to legitimize the iraq war. The original "fake news" that really destroyed credibility.

Re: The Fighter

#52

Post by accountface »

wyager wrote: post #22
accountface wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chivers surprised me. I set out to stereotype him as some gun fetishist and walked away from his book about the AK-47 with a full sense that small-arms proliferation is one of the worst things to happen in human history.

That seems like a strange conclusion to reach. Humanity is per-capita less violent than ever, despite probably the highest per-capita small arms density in history. My suspicion is that the techniques available for individuals to kill each other has little impact on their proclivity to kill each other. Of course, that says nothing about the impact of increasingly effective large-scale weapons (nuclear/biological/chem…

The major ongoing conflicts within The Middle East, Africa, and South America are as brutal as they are because of small arms and associated trade... specifically the communism-driven over-abundance of AK-47s

Re: The Fighter

#53

Post by LSCanaan »

vinhboy wrote: post #11

I wonder if the shock of going from a first world country to a third world country contributes to these problems. Imagine for a second you're a white male growing up in rural America. Your first experience with the rest of world is a Iraq... It must be traumatizing.

What? People are very likely to develop stress disorders from continuous and constant proximity to violence regardless of where it takes place.

People who grow up in a state of constant war become desensitized to it but you're going to have a problem with their behavior and tendencies once you have them try to adapt to what amounts to a normal life to you.

Re: The Fighter

#54

Post by ryanmarsh »

specialist wrote: post #29
ryanmarsh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We just don't have many institutions left in the us to care for people after trauma Did we ever? I don't recall my grandfather getting much help (with what we would now call PTSD) from the community or otherwise.

As I understand it, likelihood of trauma (PTSD) rises sharply with time spent in actual combat. During WWII, even places like Battle of the Bulge, infantry were on the front lines a few weeks. That amount has gone up steadily with Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and so forth.

He was OSS and airborne. Saw several different theaters.

Re: The Fighter

#55

Post by ryanmarsh »

enraged_camel wrote: post #33
ryanmarsh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We take care of our own as best we can, and people fall through the cracks This statement disgusts me. I struggled immensely transitioning from combat to civilian life. Nobody helped until years later I got lucky and someone referred me to a preacher who was also a therapist. The VA threw pills at myself and my brothers. Some of them are dead now. Some took their own lives on purpose, others on accident living dang…

I hope the OP responds to your comment. I have a feeling he won't, though.

Dont start shit

Re: The Fighter

#56

Post by ryanmarsh »

james-watson wrote: post #43
ryanmarsh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We take care of our own as best we can, and people fall through the cracks This statement disgusts me. I struggled immensely transitioning from combat to civilian life. Nobody helped until years later I got lucky and someone referred me to a preacher who was also a therapist. The VA threw pills at myself and my brothers. Some of them are dead now. Some took their own lives on purpose, others on accident living dang…

Tell me, friend, how does a group of people enforce their rights within a country against those who wish to deny those rights? ISIS wants a global Islamic caliphate, along with a Caliph at its head and Sharia law. They want this in the US, Europe, and every other country on the planet. They do not negotiate, because they believe they carry out the will of an omnipotent deity. And most importantly, they will brutally…

Non-sequitur

Re: The Fighter

#57

Post by ryanmarsh »

rokosbasilisk wrote: post #51
mereWords wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History, history, history. Observed as an apparition conjured in a vacuum, ISIS really looks like such a beast, that no one could have created it or prevented it, right? It seems like such an alien organization, that it must have always existed, but we know that's not true. But let's suspend disbelief, cast aside rational thought, grab a gun and do something, because something like this requires direct action before…

To be fair the news media spent an enormous time and effort to legitimize the iraq war. The original "fake news" that really destroyed credibility.

Yah. That's the irony of the whole fake news thing.

Re: The Fighter

#58

Post by ryanmarsh »

omegant wrote: post #34
ryanmarsh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a good book comprising all of the gov't data on how veterans faired after WWII. They did collect a lot of data and I found their insights surprising and relevant to me. I apologize I cannot remember the books title. I happened across it in a library I can't visit anymore.

"On killing"?

No it had a much more formal sounding title and was published by the VA or DOD. It was mostly data tables and charts.

Re: The Fighter

#59

Post by wyager »

accountface wrote: post #52
wyager wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a strange conclusion to reach. Humanity is per-capita less violent than ever, despite probably the highest per-capita small arms density in history. My suspicion is that the techniques available for individuals to kill each other has little impact on their proclivity to kill each other. Of course, that says nothing about the impact of increasingly effective large-scale weapons (nuclear/biological/chem…

The major ongoing conflicts within The Middle East, Africa, and South America are as brutal as they are because of small arms and associated trade... specifically the communism-driven over-abundance of AK-47s

Why do you think they are any more brutal with AK-47s than they would be without small arms? We don't have a control group, but let's try to construct some comparisons.

All of the regions you mention have a long and storied history of brutal conquest and warfare that predate the invention of small arms. This is evidence against small arms being a causal factor.

The vast majority of the regime-caused deaths of the last hundred years are from starvation, not from combat. Again, evidence that small arms are not a prerequisite for mass suffering.

The country with the highest small arms concentration in the world by a factor of 50% is the US, which is also one of the richest countries in the world by any metric. This is evidence against small arms proliferation being a sufficient condition for conflict.

So while it's possible that small arms made the pre-existing conflicts in these regions worse, I don't see any strong evidence for it. If you take the Geneva perspective on things, it's a lot more humane to get shot than to e.g. die from an infected spear wound, so one can imagine how this modernization of warfare might even make it marginally less terrible. If you have any data that suggests that small arms definitively make these conflicts worse, I would like to hear it.

Re: The Fighter

#60

Post by AndrewKemendo »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #24
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #14

As an Iraq War veteran myself I'm pretty sick of these stories being what get headlines and pages of coverage about military members. People read these pieces and think it defines an entire generation of War Veterans. It doesn't. No hit on the authors, they all seem to be genuinely wanting to help/tell a compelling story - but I think it comes with some kind of fetish for war that they are trying to get in touch with…

> We take care of our own as best we can, and people fall through the cracks This statement disgusts me. I struggled immensely transitioning from combat to civilian life. Nobody helped until years later I got lucky and someone referred me to a preacher who was also a therapist. The VA threw pills at myself and my brothers. Some of them are dead now. Some took their own lives on purpose, others on accident living dang…

What exactly is "Disgusting" about it? Notice the as best we can... I'm speaking specifically about your teammates and CoC. I'm not talking about the VA, VSOs and the rest - we know their failures but I have to acknowledge that they are massively beneficial if you take advantage of them.

No one disputes that there are major challenges to coming back to society from war, especially with TBI or otherwise. So nobody is making light of that.

The point here however is that the TBI/PTSD serviceman shouldn't be what comes to mind when people think "War Veteran." The majority of war veterans are not broken by it. We need to take care of those who were, but they shouldn't define the rest of us and it doesn't do those with disabilities a service for that to be the narrative.

Happy to talk offline if you're still looking for help, send me a note.

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