AS and in the military...

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stop! thief!

Be careful. I might be honourably discharged from the navy as a seamen and you might be on the recieving end.

Ok, might as well get involved in this. I am bored and I do tend to disagree with ideas expressed by some people in this topic thingy.

I do think that our armed service men(and women) should be respected because they put their lives on the line for our nation and our safety to some extent. They have to face death and horror to protect our nation and therefore do deserve respect. I have never heard of a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker that has to do more or risk more than a soldier. I doubt that there is a butcher boot camp or that bakers would be the first to face death in a war. We need their services and we do not pay them enough for us to simply regard them as mercenaries who would be on the level of butcher, baker and candlestick maker therefore we should give them the non-monetary incentive of respect to help make up for the failure of the government to provide them with good pay and protection.

We need a standing army to defend ourselves because if a sudden attack occurs then we would be left undefended. Blitzkriegs can only be stopped by equipped soldiers; both hicks with rifles and very poorly trained infantry would not stand a chance. The standing army allows us to defend our land and go on the offensive for long enough for the draft to create a functional army. Also, a standing army is necessary for a nation to project its power. Teddy Roosevelt always said "speak softly and carry a big stick" meaning that power usually through military strength is necessary in international politics, which is true because nations are inherently self-serving as they are guided either by despots or self-serving politicians who want to carry the vote. You don't disrespect the nation with the powerful army (I mean in the form of broken treaties and such not mocking by the populace). The military really is meant to be used as a form of international politicking pawn, nations who don't use it as such only cripple themselves.

It is a good thing we have willing recruits, it means we have patriotism. It is a bad thing that we do not make the deal as beneficial for these people as it should be. They are risking THEIR LIVES and should be given good pay and benefits to reflect this. The military should be a respectable way to start your life(GI bill) or to live it(career soldier).

A Blitzgrieg? Buddy this is the 21st century its an obsolete military doctrine

And a manpower shortage, you think someone like sean being barred and this problem with manpower that 2+2 would come together really

The campaign begins here Sean for marine corp!

By the way for the record I do have quite a susbstantial family history in various militaries around the world and I actually do have quite a contraversal opinion and argument to make. But I do not think this board is the place to make it and quite frankly I would offend some of you people who have made your careers/life out of the military or take great pride in being weekend warriors. My opinion is clearly mean't for another time.

For those who are anti-military in this thread i would also advice you educate yourself on military doctrine, theory, history and tradition as there is much to learn from it. Through understanding it you can begin to see how it is intriguitly linked to the development and progress of mankind as well as its endeavour to destroy itself

perhaps you need to watch the news and read a little more history since you missed 2003's blitzgrieg against Iraq...
An improved design over what the Germans used. The Germans needed 2-4 weeks to over run a country that didn't expect the invasion while Coalition forces needed 2 weeks for the fall of Baghdad and another week for the rest of the country.

all modern NATO and Warsaw pact doctrines (and consequently our own today)are blizgrieg and not (let's say) trench warfare based. Bypass defenses and collapse the target with speed so to flank them. Worked for the Germans, works for all Western militaries of the day.

Maybe Blitzkrieg was not the best term but still, a blitz is a fast attack and fast attacks in general are not obsolete, in fact, I would think that fast attacks are the favored strategy nowadays.

Well, we do not have enough willing recruits. I do agree with that because we do have less manpower than the military needs to maintain itself.

Heinz Guderian's Blitzgrieg and modern combined arms tactics are related yes. But thats like saying the spring offensive conducted in 1918 by General Ludendorff is the same as invasion of Poland in 1939 and the low countries and france in 1940. Technology has moved on since that time period and modern warfare is more focused on air superiority. We now have helicopters, missiles, self guided rockets, smart weapons, tactical nuclear weapons, depleted uranium shells, GPS/orbital satellite technology, effective personal armour, infra-red etc etc etc This makes the tank a liability on the battlefield.

You should bear in mind that defensive strategy was also differnt in 1939 it was not really until battles such as Kursk/operation citadel and El Alhamein that blitzgrieg tactics were countered by deep defence strategies or in the case of the Arden forest in 1944 air superiority.

You use Iraq as an example. Im abit suprised by that because to be frank it was barely a war at all the republican guard if they had actually stood up against the invasion as a conventional force would have been totally slaughtered. The technology gap, air superiority etc i mean honestly do you think they had a fighting chance? No so they went off to conduct gurilliea warfare and im suprised your military leadership allowed them to gain such an advantage in this kind of conflict.

If were going to use examples here lets look at Israel and the IDF. 6 days war? Yom kippar war? Air superiority giving total PWNAGE to a mass tank assualt? Oh yes. If anything thats the closest there has been to a modern example.

I should also point out that the soviet military doctrines do differ from the west as they evolved differntly. The Red Army learned alot off the Germans from operation barbarossa and ensuing conflict till 1945, sadly with alot of blood and destruction in the process. But they did not copy the blizgrieg tactics of the germans word for wordd. They had their own traditions and their own ways of doing things and to be fair if Stalin wasn't so eager to knock off any general with a brain in the 1930's they would of had a far superior military to the wermacht as during the 30's they were pretty much one of the most advanced militaries pioneering paratroopers, vertical assualt doctrine and also had their own kind of tactics around tanks and armoured warfare that they had developed seperatly from germany. By the winer war it was a differnt story of course but thats what you get for having a paranoid power mad dellusional dictator.

The butcher, baker or candlestick maker do their trade for the same reason as soldiers sign up. Moola.If the people that join the army are just doing it for the good of the nation we should make it a volunteer army, as in working for free, and then see how many people join.

I know many people who have joined the army and i tried to join myself one time. Not many of them left promising jobs as lawyers in the city to join the grunts in war. The reason people join is usually because they have found little other meaningful employment and see it as a way to avoid sitting on the dole and living a life of poverty.

Like lot of other (usuall) working class young men, many join as a way to release their pent up anger and energy and/or get on the straight and narrow. Sure, some people join out of patriotism but highly patriotic people are often stupid as well. Stupidity shouldnt be respected. The one's with the brains use patriotic feelings as a means to send others to war.

Id like to point out im not against the existence of the military. Unfortunately it is needed, but i am against the way it and the people that are in it are used and discarded as a tool. How someone is as a person is what makes me decide whether they deserve respect, not what they work as.

I never said that these people were 100% patriotic, such a thing is ridiculous. I do think though that the military men are still underpaid for the service provided considering that it does often entail them going through a boot camp, leaving the nation and risking their lives. If they are doing it just for moolah then we aren't paying them enough anyway because we are not getting enough soldiers to meet our demand. A good army is needed and the armed forces do need to be a good enough option for people in order to have enough soldiers to meet our demand for soldiers. Joining the armed services is not necessarily for idiots either, one of my friends in my advanced math classes wants to join the Marines.

How a person is is a major thing to consider when it comes to respect, however, I tend to respect people that work in fields that are for the public good. These people are meant to be held to a higher standard and perform a service that is often underappreciated in terms of pay and such.

My use of the term "blitzkrieg" was more informal rather than formal and simply used in order to establish the idea of rapid dominance with minimal use of words and most clarity. I could have and perhaps should have shortened the term to blitz because that is the more common way to use the informal reference to blitzkrieg, as blitz is a term that is currently used in football and such. However, I wanted to use the term blitzkrieg despite some slight amount of inaccuracy simply because it gives a basic idea and is easily identified as a military strategy of rapid dominance. Technically Laz is correct in what he is saying, the attack against Iraq belongs to the tactic of Shock and Awe however, blitz is a word that is rooted more deeply in our vocabulary and can be understood more easily and rapidly by a casual onlooker without an extensive military background.

" the attack against Iraq belongs to the tactic of Shock and Awe"

Shock and Awe is strictly psychological warfare and does not describe the military's invasion. It was meant to convey a sense of hopelessness for the enemy (hence the propoganda papers dropped on soldiers, talking with Iraqi commanders) - to convince them and others that there was no chance for survival if they stood against Coalition forces. Once this stage was done, the actual miltiary operations began... The bombing that is commonly refered to as Shock and Awe would have happened with or without the psychological component - perhaps with less fan fare, but it would have happened nonetheless. It is a means of deception - if it so happenes to be true, then this is a detail.

well, okay. just try not to get any on my hair.

Awesomelyglorious, i agree, soldiers are underpayed and deserve better conditions for the job they are doing. Im not suggesting that they are all dumb either. I myself would personally never join up, unless to fight in a war i believe in.

I am suggesting that soldiers are putting their lives in the hands of people that wont lose sleep over their deaths. Everyone has their own decisions to make, obviously. I dont respect them more than anyone else though, they have chosen their trade and i judge people as individuals.

Id like to think i give everyone decent respect. People who do voluntary work (often in dangerous conditions in war-torn regions) have my respect and admiration. They are often out to create a better world for little or no personal fanancial gain.