Star Wars Quirks

Anyone who watched both Battle of Britain and Dunkirk understands which of the two is a better war movie

Very helpful, thank you guys!
I think I’m going to order the John Keegan and Erwin Rommel books.
Thanks again!

isn’t TROY a war movie? by the definitions provided?

Troy was made to sell tickets to women because Brad Pitt has his shirt off like 99% of the time. The Historical timeline and facts are sorta embellished and over hyped. I dont think it is a war movie because the story is mostly driven by characters and love interests.

@strategic:

Robert e lee!

Lee would be an awesome choice. I couldn’t pick him, because in the South his name is cherished in the highest degree.

@M36:

Speaking of Korea though, it is true that South Korea is an immensely prosperous nation, while North Korea languishes in poverty. South Korea became “Americanized” and now places that where once rice patties and dusty mountain roads are prosperous metropolises. ( I know this because my sister is serving in Korea with the Army engineers) Without our intervention, South Korea would have been conquered, and would be no better off than North Korea is under the heel of communism. The Korean conflict was one of our more noble military ventures.

Sure, military means money.  S. Vietnam had a huge jump in economy when we were there that mostly collapsed after we left.  It would happen no matter where we go.

However, the state of Korea today has less to do with them being dirty communists, and more with the disintegration of the USSR and a horrible famine during the 90’s.  They simply could not support themselves because their primary trading partner disappeared and was unable to supply what they needed, only to be subjected to a series of disastrous floods and drought.  Of course, it’s not helped by their military-oriented economic policy, but we do similar and still sustain ourselves (but we’ve got the goods).

But we took a number of casualties in Korea, was it worth that sacrifice of American lives? As a Marine I believe we are all expendable to accomplish our mission, but the call is yours. How many of us will you sacrifice to accomplish the objective? You should be willing to sacrifice all of us. That kind of resolve no longer exists in America.

Tough to say.  As an elite group of fighters, I wouldn’t send Marines in frivolously.  When it comes to Korea, we are exactly where we were after WW2 (except no skirmishes and such).  So did it do any good?  I guess so, primarily economically.  Are your lives worth promoting the economy of another country?  Are anyone’s?  Especially when that country actually competes with our own?

But here’s the thing: we installed an unpopular dictator in S. Korea that resigned.  A military coup followed that was just was tyrannical and ruthless.  It really goes unnoticed because the economy surged and we “saved” them from communism.  But I don’t think we accomplished all that much.

I’m not sure when or where you guys should be deployed.  Hopefully never, but that’s a pipe dream.

When my father was in his early 20s he enlisted into the Army during Vietnam.  He had a college degree, and the powers that be wanted him to become an officer but he declined preffering to go at it as a grunt.  He was newly married, and I had just been born when he made this decision.  He left shortly after and served his country for a year and was honorably discharged.

Sounds nice doesn’t it?  Ok, SPIN OFF

My father had no intrest in the military whatsoever, esp with the war going on.  He was contacted a lot by a recruiter who was trying to warn him that if he did not enlist he would be drafted eventualy.  My father would not join, and he was drafted.  On the day he got his draft notice he went to the recruiter begging him to let him enlist, because the recruiter said if he did enlist… he would not have to go to Vietnam.  The recruiter, knowing his situation being newly married and having a infant son “fudged” the date of my father’s enlistment to show that he had enlisted before he was drafted.  He was stationed in Germany, hating every second of it.  The ONLY reason he decided not to become an officer is because he detested the military so much.  Becoming an officer would have entailed him being in the military longer than what he had to.

My point to this, you can spin the hell out of this kind of thing.  Which is what I think some veterans do, not to mention any names cough cough Kerry Cough Cough (and others).

A derail on the topic, but I feel like saying it anyway.

My father is against the war in a big way, I’m not, and we argue about it some times.  The one argument HE can not use AT ALL is that Bush got preferential (sp?) treatment.  You can’t take the moral high ground after what happened to him.  My grandfather was not a senator, he was a janitor.

Bulge almost worked, actually it was a good surprise attack that the allies couldnt even think could happen.  ONce again the circumstances.

@Zooey72:

What happened that made Germany so strategic, the cold war. And you know that. It was also in our best intrest to have Germany rebuild its military to help with the Warsaw pact/Nato arms race

You think that was the reason why the US entered the war? AFAIK only Churchill was “wise” enough to look into the future and see this upcoming conflict. The US gov’t did not, thus it can not be the reason for invasion. (Remember that is what we are talking about)

You also know that democracy failed in Germany because of the stab in the back mentality of the German people.

I know, but you know that your point of the last post was "If the US had wanted democracy after WWI, you would have ‘gone in’ ". My answer was: there was no need for you to go in. I don’t argue what you wrote in this post, but this here does not really relate to your earier post.

3rd point. Have we destroyed Iraq the way we did Germany? Think before you knee jerk reaction of “yes” …

Think and remember this should not be a flame war, before you warn me of a knee jerk reaction, especially when you are not long enough a member here on the board to know that i often enough disapproved of this comparison. Germany was bleeded out by the war, Iraq was not. The German population suffered from a year long war, Iraq did not (they suffered from a year long trade-ban, but that is not the same than having bombs fall on your regularly).

Mien kamph… if you are going to study Nazi Germany you should read the autobiography of the man who ran it all. Some of the refrences I used was to show what a dumb a** Stalin was for thinking he could trust Hitler when the book clearly states that he was going to attack.

Like the “dumb” jews who stayed?
Anyway … the book was written in prison, before 1933. If you want to study the regime, then yes, it is interesting to compare what happened to what was proposed in the book. But, it is more important to study what really happened.