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Re: The 3D Gamble....
ClubNeon #307659 05/22/10 04:35 AM
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 Originally Posted By: ClubNeon
I sold my Digital Rebel. I'm a 30D now.


I'm not sure that has the same zip to it.

Re: The 3D Gamble....
CV #307681 05/22/10 05:05 AM
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Doesn't it mean he's a little top heavy now?


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Re: The 3D Gamble....
St_PatGuy #307725 05/22/10 07:36 AM
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\:D


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Re: The 3D Gamble....
ClubNeon #307790 05/22/10 08:57 PM
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 Originally Posted By: ClubNeon
I turned my glassed upside down when watching Avatar. It's pretty neat.


Speaking of Avatar...it was "OK" to borderline not good. For me it was

1) too granola'ish
2) enough with the "evil" Military types already.

CGI was impressive though.


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Re: The 3D Gamble....
Hansang #307795 05/22/10 09:11 PM
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If you look at all of James Cameron's movies you'll find out that technology is evil, unless it's being used to make said movie.


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Re: The 3D Gamble....
ClubNeon #307871 05/23/10 05:17 PM
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Well this is probably another can of worms I'm about to open, but personally I do think militaries, generally speaking, are a necessary evil. The good/evil perspective lies on which side of the fence you happen to be on. For instance when you watch the movie 'Hotel Rwanda' (based on actual events), most people will view the Hutu as one of the most evil militia's to ever walk the earth. However, if you were Hutu, the genocide would seem completely justified. A 'payback' if you will for the 200,000 Hutu's slaughtered by the Tutsi army in Burundi in 1972.

Of course that wasn't the first conflict between the two groups, their bloodshed dates back hundreds of years. The point though is that any military can be percieved as 'evil' by one group of people, while another group would back their general objective, as it suits their agenda. I served in the US AirForce during operation Desert Shield/Storm. And while I am one of the most non-prejudice people you will ever meet, the propaganda that they soaked us in, the 'hate-machine' that we were subject to brainwashed all of us. I had such little respect for the Iraqi people as a whole, that I would have had no problems killing any man, woman or child that I would have come across had I been on the front lines. They really do a fantastic job of turning soldiers into blood thirsty animals capable of doing things that normal people would never do.

And of course this is a necessity. In order to be sucessful in war, you need your soldiers to be ready to obey any command they are given. Think about it, if you were to pull a young man out of his economics class in college, point to a heavily fortified bunker sitting on top of a hill and say, "I need you to charge that machine gun nest", he would look at you and say, "fuck you, that's insane"!!! And of course he would be right, it is insane. But that's what soldiers are trained to do, things that ordinary citizens would consider 'insane'. Point to the same bunker and tell a US Marine to "charge that machine gun nest", and he'd be running towards imminent death before you got the last part of the sentence out of your mouth. Is that because US Marine's are crazy? Well some would say yes, but moreover, it's because they are trained to do things without question. Obey without taking into consideration morals, danger, concequences or anything else... just simply obey. It's no easy feat, but they accomplish it, and our military has proven to be one of the most effective militaries in the history of warfare. You don't want to know what goes on in any of our skirmishes on the front line. War is hell, there's nothing glamorous about it what-so-ever. And one of the side-effects of all the brainwashing that goes into creating a soldier is that when you wind a person up that tight and unleash them upon the enemy, sometimes they take things even further than you had intended. US soldiers have been found guilty of raping women... killing children... doing many of the same things they depicted the Hutu soldiers of doing in 'Hotel Rwanda'. If you've seen the movie 'In the Valley of Elah' (a story that closely follows the events that led to the killing of Richard T. Davis by his fellow soldiers), it gives an insight into the mind of soldiers who've been subjected to the hate-machine for so long, that human life in general means nothing to them, and neither does taking it. When a soldier can do something like that to his own commerade, imagine what he could do to the enemy whom he has even less respect for. That was one of the saddest movies I've ever seen, and when I Googled Richard T. Davis and found out about the true story, I was even more appauled. Nobody wants to think our brave soldiers are capable of doing such horrible, dispicable acts... but unfortunately some are. And it only takes one bad seed like that to give an entire group of people a bad name. Therefore it should come as no surprise that many of our enemies consider us 'evil'.

But I don't blame the people who put on that uniform to serve and protect their country. I don't think anyone joins the military so that they can rape women and kill children. It is an honorable thing to put your life on the line for your country. The intention is good when you enlist, the outcome of all that training, all the propaganda, all that hate they pump into you can have effects you never would have thought they could have on you. I can remember watching 'wing-tapes' in the pilots lounge on base. These pilots would come back from the war with video's from the airplane/helicopter they flew and play them for us. One video I remember very well was taken from an Apache helicopter that had snuck up on an Iraqi bunker in the middle of the night, created some sort of diversion to get the attention of the sleeping soldiers inside, and as they ran out of the bunker he opened fire on them with his M230 Chain Gun. It was so violent, their bodies were literally being cut in half. Arms, legs, heads... they were flying all over the place.

And I was LAUGHING!!! \:o

We all were, we were laughing, cheering, clapping... the only sadness we felt was that we weren't able to kill those guys ourselves. Looking back it was so disgusting the way we acted, the way we felt, the hatred that flowed out of our mouths on a daily basis. Those men were just like us, serving their country. They had families too... mothers, fathers, children, people who loved them. It was certainly nothing to laugh about, and I regret the way I reacted to the footage I witnessed.

I'm sure many of the Hutu soldiers who've aged 16 years now since the 1994 rebel attacks probably look back and regret some of the things they did or witnessed. When you're in that brainwashed state of mind you are capable of doing things you'd never imagine you could do. Things that haunt you when you come back to the real world and put things in better perspective. Many soldiers have problems later on in life because of war. It's not only the friends that they lost or the carnage that they witnessed. It's also regret from the things they did. Things that they thought at the time was 'justified' because the enemy was 'evil' and deserved what they got. But like Clint Eastwood said in 'Unforgiven'..... "we all got it comin kid". In the end we are all humans, just with different agenda's.

I'm just greatful I wasn't over there with a gun. Or I might have a lot more to regret than laughing at a bloody video.


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Re: The 3D Gamble....
Micah #307873 05/23/10 06:30 PM
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Micah, that just might be the most obscure derailment I've ever seen here....


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Re: The 3D Gamble....
MarkSJohnson #307880 05/23/10 08:40 PM
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Micah Offline OP
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I'm all about breaking new ground.


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Re: The 3D Gamble....
Micah #307902 05/24/10 03:28 AM
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Micah,
I would agree that the concept of military is a necessary evil. But as a general rule men in military are not evil. I can't speak for the Air Force, but I was an platoon leader in an Airborne outfit and we didn't pump our men full of hate/propaganda. But at the same time, we also conditioned men into accepting death as "part of the package of war." Kind of hard to explain in the context of Axiom forum! \:\)


I think the common misconception of civilians and non-combat military people is that "soldiers will comply with any order" and that's wrong. They are legally bound to DISOBEY unlawful orders.

We train our men to follow lawful orders because combat units don't have the luxury of time. That's what it really comes down to. We can't debate about "taking a hill." If you do, others who are depending on your unit will die.

Of course, with any group of human beings, you'll have murderers, rapists, and molesters. After all, military is just a sampling of people in a society with murderers...etc.

I just get tired of liberal depiction of military types who are rabid baby killers, molesters, maniacal killers. I guess that's my net/net message.


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Re: The 3D Gamble....
Hansang #307923 05/24/10 07:31 AM
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Yes please don't read into my paragraph that all soldiers become the exact same maniacle blood thirsty animal, or that all US soldiers commite the henous crimes I mentioned. Like I said it only takes a few bad apples in one huge military, running around being complete idiots, doing ungodly things, and suddenly the stories àre flying around between our enemies.

Yeah I would never lump everyone into one big group like that, so let me ephasis that every person is different and reacts differently to the traning supplied. I'd say its a very low percentage that really take the stuff they're trained to do and go totally overboard with it.

Still, it does happen, and those are they types of people that give all militaries a bad name. Because when thinking up stereo-types for the enemies military, people are not as likely to remember the average Joe military man and more likely to remember the extreme, out of control nutcase that was running around cutting kids heads off and bowling with them. Its what we would remember about Hutu army in Rwanda.

And yes thanks for clarifying the 'legal' aspect of a Marines duty to obey an order. Like I said in my example with the machine guns nest, in the military you have to give orders that will more than likely result in the person carrying out the orders to die in the process. But through thpose orders hopefully other lives will be spared. And so it takes a lot of training to prepare a civilian to carry out orders that will ultimately lead to their death.

It is a situation unique to the military. But then again so is handing someone a riffle and telling him to, "go kill as many guys in those uniforms as you can". Those orders all by themself, can change a person for the rest of their life.


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