Which members of Wordforge have actual combat experience in the military?

And the fact remains that a bunch of us have military service in our backgrounds, even if not actual combat duty.

Still the best dual inWF history

The biggest strike against Dayton's militarism isn't the fact that he didn't serve. It's that he's so eager to use the military without concern for casualties. It's a glaring lack of respect for the tool he'd like to wield.

Now most people who have served, especially if they did a combat tour, have a pretty strong sense of the consequences attached to Dayton's ideas. By default that gives them standing to contest what he says. But the rest of us have some standing too, so long as we have a background in common sense. Dayton has nothing that buys credibility other than a fairly wide facility for background details. But it's the failure to understand the value of human life that sets him off from the rest of us.

Oh please.

You REALLY think that I'm dismissive of the cost in human lives for the policies I've advocated?

Yes.

Yes.

I know...it's still a dick thing to do.

Gul, Dayton is a wannabe Sky/Fox News anchor.

@Dayton3: absofuckinglutely.

Stevie Wonder could see that was the intent of this thread but, as gul said, it doesn't matter.

When it comes to discussing military matters, someone with prior service and an extensive knowledge of military matters will trump Dayton every time, regardless of what he thinks.

You can develop an extensive knowledge of a subject without direct experience. You can learn about things the way most people ultimately do. Read lots of books from experts on the subject.

I agree Dayton, but since you haven't learned the value of a soldier's life, you are disqualified.

Dayton is our Megan Kelly.

I know and respect the value of human life gul.

But I think being extremely sentimental about it is not the way to achieve military/geopolitical objectives at a reasonable cost.

For example, say the U.S. had gone into Iraq in 2003 with a lot heavier hand and lost about ten times as many troops and killed 50,000 Iraqis. But......had squashed all opposition in Iraq so thoroughly that the prolonged Civil War and chaos did not happen?

That would've meant SAVING the lives of 3,000 American soldiers as well as at least 300,000 Iraqis which to me seems like a worthy exchange.

Perhaps part of it is that is how my dad viewed it. And he had ample combat experience (and was injured in combat). But he basically said "war is simply tool. Sometimes it is the best choice, sometimes the worst, most often somewhere in between".

IIRC, from Wordforge and TrekBBS in that past, this would be where someone insults my dad.

I'll start. Your dad was a Dayton.

He's Dayton Kitchen's the third so your partly right.

No one else in my immediate or extended family is named Dayton.

No problem! But you are right - in that case I was indeed

Again, no problem. Who can get mad at The Baba?

I think you missed the point of Iraq.

In that case, I declare my expertise on football to be at least the equal of yours. Probably greater.

Your father wears army boots.

Oh, wait...

I won't bother making the obvious joke on the sad, dreary Russian novel that passes for your sex life.

But military life, much like raising a child or riding a bicycle, is absolutely NOT something you can read about in a book and be an expert on. Most military folks never get to the front lines. Hell, in the Navy, a sailor spends and average of nine months of their career outside of their actual job for all kinds of crap, and the shitting on you get during boot camp never really goes away completely after you get to the fleet. That's the shit you don't read about, but that's the reality for most folks in the Navy.

You OTOH are a complete and total chickenshit that used school as an excuse to draft dodge from 'Nam, and when you had the change to join up after 9/11, you pulled a shit ton of excuses outta your ass not to go...and yet you have the audacisty to advice your students to do the shit you won't do, and I know one of them came back with his legs blown off.

The greatest insult I can think of to describe Dayton's dad, is that he fathered Dayton.

I'm pretty sure Dayton isn't anywhere near old enough to have been subject to the Vietnam draft.

I don't think he's that old.

Illegal use of apostrophe, ten yard penalty, repeat first down.

@Anna: if I'm not mistaken, Dayton is nowhere near old enough to have served in Vietnam. I was 4 when the last plane flew out, and I think he's only a few years older than me. To be honest, the only time when Dayton could theoretically have been in the armed forces for combat would have been the first Gulf war, but that was over before any gung ho enlistees would have completed training. Too young for Vietnam, too old for GWOT.

As I said above, the lack of service isn't Dayton's problem mostly. It becomes a problem only because he spouts such radical ideas.