Andyrene: Clearly your military experience was not
negative enough that it turned you off to war.
In October 2001 I was at a dinner party with some
elderly Russian guys who had survived the battle
of Stalingrad. After General Paulus was captured,
they were forced on the offensive against the
Nazis. In the battles that followed, they were
captured, made to work as slave labor for the
Nazis during the retreat West, ended up in
Nordhausen complex next to the extermination camp
at Dora. Starved and beaten, bombed by the Allies,
they were eventually liberated by a detachment of
black GIs from Harlem. They lived in Displaced
Person's Camps in Europe for six years, and
emigrated to America. After settling in New York,
they were conscripted and fought in the Korean War.
The Afghanistan Invasion was looming. Their
solution to the conflict? The suggestion of these
not-so-new New Yorkers to the Taliban? The two
cents from these old guys who had seen countless
deaths and unimaginable suffering?
Line up a million troops with machineguns from the
north to the south of the country, transverse it,
killing everything who moved.
Granted it's old-style Soviet strategy, but the
sentiment was there. You don't let a bunch of
sunstruck quasireligious madmen violate your
country without consequences.
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