Leave our Military Alone

First it was Michelle Obama, with a captive audience of US Soldiers basically telling them that they are all fat and need to eat salads.
Don’t worry, you’ll be a veggie guy soon.” She quipped.
What?  They are our Warriors.  They need MEAT… They need PROTEIN.  Forget the Salads unless they ask for it and give them steaks with sides of bacon.   We need our military strong and scary ferocious.  Salads… WTF?  Does she think for a minute that anyone of those Soldiers would have been there if they had not been ordered to?

And now there is this “SS” Controversy.   To these Marines, the SS badge means Scout Sniper… and unless you are a Scout Sniper – Shut the hell up about it.  This is their right to be proud of the achievement of becoming one.  Unless you work at a Gun Shop and meet 543 Scout Snipers every day that is.  The Marine Scout Sniper Program is one of the US Military’s Elite groups.   I trained with some Marine Scout Snipers at “Long Range International” and let me tell you, they were really and truly the best shooters I have ever had the honor to spend time with.
Unless you are a part of it, you have no right to force your ignorant opinion about the matter.   Why do I say Ignorant?  Because the “SS” Badge has been used for decades and no one says crap about it.  Hot Rodders call it “Super Sport”.

30 thoughts on “Leave our Military Alone”

  1. Is the “one” cutting the military by 85000 to cover shortfalls in retention and recruting?

  2. Its just one more way to tear down the fabric of the country and weaken us as a nation. I’d like to see the Commandant come out and tell the media to STFU.

  3. Sig runes? Predates the NSDAP obviously, but it is now associated with them. I can see them making the excuse of it meaning “scout sniper” but I’m not actually buying it.

    The SS still has a mystique and white supremacists are definitely in the military. I would say a mix of misplaced WWII nostalgia but also some racist influence in the ranks.

    Members of their grandparents’ generation were cut down in Malmedy by assholes wearing that symbol.

  4. The dogs of war need to be kept on a short leash bc anyone who can cooly look down the barrel of his gun and kill a complete stranger, on command, without remorse or hesitation is a disturbed individual. Most animals kill out of necessity; but these guys? These guys volunteer to become the most efficient killers that they can be; they kill bc they enjoy it.

    The double lightning bolt insignia of the SS is the least of the issues. The biggest issue is that when you take away the take away the gun and military routine, for many of these guys, their lives stop making sense. To cope, they turn to drugs or they spend the rest of their lives around guns and around other guys like them so that they can continue to feel normal; meanwhile their families dont recognize them, dont understand why they dont want to talk about their military experiences or despise them for not having been around more often. Next thing you know, one hand is filled with their drug of choice and the other with a loaded pistol.

    1. You are wrong and must get your information from only popular media and movies. These guys are some of the most well adjusted people I’ve ever met. Spiritual, faithful… and without hate. You paint them with a very ugly and ignorant stereotype. You must be a Hollywood Producer. And you posted under a fictitious name with a fictitious email addy. What are you afraid of?
      They have a different job, and one that is misunderstood by those that don’t really know what they do. This is why Snipers have been historically hated even by their own forces.

    2. You have been watching too many bad Vietnam movies. So by your definition, the worse soldier/marine you are, the more well-adjusted you are. You are calling ALL elite units psychopathic drug addicts. Have you EVER met one in real life? No you haven’t. I have met plenty in my day and they were some of the most chill, laid back people i’ve met. I am a combat vet that served in Iraq. We don’t kill because we enjoy it. We kill out of loyalty, duty and love for our country and the guy next to you. THAT is why we can pull the trigger on a complete stranger. We recognize that we need to hone our skills to be able to it better, to be better able to defend the things we love. So when you see a group of soldiers, marines, airmen or sailors that are the best at what they do feel pride, pride in the fact that there are still people out there willing to sacrifice so much for a cause bigger than them. I know you are just a troll trying to get a rise out of us, but what I’ve said still stands. You are ignorant and honorless and need to stop basing all of your opinions off of a bad war movie you saw once.

    3. Dear me. That was a tidy little block of thick stereotypes delivered from a place of proud ignorance. Written with the stink of a bad pulp paperback as well.
      Your post and your position are so completely awful and pre-fabed that I find it strangely compelling; like a shamelessly stupid 1983 action movie watched under the influence of stale beer; so lame as to be ironically funny.
      I would say that your work was reminiscent of a sour FRONTLINE special report, but really, it’s just a few degrees too empty-headed even for that.
      Please. Tell me more about the military and elite operators.
      Tell me the tortured stories you’ve heard of lone, remorseless killers gunning down a whole village Zamundians with a belt-fed RPG fired from the hip and the vivid flash-backs that occur later with ominous music. Tell me about the disturbed delta-seel who hospitalized everyone in a strip club because they were looking at his girlfriend. I understand he later took over a vicious motorcycle gang and menaced a small town until one brave man took a stand against him.
      Serious stuff.
      I heard that one time, this Recon Ranger was eating at a small diner, and someone dropped a spoon, and he flipped out and killed everyone in the building!
      No. Wait. That was a ninja.
      No, no, no. One time, this old Red Beret I knew, started hallucinating in the town square, and they had to crash a dump truck into him to bring him down.
      Look. I have to go now. I’m starting a lone journey across an empty wasteland, running from my past. Along the way, I will have several flashbacks before taking on local badguys who usually wear denim vests and shoot at me with Uzi pistols. A pretty local nurse will fall in love with me, but I can’t stay. I am doomed to roam forever, a troubled loner with a terrible secret.

    4. I think everyone else has the ad hominem covored, so I’ll just throw out the crazy idea that maybe we love our country and freedom so much that we sweat daily training for the fight. When it’s time to go we say good bye to our families with tears in our eyes. We go not because we love the fight, but because we love our families and don’t want them to have to suffer battle as we have. I don’t know you, but I hope your children don’t have to see what I have seen, so even though you are to ignorant to see it, I will leave my family once again to do my part in insuring that your children live in peace and freedom. I’m guessing here, but based on your post I think it’s safe to assume that you don’t even realize that our freedom and way of life is threatened.

      ” If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my child may have peace” – Thomas Paine

  5. Ogre … someone really screwed the pooch here.

    I’m sure they picked SS runes to reflect being bad ass.

    But jeeze, what were they thinking?

  6. I have to say I was taken aback to see this symbol together with the US flag. I followed your link expecting to see something that didn’t look anything like the SS symbol and was just the letters “SS” being hyped by some anti-American assholes, but those were pretty obvious SS runes. The Camaro badge doesn’t resemble this in the slightest.

    Since I know nothing about these particular guys or what was going on in their minds, I’d like to think that this was just a coincidence and that they were totally unaware of the connection. Maybe all they know about Nazis is what they learned in public high schools, but ignorance is about the best excuse you can come up with. If I were the Commandant of the Marine Corps, though, I think I’d want a more detailed explanation; I wouldn’t have a good day if this landed on my desk.

    Stupidity like this makes the military look bad, and circling the wagons to deny the obvious just makes things worse. When people in the military or police do stupid things or prove not to be a credit to their organizations, they have to take responsibility for their actions. If not, the oaths they take are meaningless. It doesn’t really matter if some left wing asshole brought it up. The people who made the photo gave him the ammo!

  7. Is it possible that some of them didn’t know what the “SS” symbol meant? Sure. However, despite the Marine stereotype the scout snipers I’ve met have been intelligent, knowledgeable, and hyper-aware. There’s no doubt that men walked by that symbol every day knowing what it was. With family military tradition being what it is many of those young men probably have grandfathers who were shot at (or even killed by) men wearing that same symbol. And yes, even if you rotate something 5 degrees and swap navy blue for black it qualifies as recognizably the same.

    Yes, someone thought it looked cool and yes, it has been the symbol for a long time. However, now that everyone in the Corps knows what it is there’s no excuse for not changing it. After all, Marines are adaptable. I’m sure that they can find some other way to display the SS acronym that looks cool doesn’t hearken back to the Nazi elite.

    1. They don’t have “rations.” They have a mess hall where they have the option to eat whatever veggies they want. And the option to not eat at a mess hall.

      1. Well, then more training I guess. If there is an obesity problem in the military. Seems like that type of thing would take care of itself without Michelle Obama’s wisdom.

  8. Hell the flag of Japan is still the same flag that was used during WWII and obody is craping their pants when a Navy ship of a air force fighter form Japan comes around.

    1. There is a huge amount of controversy regarding the Japanese flag, both internationally and within Japan. Feelings were so strong following WWII that the current flag and national anthem weren’t officially adopted until 1999. To this day the act that officially established the flag is highly controversial. Many Japanese refuse to publicly display their flag and government orders have been necessary to make some institutions (including public schools) fly it.

  9. Ogre,

    9 1/2 times out of 10 you and I are in lock-step agreement, but on this one we’ll have to disagree.

    As a former 0311 marine (never was a scout sniper, just plain “amphibious leg”) I am appalled that Marines would use the double lightning bolt SS font/imagery in any form or fashion. I understand your sentiment and desire to protect/shield these warriors from the inevitable venom of the left, but I believe you’re wrong on this one.

    Like Kurt above, I followed your link to the picture at issue and expected to see an image other than this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_Schutzstaffel.svg.

    To my horror, however, it was the same one but with a navy blue field. ALL WRONG!!! Had they made it look like your link to the “Super Sport” I’m sure some anti-war hippie in dire need of a shower would still howl and I would have joined you in telling them to go pound sand. I can’t stand Hippies, never have, but you know what I hate more? f&%*ing Nazis and Marxists (no real difference, really)!!! Hippies annoy but they have yet to invade Poland or kill US Army prisoners (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malmedy_massacre). At worst, a hippie just gets your blood pressure up and his most deadly weapon is his lack of hygiene.

    Sadly, this is no accident. Someone is horribly misguided in their warrior zeal. Frankly, this should have been dealt with by platoon/company leadership. I can guarantee you that the platoon sergeant and/or platoon commander know exactly what this symbol means, and would have nipped it in the bud.

    Many years ago I had a buddy who was a WWII history buff and he went through a phase of what I’ll call mistaken hero/warrior worship after learning about the exploits and fighting spirit of the Waffen SS during the war. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good “Nazi killing communists” story just as much as the next red-blooded American boy, but my buddy took his misplaced admiration a step too far and proceeded to adorn his helmet cover with the double lightening bolt of the SS via a Sharpe pen. HUGE MISTAKE.

    That morning as we were preparing for an operational briefing we were mulling about drinking coffee when he strolls into the squad with his helmet hanging from his 782 gear/canteen. As he dons his helmet our company commander strolls up to us to “shoot the bull”. Our CO was a serious, firm, but approachable officer that, up until that moment, I had never heard his voice louder than announcements at formation. Well, this day Mt. St Helens was calm compared to his reaction. It took all of 2 seconds for the CO to see the “SS” on his helmet and all Hell broke loose. Let’s just say that his tirade had a killing radius of about 100 yards because the entire company heard him.

    The CO proceeded to go off on my buddy like a DI on a new “boot”. The CO proceeded to deliver, what seemed like a 30 minute, high decibel ass-chewing on the how vile the Nazis were/are and how the SS had behaved during the war. In reality it was about 3 minutes of fury but it felt longer. More importantly, I felt ashamed for my buddy because I knew that his intentions were anything but neo-Nazi worship. Sadly, it wasn’t a Lee Ermey “Full Metal Jacket”, laugh afterwards ass-chewing that we could all joke about later. It was a full-on embarrassment for everyone around. The CO was visibly upset and we all had that nasty feeling like we had stepped into a giant pile of excrement.

    The point of my long-winded post is simply this; it is not only bad form but it is wrong for ANY American fighting man to use that symbol no matter how ferociously the SS fought. Yes, it is absolutely ok to acknowledge the fighting abilities of our enemies, but it is quite another to adopt their symbols or unit patches/designations. It is beneath the American fighting man, and the US Marine in particular. Sadly, this blade cuts twice; first by making the finest warriors in human history look ignorant of history, and secondly, because it gives those Code Pink “types” and their sycophants in the media another opportunity to besmirch the Marine Corps as a bunch of knuckle-dragging “killbots”.

    So, I may not be a scout sniper, but I’m a former US Marine and this is not honorable to the Corps, the Constitution, or the United States.

    Semper Fi,
    W

  10. I get it, but it’s still wrong. Negative perceptions about OIF/OEF vets are a bit more mainstream than we would like to believe, and they don’t need encouragement.

  11. I’ve been in the Corps for over 15 years and the Scout Sniper SS symbol was being worn on hats, unit shirts, painted on rifles, and tatted on skin since way before I got here. As a boot I made the mistake of asking a Sergeant about his “Nazi symbol” on his arm. Let me tell you, he made it very clear that it had no racist or negative connotation for anyone except the enemy combatant that was unlucky enough to be his mark. You cant do anything without offending someone, I guess I better take off my crusader hat because I would hate to offend a Muslim, My ACOG better not have scripture on it, I shouldn’t wear the US flag because people have been murdered by people wearing it. While I’m at it ill sell my guns’ nay turn them in, because they offend people who have been victims of gun violence. You people make me sick, grow a backbone and support our Scout Snipers. They do so much with so little and ask for nothing. I dare any of you to walk into a SS Platoon barracks and tell them at you don’t approve of theirs racist logo.

    1. Daniel: I’ll do it in a heartbeat. If they beat my ass, so be it.

      Sig runes have no fucking place on a US soldier or Marine.

      The person who authorized this needs to be cashiered, if he is still serving.

    2. Was it Sig-Sig, or the Nazi “SS” symbol that the Sergeant had as a tattoo?

      A “Sig” is drawn with two vertical lines, and an inclined connecting bar. The trademark (literally – Heck designed it, then sold it to the SS) used by the SS had two inclined lines, and no connecting bar – the likes merely meet, forming the connection directly.

      If the lines are directly touching, and inlcined, then what’s being displayed is not “Sig-Sig,” it’s the trademark of the SS. And that’s what’s on that flag. It may have been intentional, or it may have been some misunderstanding by someone who’d heard that “Sig-Sig” was not a Nazi symbol, and took that to mean that the SS trademark was not, either, without realizing the important differences between the two.

      Having a hammer and a sickle hanging on the wall in your toolshed does not make you a communist. Displaying the specific overlapping hammer and sickel symbol used by the USSR, on the other hand…

      I have no doubt that some Scout Snipers have caught undeserved shit for displaying Sig runes. But that’s not what these particular Marines were doing; they were displaying a direct copy of the Nazi SS trademark. Regardless of whether it was intentional or not, it is either inexcusable worship of the Nazis, or inexcusable failure to do due diligence in choosing the artwork. Obviously, one is more severe than the other. But, in either case, it needs to be dealt with properly, and the difference betweel the “Sig” and the SS trademark needs to be explained publicly, so those who have the real “Sig-Sig” won’t suffer undue scorn, and those with the SS trademark will either correct the error, or be righteously scorned for supporting the Nazis, in the (hopefully-rare) cases where that is the case.

      1. Like I know spit about any of this, but it appears Flint is spot on with his observation.

        A “sig” is one thing but the Nazi SS symbol seems to be exactly what is displayed on the flag in the photo at Ogre’s link.

        Hell, there’s already a Wiki page on this topic:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sig_(rune)

        I haven’t earned the right to mouth off about this, but the marks on the flag in the photo appear to be an exact copy of the Nazi Schutzstaffel ensignia.

        I think I am bothered by this. I would never be anything but proud of the Marines who have earned the title Scout Sniper, but the symbology is disturbing. To me and others.

        Still, if I had to fight, I’d take any one of those guys to have my back in a heartbeat. I’m not PC, so I don’t think my feeling on this is related to anything but my gut reaction to what I have seen in a hundred war films.

        Y’all are the war fighters here, I’m just a guy with a keyboard. And as always, my opinion is worth exactly what you just paid for it.

      2. The swastica was also an ancient symbol, and one that was in use long before the Nazis coopted it.

        Sorry, but that logic ain’t going to clean the sig rune up any more than the swastica.

        This was still astoundingly bad judgement.

        1. I don’t think that actual Sig runes would cause that level of reaction. They just don’t look all that close to the Nazi SS trademark. Two Sig’s next to each other look like some angled lines, and are clearly runes – most folks would not immediately jump to “SS” when they saw that.

          The “SS” trademark is instantly recognizable for what it is, because it’s so different from the Sig rune.

          Swastikas, on the other hand, are quite similar, whether in their original use, or how the Nazis drew them.

  12. A Sig Rune wasn’t an “evil symbol” until the Nazis used it. It’s a good thing they didn’t wear a crescent moon or someone might think Islam is evil and that they want to kill Jews and Christians.

  13. Try explaining the origins of sig runes and the traditions of other MOSs in other services to hiring managers and corporate HR depts. Try explaining it to college and missions committees.

  14. Have to disagree. That is the symbol of the Nazi SS. What ever it was before, that is what it is now.

    The Marines could have chosen anything as their symbol. Choosing this shows poor judgment.

    But it is just a symbol, a symbol is a representation of a thing, and not the thing itself. I don’t believe this constitutes an endorsement of the Nazi SS on the part of the Scout Snipers.

    That being said, were I a Marine, I’d have a hell of a time showing up at the VA wearing that symbol…

    More importantly. The argument, if you are not an X you cannot criticize x’s is poor reasoning.

    If that were valid, then couldn’t you argue that you have no right to criticize the Nazi’s unless you are a Nazi?

    Your logic tree has fallen down 😛

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