@Sam-I-Am 131524 wrote:
That sucks. Sounds like home in the USA only on a smaller scale.
We learned from the best 🙂
Icelanders have always idolized the US since their occupation here back during the war. They were always so awesome and cool and magnificent and beautiful and smart and……. *vomits*.
We also have quite a few people here in Iceland that bear the quite ubiquitous surnames “Soldier’s son” and “Soldier’s daughter”, after a well-met encounter between an Icelandic lass and a brave US soldier 😀
@ArniVidar 131569 wrote:
We learned from the best 🙂
Icelanders have always idolized the US since their occupation here back during the war. They were always so awesome and cool and magnificent and beautiful and smart and……. *vomits*.
We also have quite a few people here in Iceland that bear the quite ubiquitous surnames “Soldier’s son” and “Soldier’s daughter”, after a well-met encounter between an Icelandic lass and a brave US soldier 😀
I hope you have the smarts to pull your heads out of your asses. If you do, please tell us how!
@ArniVidar 131569 wrote:
They were always so awesome and cool and magnificent and beautiful and smart and…….
Have the people who believe this actually met any real Americans?
@GrayCatLove 131582 wrote:
Have the people who believe this actually met any real Americans?
Only in the movies!
@Sam-I-Am 131579 wrote:
I hope you have the smarts to pull your heads out of your asses. If you do, please tell us how!
First we need to pull our heads out of YOUR asses. Then perhaps we can start removing them from ours :confused:
@GrayCatLove 131582 wrote:
Have the people who believe this actually met any real Americans?
Of course. Our country was flooded with The Brave and The Strong.
@ArniVidar 131599 wrote:
d with The Brave and The Strong.
How lucky. I’m jealous I don’t get to revel in the tales of how wonderful and special my people are.
@GrayCatLove 131602 wrote:
How lucky. I’m jealous I don’t get to revel in the tales of how wonderful and special my people are.
Well, if it’s any consolation our society was extremely impoverished at the time. People walked around in sheep-skin shoes and ate unrefrigerated food from a trough out back. Then came the US Airforce with their US stores. Their shiny boots, pressed collars, perfect bodies, smart uniforms and all that jive. Icelanders simply hadn’t experienced all this opulence before, and therefore almost deified the soldiers and the country they so proudly served.
And no small wonder, really. It is truly amazing to witness (whether it be in the media or the movies) the patriotism and sense of right that makes normal Americans decide to up and join the Army/Marines/Airforce to serve their country… and perhaps even die for their country. I can tell you right now.. not a single person in Iceland would die for their country.
@GrayCatLove 131582 wrote:
Have the people who believe this actually met any real Americans?
I have had the pleasure of my friend Jimmy Little Turtle. A fine friend and member of the Shawnee’s.
@ArniVidar 131611 wrote:
It is truly amazing to witness (whether it be in the media or the movies) the patriotism and sense of right that makes normal Americans decide to up and join the Army/Marines/Air force to serve their country… and perhaps even die for their country. I can tell you right now.. not a single person in Iceland would die for their country.
My dad served in world war II. I was flabbergasted to hear him say that the guys that ran to Canada to avoid the Viet Nam war (conflict) were right.
Not that I didn’t agree, but that he said it. (When I turned 18 troops were coming home)
@ArniVidar 131611 wrote:
And no small wonder, really. It is truly amazing to witness (whether it be in the media or the movies) the patriotism and sense of right that makes normal Americans decide to up and join the Army/Marines/Airforce to serve their country… and perhaps even die for their country. I can tell you right now.. not a single person in Iceland would die for their country.
You know, patriotism as an American, and as an Army brat, is really hard to explain. (Or I’m really slow. Either way, it’s hard.) There are few things in life that are really worth dying for knowing fully that your death is never really going to be appreciated in any deep or meaningful way, because you love and respect something so much. I feel that way about my country, my job, and my cat. There’s a deep, abiding sense of honor, as frustrated as I can get with my own country. I’ve had all the opportunities I’ve had, and am who I am, because of America and the US Army. Young people go to their deaths because “it’s the right thing.” We try to summarize it in cheesy bumper stickers, but until you really feel national pride, it’s inexplicable.
I’d die for (some of) my family, because I love them more than I could ever love myself, but the country? It’s just a rock in the sea. I could move someplace else and it would be just as much “home” if I had my family with me.
I guess it comes from living in a country apart from any wars and with no army. You need people to protect your country because someone is actually out there that wants to hurt you and take your country from you. Those people are, quite literally, guarding your life and the lives of everyone you hold dear.
Icelanders? Who’d be dumb enough to actually want to live here, and why bother killing any of us? More people live in one building complex in China than in the entire country of Iceland 😀
Dying for an idea is one of those things that sounds absolutely nuts when you say it. It’s not the physical land; it’s the concepts we’re rooted in. We lose our grasp on those every day, however, as Sampointed out with Vietnam.
I think it’s just put into you from birth if you’re American to “do the right thing.” It’s hard to live with yourself if you don’t. You’d defend your country if you had to, but you just wouldn’t like it.
@GrayCatLove 131622 wrote:
You’d defend your country if you had to, but you just wouldn’t like it.
WWI, WWII, Korea Yes! All the way. Viet Nam? not so much. Iraq I, yes. Iraq II, Afghanistan? Not so much. How do you decide which are worth fighting for?
@Sam-I-Am 131625 wrote:
WWI, WWII, Korea Yes! All the way. Viet Nam? not so much. Iraq I, yes. Iraq II, Afghanistan? Not so much. How do you decide which are worth fighting for?
Vietnam, I2, and Afghanistan were not about defending, but more about attacking things we don’t like. I can understand a patriotic person dodging a draft in those situations.
My dad was in Vietnam. He went because he felt obligated as an American, not because he agreed. We’re a lot alike in that way. I’ve had the opportunity to care for people I’d shoot if they were on my property. Sense of duty is a powerful drug.
@GrayCatLove 131626 wrote:
Vietnam, I2, and Afghanistan were not about defending, but more about attacking things we don’t like. I can understand a patriotic person dodging a draft in those situations.
My dad was in Vietnam. He went because he felt obligated as an American, not because he agreed. We’re a lot alike in that way. I’ve had the opportunity to care for people I’d shoot if they were on my property. Sense of duty is a powerful drug.
Amen!…..
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