The last Medal of Honor winner from World War II, Hershel "Woody Williams of Quiet Dell, West Virginia, passed away yesterday at the age of 98. As a flame-thrower specialist, he brave enemy fire seven consecutive times to take out enemy pillboxes, covered by only four rifemen.

And yes, he was a Marine--at Iwo.
And yes, those were Marine riflemen.

"On February 23, 1945, five days into the battle, Williams was the only surviving Marine in his six-man demolition team, all the others having been killed or wounded. His division faced networks of mutually supporting Japanese pillboxes, reinforced with concrete and extremely hard to eliminate. Hindered by the black volcanic sand, American tanks were unable to destroy them. Desperate to break through, Woody’s company commander asked if he could use his flamethrower to knock out some of the pillboxes. “I’ll try,” Woody replied.

Williams later stated that he could never explain how, over the following four hours, he eliminated seven pillboxes with six different flamethrowers. Covered only by four Marine riflemen, Woody braved enemy fire again and again to prepare and employ his flamethrowers and demolition charges to devastating effect. Once, he jumped onto one of the pillboxes from the side and, shoving the nozzle of his seventy-pound flamethrower into an air vent pipe, incinerated everyone inside. Another time, he charged several bayonet-wielding Japanese soldiers and killed them with one burst of flame."

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/06/29/woody-williams-98-last-world-war-ii-medal-of-honor-recipient-passes-away-our-nation-has-lost-genuine-hero/

We need to always remember the sacrifice they made, the ww2 soldiers, America did a noble act, throughout history there haven't been many wars fought with the Victor's not turning everyone into slaves and stealing everything, the US armed forces are truly exceptional, and weve been exceptional in the world with everyone glad to have us around, sadly the rising generation aren't interested in learning from the past, they want to give more power to buerocrats and experiment more with supposed Equality instead of freedom. we've got weak leadership thats currently interested in gender and race instead of being tough and manly, and Putin has taken advantage of the situation.

Hey, the victors in the Civil War didn't turn everyone into slaves. In fact...... well, you know.

Yeah, we're not tough and manly like Putin, now a world pariah who has his military stuck axle-deep in eastern Ukraine. That's the ticket. That's real freedom.

What color is the sky on your planet?

Please don't malign Putin. He's more trustworthy than the US intelligence agencies and he's a genius.

You know that.

It was Maca who brought up Russia, not me.

Yes, because tough, manly men exchange love letters with Kim Jong Un.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-trump/we-fell-in-love-trump-swoons-over-letters-from-north-koreas-kim-idUSKCN1MA03Q

Guy, Putin's imagery of "tough and manly" troops is called "propaganda." Sorry, was that word too big for you? The imagery is bullshit meant to intimidate other armies while psyching up Russia's own troops. While good for psychological warfare (apologies for more use of big words), it does not always translate into actual military prowess.

As for the US military, Ed Wood Jr. was an avid crossdresser who later made the films "Glenn or Glenda?" "Bride of the Monster," and "Plan 9 from Outer Space," considered some of the worst movies ever made. He also served in the United States Marine Corps from 1942-1946. For contrast, Marion Morrison-sorry-John Wayne, the guy jingoistic man-children all idolize, chickened out of serving to make movies. You would know this if you actually studied history, Maca.

That "manliness" you adore, Maca, it's just an act.

I served after "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was repealed and some of the bravest, toughest, and smartest shipmates I served with were lesbians and bi women. Your claims are just claptrap from a nationalistic ASVAB-Waiver still playing Cowboy, Maca.

Meanwhile, Putin is leveling Ukraine, and China just launched a Blue-water state of the art aircraft carrier, their own architecture and not some repurposed Russian hull. It has twin electromagnetic (not pneumatic) catapults, which were invented by General Dynamics (for the US Navy, I presume). Incidentally, the Chinese now have the world's largest navy.

Elsewhere, the US Army has dropped the requirement for a high school diploma or equivalent because of insufficient recruitments. And Marine reenlistments are plummeting.

And all that happened in the 17 months since Joe Biden was elected?

Amazing!

What's amazing is that caffiend now non-sequiturs himself. His post title has nothing to do with its text. He makes it sound as if the Navy's instructional use of gender pronouns is *all* that they're doing, and that they're unable to perform that instruction and conduct threat assessment, maintain battle readiness, etc. at the same time. Unlike him, I'm confident in our armed forces' ability to multi-task.

Meanwhile (one of caffiend's best words), I don't remember him calling out his homie Tucker Carlson for being a Putin cheerleader and a feature on Russian state TV.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/02/23/tucker-carlson-putin-russia-ukraine/

https://www.businessinsider.com/tucker-carlson-us-wants-regime-change-moscow-payback-2016-election-2022-5

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/technology/russia-media-fox-news.html

https://www.thedailybeast.com/tucker-carlsons-pro-putin-bias-has-gone-too-far-kremlin-tv-says

Throw ketchup at the wall and see what sticks.

synonymous Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What's amazing is that caffiend now non-sequiturs
> himself. His post title has nothing to do with its
> text. He makes it sound as if the Navy's
> instructional use of gender pronouns is *all* that
> they're doing, and that they're unable to perform
> that instruction and conduct threat assessment,
> maintain battle readiness, etc. at the same time.
> Unlike him, I'm confident in our armed forces'
> ability to multi-task.
>

It's almost like people can learn more than one thing at once.

Source: Served and we got instruction on sexuality, condom use, consent, firefighting, and damage control all at Great Lakes.

What is with the outrage over pronouns? It gets annoying saying proper nouns all the time and calling someone by pronouns they prefer is just courtesy. It's not the end of the world and it's not rocket surgery either.

Side note: I will go to my grave claiming that the real thing that ruined the Navy was when ships began broadcasting sports into berthings. I was stationed on a carrier and could sleep through flight ops (I was in a berthing under the aircraft catapults. The sounds and shudders got kind of soothing after a while). Put on one football game and every guy in the berthing except me would scream at the top of their lungs all fucking night. Sleep deprivation and poor leadership (the petty officers all treated me like I was the problem for bringing it up instead of telling my shipmates to stop doing impressions of tortured howler monkeys during the game) resulted from it.

As for the electromagnetic catapults, I heard it was going to be a feature on the new Gerald Ford class carriers for the US Navy. Last I heard, their adoption was delayed due to technical troubles. Little lesson for aspiring engineers: when a machine is more complex, there are more things that can go wrong.

"Incidentally, the Chinese now have the world's largest navy."

It's not the size of the ship that matters, but how you use it.

The USN should have an exchange program with China. They could send us all of their LGBTQ sailors.

caffiend Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Incidentally, the Chinese now
> have the world's largest navy.

That's irrelevant. Having the largest number of ships does not imply the greatest naval strength anymore than Russia's having the second-largest military in the world means it could defeat Ukraine in a week or less.

Moreover, your quantification of Chinese power is itself arbitrary. China has the most vessels, but the US navy is larger if measured by tonnage and vastly more powerful if technology, training, and exercises are considered.

"Once, he jumped onto one of the pillboxes from the side and, shoving the nozzle of his seventy-pound flamethrower into an air vent pipe, incinerated everyone inside."

Fun jobs you get paid for, and they give you a medal.

Which reminds me, I should have a barbecue this weekend.

Oh, those good old days when everything was better because it was simpler.

https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/07/Screen-Shot-2022-06-30-at-7.56.16-PM.png?w=972&ssl=1

Let's hear it for "high-capacity ammo!"