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The Perfect President
brokeplex:
--- Quote from: injest on July 01, 2008, 08:14:02 pm ---I think that depends on what you call a hero....
There were a group of nurses captured on a Pacific island during WWII, interrred in a POW camp, protected one another, they carried one nurse when she couldn't walk on the march to the camp....I dont' remember all the details because it has been a while...but they were heros in every sense of the word.
--- End quote ---
how anyone could not call the nurses who served not only in combat areas of WWII but also in Korea, and Vietnam heroes is beyond me. of course combat nurses are heroes, or would that be heroines? the fact is civilians in war can and frequently are heroes, it isn't just the men in the front lines. heroic efforts produce heroes. one of the few things the old Soviet Union did that made sense is they would call anyone who produced or excelled beyond their expected capacity a hero, and frequently pinned a medal on them.
Artiste:
Women are serving in combat in the Canada armed forces in Afghanistan with 40 other countries's forces including the USA; so too are some muslims in Canada there too, as well as gay men and lesbians !!
Hope that I am right !
Clinton made a half decision by don't tell if your gay ? Maybe the next President of the USA will have more real guts ? Hillary would have ? McCain will maybe ?
May I ask ?
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: brokeplex on July 01, 2008, 10:01:45 pm ---so then by your logic we should diminish the accomplishments of a hero who served his country in combat because in the past women were not allowed in combat? personally I think in todays world that women are allowed in combat as I hear of women in the armed forces becoming casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. if they are casualties, then they are in combat.
--- End quote ---
No, I think that being a hero from the military is a great thing. It's also a rare thing and so far, as it's mostly a man's military, to have that criteria as desirable for a president immediately limits those who have the potential to be a good president and excludes a great many others who don't even have the opportunity to try to become a hero.
If you're in combat that makes you a combatant, but one could easily argue that the reason these women are casualties is that they weren't supposed to be nor trained to be combatants and thus got themselves and perhaps others injured/killed.
OK let's cut to the chase. I read the first few paragraphs of the article where it described women's roles in combat and immediately posted the article. It answered my and Shasta's question about women in combat. Then later I went back to read the entire article. That it turned out to be a critique of McCain was purely accidental.
If we want heroes as presidents, why does it particularly have to be military heroes? Why not firefighter heroes? Police heroes? 9/11 or other civilian heroes?
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: brokeplex on July 01, 2008, 10:06:09 pm ---how anyone could not call the nurses who served not only in combat areas of WWII but also in Korea, and Vietnam heroes is beyond me. of course combat nurses are heroes, or would that be heroines? the fact is civilians in war can and frequently are heroes, it isn't just the men in the front lines. heroic efforts produce heroes. one of the few things the old Soviet Union did that made sense is they would call anyone who produced or excelled beyond their expected capacity a hero, and frequently pinned a medal on them.
--- End quote ---
About the nurses, certainly. But to call the top grossing, quota-meeting team lead in a factory a 'hero' starts to cheapen the meaning of the word.
brokeplex:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on July 01, 2008, 10:15:01 pm ---No, I think that being a hero from the military is a great thing. It's also a rare thing and so far, as it's mostly a man's military, to have that criteria as desirable for a president immediately limits those who have the potential to be a good president and excludes a great many others who don't even have the opportunity to try to become a hero.
If you're in combat that makes you a combatant, but one could easily argue that the reason these women are casualties is that they weren't supposed to be nor trained to be combatants and thus got themselves and perhaps others injured/killed.
OK let's cut to the chase. I read the first few paragraphs of the article where it described women's roles in combat and immediately posted the article. It answered my and Shasta's question about women in combat. Then later I went back to read the entire article. That it turned out to be a critique of McCain was purely accidental.
If we want heroes as presidents, why does it particularly have to be military heroes? Why not firefighter heroes? Police heroes? 9/11 or other civilian heroes?
--- End quote ---
This year the presidential campaign is shining yet another light on yet another cultural fault line separating voters into groups. There are those that either don't care about McCain's military service or they chose to actively diminish it. And others for whom his performance in the Vietnam war places him into the hero status. I suspect whether or not McCain's military service is important or not is not debatable, as the divide is just too wide and the incomprehension too deep.
Back in 2004 I had to laugh out loud when I saw that pompous bore Kerry run out on the stage at his convention and salute the crowd and cry "Reporting for duty". The simplistic mindset of the consultants who sent John Kerry out to repeatedly opine that he "served in Vietnam" and then expected that would actually rebound to his favor on election day is again surfacing with consultants for Obama who send surrogates out like Weasely who attempt to diminish McCain's record. These consultants then and now, and the candidates for whom they toil, genuinely do not understand the other side of that divide. And the incomprehension seems to work in both directions.
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