Barack HUSSEIN Obama refuses to honor deceased American soldier

[Slargos]

Death by AIDS contracted from raping POW.

Death by vehicular accident when joyriding in a stolen hummer.

Death by not-so-friendly-fire while shooting up your own colleagues.

I'm sure I could make a list a hundred thousand kilometers long if I thought hard enough, and I would entitle it "Deaths In Service Lower Than Suicide Or My Treatise On Why Scipio Is A Fucktard But Don't Tell His Mother Though She Probably Already Knows"

[Fate]

I am OUTRAGED. McCain would never allow this to happen.

[Slargos]

I don't know why anyone would be surprised that the President doesn't write letters of condolence to the families of every soldier/sailor/airman/marine that dies while in federal service.  It would make the letters to those families whose soldiers die in combat pretty meaningless, since they would make up such a tiny fraction of the letters sent.  Death in combat is different than any other kind of in-service death, and should be treated differently.

I disagree.

The people in uniform are pieces of a greater whole and while some of them are going to die in combat, others will die of disease, accidents, suicides etc. One man may trip on a branch, and fall to break his neck during the march to the battle field while another bites the first bullet of the engagement, but both deaths are to be a statistically expected part of warfare and as such neither man's death is nobler or more deserving of a letter than the other's. They're both dead and both deaths are the cost of running an army.

I can see a distinction made for heroism, but for the simple task of getting oneself killed by enemy fire rather than by day-to-day tasks?

[Sheilbh]

I'm inclined to agree with grumbler, though this is a terribly difficult issue.  Very sad, though.

[Slargos]

I'm inclined to agree with grumbler, though this is a terribly difficult issue.  Very sad, though.

Please elaborate. I am genuinely interested in hearing the argument why combat deaths should be treated as more exclusive and worthwhile than other service deaths.

Edit: To make myself clear, I am curious whether your (and grumbler's aswell, of course) view in this is based on an emotional or rational foundation.

[Eddie Teach]

You forget:  Martinus also hates America, irrespective of its stance on faggot issues.

Hans hates America too, he's just more clever about it. 

[Sheilbh]

Please elaborate. I am genuinely interested in hearing the argument why combat deaths should be treated as more exclusive and worthwhile than other service deaths.

Well, in this country I think all families get a letter from the PM so it's different here.

I would be interested in hearing grumbler's thoughts, because mine really aren't at all developed.  My rough view would be that deaths in combat are necessarily deaths in the duty and service of their country; accidents and suicides, sad though they are, aren't necessarily like that.  Getting run over is not a death in service, even if you're a marine in Afghanistan.  If there's to be a different response then I would say that for that reason combat deaths should have a different one to non-combat deaths.

I'd be interested in reading the reasoning behind the Clinton policy, though.

[Slargos]

I would be interested in hearing grumbler's thoughts, because mine really aren't at all developed.  My rough view would be that deaths in combat are necessarily deaths in the duty and service of their country; accidents and suicides, sad though they are, aren't necessarily like that.  Getting run over is not a death in service, even if you're a marine in Afghanistan.

I would contend that they are.

If you run the tally on any army, you will find a certain number of casualties broken down into any number of categories but I dare say many (most?) of them will be more frequent as cause of death than they are in civilian life, especially for deployed personnel. How many opportunities for helicopter crash fatality do you expect the average airborne cavalryman would've been subject to if he hadn't joined the army? If I recall correctly it is thus that incidents of suicide are more common among soldiers than the general population as well. In this sense, I would argue "death by campaigning" is no different from "death by combat".

An argument COULD be made that anyone who dies in for instance an automotive accident could've just as easily been killed back home in a similar scenario, but I don't see the need to make such a distinction. They died while on campaign and though their death didn't serve a glorious purpose, any campaign expects to see a certain number of accidents and a certain number of deaths in those accidents which means every soldier joining the campaign is at-risk of vehicular death to a certain degree, just as he is at-risk of death by combat.

They all died because X unit was in Y location serving Z purpose. It doesn't, in my head, matter that some of them died in combat and others out of combat.

[Martinus]

Is the bulk of modern journalism focused on non-issues these days or is it just the Languish slant?

We have just spent over a week arguing about the depth of Obama's bow and now we discuss Obama writing letters. What's next? An outrage about the diarrhea of the Presidential puppy?

There are numerous issues Obama failed to tackle or approached in a wrong way - they are much more important than this ridiculous bullshit.

[grumbler]

Combat deaths are different from all other kinds of deaths because a person is safe from the legitimate use of lethal force unless they (a) break the law or (b) are sent into combat by their government.  The deaths of people in the latter category are uniquely the responsibility of the federal government; they cannot die in this way unless they agree (however reluctantly) to allow themselves to risk such death for the benefit of their own government. It is thus fitting that the government should uniquely recognize the sacrifice involved.

People can die in accidents, of self-inflicted wounds, disease, etc whether they are in the military or not.  Each death is a tragedy, but these deaths are not the same as combat deaths.

[Admiral Yi]

There are numerous issues Obama failed to tackle or approached in a wrong way - they are much more important than this ridiculous bullshit.

Uh, you do realize that Jaron's thread title was ironic, don't you?

[Ed Anger]

Is the bulk of modern journalism focused on non-issues these days or is it just the Languish slant?

We have just spent over a week arguing about the depth of Obama's bow and now we discuss Obama writing letters. What's next? An outrage about the diarrhea of the Presidential puppy?

There are numerous issues Obama failed to tackle or approached in a wrong way - they are much more important than this ridiculous bullshit.

Somebody got sand in their vagina.

[Eddie Teach]

There are numerous issues Obama failed to tackle

Translation: "Spend even more time talking about my pet issue instead of random stuff in the news."

[Martinus]

There are numerous issues Obama failed to tackle

Translation: "Spend even more time talking about my pet issue instead of random stuff in the news."

I was thinking about Afghanistan and Russia, actually. 

[Jaron]

There are numerous issues Obama failed to tackle

Translation: "Spend even more time talking about my pet issue instead of random stuff in the news."

I was thinking about Afghanistan and Russia, actually.

No one cares about you.