ABikerSailor
Diamond Member
She is wrong, just like you are. When you were in the Navy how many people came up to you and told you how a sailor or Marine helped their family at some point? How many came up told you a bad memory?
Depends on the country I was visiting and what their view of America was. In places where there were lots of Brits around, I generally never paid for drinks, because they were happy about what we'd done in WWII for them, and really liked Yanks.
However..........in other places like Italy or Greece or places in the ME, I wouldn't hear so much about the things that the military did right, I'd get asked by locals why our country was doing the things it was doing. Matter of fact, under Reagan and Bush Sr. I was a bit nervous walking around, because under Reagan USO's were getting bombed, and under Bush Sr., not many people overseas liked him.
Yeah..........the bad things about the country generally reflect back on us a LOT faster than the good that we've done, and this incident will reverberate for a while, even after the people here in the US have let it pass by.
There is a difference between not liking politics and respecting the American military. The people bombing USOs wouldn't like you if you went in and saved their entire family from a rampaging mob. Trying to appease them will only make things worse.
You might think that, but you're incorrect. People overseas don't have a way to make their feelings known, but when they see American military, the way they treat them is pretty much reflected in the politics of this and their country.
And...........fwiw............good acts like many that have been shown over and over tend to not leave much of a lasting impact. Anyone remember a CNN story back around 2006 where they were interviewing Marines over in Iraq? One of 'em was talking about handing out small amounts of cash to help get the people to trust them, he called the money "paper bullets" because it was helping to get the locals to stop supporting Taliban.
Unfortunately, according to that Marine in that interview, it's something that took 6 months to a year to do and could be wiped out by a stray bomb hitting the village.
Might wanna re-think your position on the US Military being respected world wide, it's just simply not true, because local politics DOES enter into it.