apparently, jessi is going home on tue. is she:

1- a true american hero

or

2- something other than #1

3. all of the above. Text book example why women should not have to see combat. I heard they put that girl through hell and back.

I think she went through alot for her country. She can be admired and respected for serving her country. I don't think she's much more of a hero than anyone else who went over there, which is still saying alot. She went THROUGH more of an ordeal than most others, although many have given all that they had in service to the country.
All gave some, some gave all.

Gilly

http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/CyrusBillyRay/SomeGaveAlllyr.html

My friend in the Marines told me this...

Everyone on base is cracking jokes on her. No one believes she's a hero because she hasn't done anything but be taken captive. Hero's are the people who sacrificed their lives... not people who were taken prisoner and awarded a TV film and book contract. What she went through was traumatizing... but not deserving of a "hero" status. You asked for an oppinion, you got one.

well, i just read (after initial post) that she received both the purple heart and the bronze star this afternoon.

i guess there is no question.

How are Marines not as inclusive as Army?
If I am not mistaken... Marines are the ones who are sent off to the front line, and Army is there for peace keeping and governing.

True... probably a great deal of Marines say what the say because she in Army. However, every single friend of mine has mentioned this topic before and none of them believe she's a "hero".

For example, if I were to be kidnapped... and during the kidnapping I was shot and wounded, would I be considered a hero if I were to come out of the situation alive?

Would the special forces involved in the rescue operation and the Iraqi doctor who gave us the tip of where the prisoners were bieng held be considered the hero's of this situation?

The bottom line of what I am saying is... the word "hero" is being loosely thrown out there. "Hero" is a large title to have... and people have to do something to be considered that. In Jessica's case... she was taken prisoner!

hey- if the gov says its so, and gives up the ribbons:

surely it must be so !!!

i had an uncle killed in a B-24 in WWII, and the gov cant tell me squat about his crew or missions because they seem to have "lost" the records on my hero.

You got that right! There must be hundreds of unknown heros who faught for their country. How many are lying in unmarked graves (or were never buried) we'll never know.

How many bought or got their accolades through political connections/other, I'd hate to think.

But there sure are A LOT of good soldiers who are real genuine heros and deservadly got their recognition.

There will always be those who didn't deserve it and got a medal, and those who deserved a medal and were looked over.

dubba says, you go girl, i got your back!

Attached Thumbnails

 

I had a great-uncle who served in the Marines at either Guadacanal or Okinawa...he survived the war and even got the Congressional Medal of Honor, but was told to never discuss what he did during the war (this is why the family doesn't know which battle he was at)...he took that secret to the grave, and AFAIK, the government doesn't have any info either...

How am I offending people who have lost their loved ones in combat? I mentioned earlier that true hero's are the ones that did sacrifice their lives. I don't believe that is something that would offend someone?

Hero:

Someone that goes beyond their normal call of duty and places his/her life in jeopardy to save the lives of others. This does not apply to people that are payed to do a job that requires placing his/her life in jeopardy if their is such a job description. Doing a good job that you are payed to do is not being a hero.

I do not think she is a hero. She was enlisted in the armed forces by her own free will and is paid to do the job. She was captured by the enemy while doing her job - definitely not a hero.

I am a Viet Nam Vet. I guess I will throw in my 2 cents worth. Serving in a combat zone is 99% boredom and then 1% of intense life and death struggle. Remember Forest Gump? months of nothing and then the **** hit the fan. That is the way it was for me and many others as well. It depends on how prepared you are when the stuff starts happening. That maintenance unit was not ready. They not only became lost (maybe bad maps, maybe commander error, they were still where they shouldn't have been) but their weapons wouldn't fire. Had they been better trained/prepared, their rifles would have worked. I read where they blamed the problem on the grease they were using. The heat, the sand and the grease all contributed to the shells not feeding. We went through a similar problem with the M16 in Viet Nam. Why can't we learn from our past experience?
Since we don't know what really happened with Jessie, how can we know if she is a hero? For the record, a purple heart goes to anyone who is injured because of enemy action. A bronze star is a lower level award for action involving the enemy. Go to http://www.sftt.org/ for more army stuff from Col David Hackworth, a real tell it like it is soldier.
By the way, every medal comes with orders describing the action and behavior of the soldier getting the award.

She deserves the purple heart, but she ain't no hero. Those who have no chance to come home are the heroes. She is just a by-product of our media and military. We need to justify our war and creates bigger than life BS, since we never find WMD, OBL and Saddem. Bush uses this as a decoy to draw our attentions away. What a politician. Let the rest of our population buy into this hero crap some more.

__________________
95 R129
04 Infiniti G35.5 BS
10 X204

well, here we go, this isn't about war, this is pro-anti Bush stuff again. to me, anybody who can overcome basic self-preservation instinct and act sensibly in life thraetning situation is a hero.
I get the Bush-diversion comments- it's the Clintinistas getting back at anybody who dared to claim that bombing an aspirin factory in Sudan was a diversion from perjury and presidential BJs.
I still don't get how anybody can claim that the fact that one of several sources regarding 1% of intel (supplied by French, he he) means that Bush lied about reasons for war. We had 18 UN reports stating that Saddam was working on WMD, Israelis bombed a nuke reactor, two of Saddams sons in law were executed for showing that he had a nuke program (completely missed by the crack team of Hans Blix in 1997), thousands of Kurds were gassed in 1988, and Clinton bombed Iraq for two days straight in 1998 because he claimed that Iraq had WMDs. Not to mention pretty good intel showing a very sophisticate net of deception on part of Iraq. Saddam had a clear choice- tell us what happened to WMDs. He did not waiting for us to blink firsta as we always did under Clinton.

Well, Bush is no Clinton - instead of talking (for results see North Korea), he acted. that's it. He was already accused of not acting to prevent 9/11 (just heard that in 1998 Clinton overruled Tenet, who wanted to go after Osama) even though he inherited crippled CIA (remember the directive of not using sources accused of criminal activities??) and flawed intel only 6 month earlier. So he acted. Well you say that's wrong. So what would you do?
Oh, BTW- the Democrats voted for going after Saddam 2 MONTH BEFORE the State of the Union speach. So please, spare us the party BS about deception. Deception is on the part of democratic candidates who frantically search for an issue. By accident I went on Dean's website. WHAT A DWEEB!! he is Clinton cubed. I looked for a link to e-mail my opinion, but the only links I found were for on-line contributions. Apparently, this Democratic candidate is not interested in your opinions, only in your money. .

__________________
1985 190D 2.2l Sold-to Brother-in-law
1996 Mustang 3.8l -"thinks it's a sports car"
1988 Grand Wagoneer - Sold (good home)
1995 Grand Cherokee Ltd -"What was I thinking??!!"