In yet another public-relations coup for the US military, a very damaging photo is making the cyber-rounds, only weeks after the photo documenting some of our fun-loving boys pissing on the corpses of Afghan resistance fighters (AKA "Taliban"). (And, please, no more about the stress of combat as an excuse. A group-piss is hardly a knee-jerk reaction to stress. It took at least minimal planning, as well as group cooperation. It was also incredibly stupid. It invites reprisals against American military personnel - or Afghans who might be perceived as supporting them - by enraged Taliban fighters, whose traditional culture of warfare already included a no-holds-barred approach, including torture and mutilation of corpses - as Soviet soldiers posted to Afghanistan during the USSR's occupation there in the 1980s found out.)
This photo is even less arguably impromptu. It's a nicely planned and posed composition featuring Marine scout snipers in front of a US flag. Directly beneath it is a flag bearing the letters "SS" in a script that matches that used by the Nazi SS during World War II.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I checked out (at the link above), along with the report, the poll asking readers their opinion of whether it was OK for these Marines to do this. I voted "No; it was inappropriate", then clicked to see the results so far, to find that an equal number of voters indicated "Yes, it was OK" because the Marines might have been unaware of the symbol's associations. As someone suggested, perhaps they even thought it was cool that SS here could be interpreted as "scout sniper."
Are they kidding? Then, how did they happen to find this specific symbol - and make this flag - in the first place?! Obviously, some one (or more) of them had seen it before, and knew that it stood for the concept of "killer," at the very least. At worst (or at least worse), they might have known that it was a symbol often adopted to express white Aryan supremacy (as in this tattoo on the back of an Indiana Aryan supremacist)
That they wouldn't have known that this symbol wasn't, in fact, that of the most brutal arm of the Nazi war machine (and of the killing machine at Auschwitz and Dachau) beggars belief.
Yet, I remember all too well my shock at encountering the report of an incident at the Houston airport several years ago, when someone approached the public-address person and asked him/her to please page Herman Goering, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, and Adolph Eichmann - and, cluelessly, s/he did.
And that was followed by my even greater shock when I relayed this account, and mentioned these names - while projecting powerpoint images of their faces - before a classroom of about 40 students, only to see several faces looking on quizzically, and then hurriedly writing down these names.
Does that mean we ought to give these Marines, therefore, a pass? I say, NO.
But it does tell me (or, better, remind me; I cannot be surprised) that something has gone horribly wrong in how and what we teach our young people about history, and about how important it is that we never, ever forget some things - like what the SS, and the Nazis, were all about.
7 comments:
Try to be educated its a Marine symbol sybolizing Scout Snipers.
Actually, I'm educated enough to know that the Nazi SS used this symbol before the US Marines ever came up with it. If it's a Marine symbol, that's obviously because they borrowed it from the Nazi SS - which is precisely the issue here.
it is most defenatly NOT a marine corps symbol and was NEVER at any momment borrowed nor adopted, never has been never will for the same reason that it is in fact what the NAZIs used.
Not saying that the SS symbol was ever adopted officially by the Marine Corps, and I cannot imagine that it ever would be. But the pictures here don't lie: on this particular occasion, these particular Marines, out of ignorance, stupidity, or racism, intentionally chose to be photographed against a background featuring the Nazi SS symbol. If you're denying that, then you're part of the problem.
im a marine, recently returned from afghanistan. let me tell you, john robertson, you are part of the problem. a liberal, hippie mindset is the problem with AMERICA today. these men are scout snipers. hard, and at times cold blooded, to the core. this is what America asks of them, of us, otherwise there would be no men on patrol in those deserts. but the reality is that there are ordinary men, doing extraordinary things. i see this image as a triumph over the original SS. that their symbol has been overthrown and now stands for a better, free purpose. "S"cout "S"nipers. stop being judgemental of the men who provide you're freedom, for they protect the very words you speak on this site.
I salute your service, even if you prefer to remain anonymous. But by your logic, a Marine unit could adopt the swastika and then say that they were adapting/transforming it for a higher purpose.
And while I'm thinking of it - again, I honor your service and thank you for it. But you were not protecting my "freedom", because my freedom was never threatened by the people you were sent to kill.
Holy shit... Educate yourselves? This was NEVER a Marine symbol meaning "scout sniper". I was a Marine, and that symbol was only mentioned as a part of history as to what we were fighting against.
It sounds like the guy who said "educate yourselves" needs to follow his own advice. And the guy name-calling, claiming to be a Marine, needs to get off the bandwagon of the large group of people who don't know shit, and just wants to say "if you're in a uniform, you're right" because they're afraid to say otherwise.
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