At 23:41 25-5-01 -0400, John Giorgis wrote:
> >BTW, don't you ever grow tired of that "Americans who gave their lives"
> >rhetoric? I doubt many of them went to war to "give their lives"; they just
> >happened to be in the wrong place when the bullets started flying and the
> >bombs started dropping.
>
>No, "the Americans who gave their lives" rhetoric is entirely appropriate.
>
>Indeed, a great many Americans *did* volunteer - and a great many of them
>died liberating the Netherlands. Perhaps you've read the book "A Bridge
>Too Far"? An excellent read about the liberation of the Netherlands.
I haven't read the book, but I did see the movie. Does that count? :)
>For those people, the situation is crystal clear - they willingly gave
>their lives.
Crap. They went to free Europe from the Nazi's, not to get killed. None of
them went there with the intent of dying.
The only appropriate use of "willingly giving up your life" is when you
willingly sacrifice yourself to save others. And *that* I got drilled into
me for years, because a young American soldier by the name of Joe Mann has
hero status in the town I grew up in (he sacrificed himself to save the
rest of his platoon).
Really John, not every soldier how dies choose to "willingly give his
life". In the last few years, the Dutch military lost several people in
Bosnia. Some died when their base was shelled. One died because his car
drove over a land mine. Two died because of a traffic accident. None of
them willingly gave up their life -- not for their own country, not for the
Bosnians, not for anybody.
Jeroen
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