The Marine Corps is going with the "our guys are really stupid" defense:
The Marines weren’t charged with any crime or disciplined because they didn’t understand the Nazi connotation and thought “SS” was short for “scout sniper”-- the elite Marine unit in which they serve, said Master Gunnery Sergeant Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.Bullshit.
“They didn’t know what the ‘SS’ stood for,” Oliva said. “They had no idea it actually connected them to a Nazi-related organization.”
This is an SS flag:
At least one of those clowns knew exactly what he was doing.
I'm daydreaming about our soldiers from WWII coming through a time warp and treating these guys the way they deserve to be treated.
ReplyDeleteI am with Nangleator on this.
ReplyDeleteThey knew exactly what was going on. The human memory is waaay too short. Seems the Military est. needs to include a little education in with it's training perhaps. Some people like ME find this shit really offenseive . We shouldn't be raising any more Wafen SS anywhere.
w3ski
As a former marine, agree completely that at least one of these guys knew what this symbol meant, and if one knew it wasn't too long before they all knew. The Corps is very image conscious, so this response seems rather timid. They should have stepped on these guys and come out as very displeased that any of their people would be so stupid.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing that I come away with is that, this proves that long term occupations breed nothing but contempt from both sides. This ain't anyway to run a railroad. Aren't we supposed to be the good guys?
Don't be silly, the S's are slanted the opposite way and the background is a different color, so of *course* it's not an SS flag(*).
ReplyDeleteMost of those kids probably couldn't even tell you what WW2 was, much less what the SS was. The only war they know anything about is the current War on Brown People Everywhere, which has been going on for all of their adult lives. That said, given neo-Nazi infiltration of the armed forces, *someone* knew that this was a modified SS symbol. My guess is that this someone smirked and kept his mouth shut and didn't spread it around exactly what he and his cohort pulled.
- Badtux the History Penguin
(*) That was snark, in case you thought I was serious.
Reading comments in the Marine Times for this story is scary. A lot of people seem to think the SS were just another bunch of "badass dudes". And they suggest this was not a one-off deal.
ReplyDeleteNice leadership there, USMC.
WTF? No one in this day and age is unaware what the SS was and stood for. No one.
ReplyDeleteThe picture was obviously cropped to remove the "KI" from the bottom flag.
ReplyDeleteThe Marine's Scout Snipers, have used the Runic SS for years. I've read back to Vietnam. Now people want to cry about it. They're doing their job, don't worry about it.
ReplyDelete