20 years of 'forever' wars have left a toll on U.S. veterans returning to the question: 'Did you kill?'

The business of military is war. If a nation is lucky, the threat of of war acts as a deterrent and war is not prosecuted. The military can then be tasked to perform peaceful mission of assistance.

But war is the business of killing. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous. And the killing is done by soldiers. So should we not discuss the 800lb gorilla in the room? Do soldiers think they are in the business of anything else?

Better you all play only CoD. Then you kill no one and no one kills you. The world isn’t of course that peaceful, I know. But if you don’t intentionally go there and don’t intentionally invite or welcome masses of killers to come, then in most cases you can just only do what I said at the beginning. That’s no option, right? You want to learn it the hard tour and kill, and be killed and return as mentally sick or disabled veterans, I know. So don’t cry but just bear those consequences you knew about right from the start of. all assignments.

There was no real need for America to go to war against Iraq and Afghanistan. Nothing was achieved.

Really? Where you there? No reason? No need? When were boots on the ground?

I and other Marines achieved great things and personal and professional level, done selflessly in our actions for families and children of the middle East including the Afghan people. Who have suffered under a radicalized view of the Koran and Islamic state rule and law that absolutely barbaric. Momentous tasks as well great deeds. were done all over the Middle East. Futures were brightened and built on the spilt blood including my own blood and those of my Marines and many (others). You go into war daily with a sense of duty honor knowing this day could be your last. But if I can help one person. One family. Take one player off the field. Full well knowing your working to make life better for someone somewhere who has never felt freedom once in their life. Even if costs you your life. I am going down doing what I love. Helping other on a humanitarian level. Every day. A chance to push back the oppression of radical Islamic terrorist's. I find your comment offensive and ill advised. Never boots on the ground in the middle eastern dust have you? That dust that smell haunts those burning oil rigs my haunt my dreams and sleep sometimes.

That biting dust. That smell. It wasn't for nothing.

If anyone who believes nothing good or beneficiary was achieved in any war fought by Nato, or her Allies and the Untied States in the middle east. I say to you. Give me 30 minutes of your time in my theater room and let me change your mind. What you may see. It may change the way you view the current climate.

Yes mistakes were made. But to say nothing good came out of the operations run in Afghanistan or any Middle Eastern war. I will say with a firm tone and voice of conviction with anyone eye to eye.

You are dead wrong! Dead wrong!

The United States Naval Academy taught me to be more than just a tool of mayhem and war and death on the ground or above. Honor, duty commitment. The furthering of Democracy and freedom. The ability to help those who can not help themselves.

The job of Armed forces is not just to fight wars and kill kill kill. Bullocks!

Semper Fi.

It has deep meaning.

Leadership traits identified by the Corps as the embodiment of a Marine are: justice, judgment, dependability, integrity, decisiveness, tact, initiative, endurance, bearing, unselfishness, courage, knowledge, loyalty and enthusiasm. NOT taking life on whim.

Sorry for scathing comment and typos, I am driving here and this (his) comment chaps my arse.

The Afghanistan war became a money pit,the US soldiers have access to all kind of technical assistant,from satellite and weather data to fight the war in Afghanistan,but lots of them hearts,were not in it, because,they were not fighting for America freedom,but for the freedom of the Afghanistan people,who chooses not to fight, for update news Google Al Jazeera Aghanistan Google Al Jazeera Aghanistan Resistance

There are those who drink the kool-aid with gusto and those into whom the kool-aid is forcibly instilled. THAT is the purpose of Boot Camp. Take a dumb young person and either enhance an innate desire to do harm or, more often, brutally suppress any impulses of 'conscience' which might interfere with 'taking orders' and taking the lives of others who are in exactly the same situation defending their own beliefs or people. The techniques are thousands of years old. When some return, they celebrate the greatness of their roles. For others, suppression of conscience fades and they can no longer live with themselves and the indelible images of their own behaviors which haunt them and they choose not to live in one way or another or live in unending regret. Most who join, or are forcibly drafted, into the military never have to face the terribleness of 'combat', of being told to kill someone who has been told to kill you. Knowing someone wants to kill you and you are in that position, given no choice but to defend your own life, justification is easy to muster. But the people who know most about the Human disease that is War all say to "respect one's enemy" because they are wise enough to know that one's greatest enemy are those who have caused you and your opponent to have to face that awful reality of survival...“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.” - Sun Su It is only the incompetents who force one to kill another and, if one has anger afterward, it is only toward those who have forced one to kill that such anger should be directed. But pride in such killing can only mark the person who suffers it as more damaged than anyone.

What did America get from the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq? They killed two people they were hunting for (Bin Laden and Saddam).

But they murdered hundreds of thousands more to get to those two people. And spent trillions.

Go America!

I and other Marines achieved great things and personal and professional level, done selflessly in our actions for families and children of the middle East including the Afghan people.

Yes, I'm sure the Afghans appreciated having their weddings and hospitals bombed, while spending their time constantly worrying about hellfire (missiles) raining down on them from the sky at any given time.

It's such American Exceptionalism to think you did "good work". It allows Americans to cast off all blame and responsibility, because they're American, and they're Exceptional, so how could they ever do something wrong?!

There was no real need for America to go to war against Iraq and Afghanistan. Nothing was achieved.

The defense industry has a poker face, putting out the mantra that this is serious business, young men in harms way, kill them over there before the kill us here, reform these countries into democracies, win the hearts and minds of the people, etc., but they're smiling inside.

They got the American people to not even think about the fact that they got $11 trillion (trillion, with a t) in taxpayer money since 9/11.

But they murdered hundreds of thousands more to get to those two people. And spent trillions.

Go America!

China, Russia, and North Korea killed more people and their own people which is reprehensible.

Yes, I'm sure the Afghans appreciated having their weddings and hospitals bombed, while spending their time constantly worrying about hellfire (missiles) raining down on them from the sky at any given time.

Sadly, they appreciate it less that Biden left them at an uncertain fate with the Taliban

Bass4funk,the people of Afghanistan reap what they sowed,by not coming together as nation of one,in America it do not matter, whether their is a consensus of American,our institution bind American together as a nation

When a country goes to war, each and every one of its citizens shares the responsibility for each and every death or casualty inflicted on or by either side.

But they murdered hundreds of thousands more to get to those two people. And spent trillions.

Go America!

China, Russia, and North Korea killed more people and their own people which is reprehensible.

I agree with you that America's reprehensible brutalities place it in a position where the bar against which to compare America is the group of China, Russia and North Korea. That seems correct. And you're correct, of the countries who have done reprehensible things, America has been less bad then the rest of them, and the murders perpetuated under their running rampant on the middle east are less than those other countries.

33,000 CHILDREN killed and maimed, and NOT by the Taliban, not counting many, many thousands of innocent "collateral" (read: who cares?) adults such as the large family wiped out in a final (known) atrocity near the airport. Many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis of all ages. An unknown but enormous number of Vietnamese and Cambodians killed, maimed, and poisoned unto generations. Conscienceless aerial 'saturation' bombing of helpless civilians in WWII. Countless numbers of simple farmers in the 'Banana Wars' of Corporate domination of Central America. An ENTIRE CONTINENT OF NATIVE PEOPLES in North America. America, collectively, has more blood on its hands than even the soulless British Empire which is, indeed, a feat. China, Russia, Bukhan combined are just a minor footnote in a record of Human slaughter that continues from the first White foot to land on the North American continent to this very day. And we will kill more in Afghanistan as partners to those whose ownership of Afghanistan never was interrupted as we saw in their almost instant reclamation of their country. The American elite is, and always has been, a monster unlike any other on this planet. It's complete demise would elevate Mankind beyond any other single event imaginable.

Peter NeilToday  12:16 am JST

There was no real need for America to go to war against Iraq and Afghanistan. Nothing was achieved.

The defense industry has a poker face, putting out the mantra that this is serious business, young men in harms way, kill them over there before the kill us here, reform these countries into democracies, win the hearts and minds of the people, etc., but they're smiling inside.

They got the American people to not even think about the fact that they got $11 trillion (trillion, with a t) in taxpayer money since 9/11.

And this 'nation-building' biz has never worked either. Somalia waa a failure, Haiti in 1994 was a whitewashed urban guerilla war, Afghanistan was broadvast on TV like a football game, wars with Iraq settled nothing and made things only worse. Lives were lost, more were damaged and as rotten Saddam Hussein was - getting rid of him left a void that led to the rise of the even worse ISIS. And now Afghanistan is disunited, let the Taliban and ISIS-K duke it out. it's all been pointless, bin Laden is dead. It's past time to exit.

That is what I don't trust and although I never will, I'd like to know the real reasons behind America invading those countries in particular.

Corporate GREED. In ALL cases regardless of the stated 'reasons'. Even the U.S. Civil War was NOT about "freeing the slaves" but about the rising economic and political power of a new 'elite' in the South which was in competition with the East Coast psychopathic elite of the North. No dominant clique in any country can tolerate a rising competitor. Can ANYONE REALLY BELIEVE that the Big Money of the North pushing war gave a hoot about the slaves? "Free the Slaves", upon which their entire economy was built, was to the South as "Blockade oil to the U.S." would be to the U.S. today, and what it was to Japan when the scumbag Roosevelt blocked all oil shipments to Japan in JUNE of 1941 to goad Japan into providing a reason for a pacifistic U.S. (see: the horrors of WWI lass than a generation previous) to be convinced to, once again, enter a war in Europe. ALL wars are about economics and power to steal what the other group has. Humans are not that complicated. Just get yourself a good 'slogan' and pummel the minds of the minions with it and, Voila!, WE can be turned into murderous swarms. "Remember the Maine!", "Over there!" "Day of Infamy!", "Communist Dominoes"!, "9/11!". Remember, it's 'political science' with many thousands of years of history in its development. When 'Der Leaders" begin talking altruistically or talking of fear, lock your children away somewhere because otherwise they will taken to become bullet sponges for 'democracy!' "What a piece of work is Man..." - Bill

uuh-huh!

That is what I don't trust and although I never will, I'd like to know the real reasons behind America invading those countries in particular.

Corporate GREED. In ALL cases regardless of the stated 'reasons'. Even the U.S. Civil War was NOT about "freeing the slaves" but about the rising economic and political power of a new 'elite' in the South which was in competition with the East Coast psychopathic elite of the North. No dominant clique in any country can tolerate a rising competitor.

Can ANYONE REALLY BELIEVE that the Big Money of the North pushing war gave a hoot about the slaves? "Free the Slaves", upon which their entire economy was built, was to the South as "Blockade oil to the U.S." would be to the U.S. today, and what it was to Japan when the scumbag Roosevelt blocked all oil shipments to Japan in JUNE of 1941 to goad Japan into providing a reason for a pacifistic U.S. (see: the horrors of WWI lass than a generation previous) to be convinced to, once again, enter a war in Europe.

ALL wars are about economics and power to steal what the other group has. Humans are not that complicated. Just get yourself a good 'slogan' and pummel the minds of the minions with it and, Voila!, WE can be turned into murderous swarms. "Remember the Maine!", "Over there!" "Day of Infamy!", "Communist Dominoes"!, "9/11!". Remember, it's 'political science' with many thousands of years of history in its development.

When 'Der Leaders" begin talking altruistically or talking of fear, lock your children away somewhere because otherwise they will taken to become bullet sponges for 'democracy!' "What a piece of work is Man..." - Bill

uuh-huh!

Afghanistan was harboring terrorists who had attacked the US and were planning more attacks against the West, so several countries took action to protect their citizens. And of course there were deaths in the war. Completely not surprising.