Marines Pose with Nazi SS Flag?

[Matt308]

The U.S. Marine Corps once again did damage control after a photograph surfaced of a sniper team in Afghanistan posing in front of a flag with a logo resembling that of the notorious Nazi SS — a special unit that murdered millions of Jews, gypsies and others.

The Corps said in a statement that using the symbol was not acceptable, but the Marines in the photograph taken in September 2010 will not be disciplined because investigators determined it was a naive mistake.

The Marines believed the SS symbol was meant to represent sniper scouts and never intended to be associated with a racist organization, said Maj. Gabrielle Chapin, a spokeswoman at Camp Pendleton, where the Marines were based.

"I don't believe that the Marines involved would have ever used any type of symbol associated the Nazi Germany military criminal organization that committed mass atrocities in WWII," Chapin said. "It's not within who we are as Marines."

The Corps has used the incident as a training tool to talk to troops about what symbols are acceptable after it became aware of the photograph last November, Chapin said.

[Source: MSN.com]

 

[mikewint]

Matt, that is typical of what I see in the schools that I present in, i.e. very little knowlege or grasp of history. Hard to believe that anyone could look at that symbol and think it stood for Sniper Scouts is hard to fathom. Then again I had 7 classes of high school Jrs Srs who had no idea who Alexander Hamilton was except for one young lad who thought he was one of the old-tyme US Presidents. One or two thought that the North had won WWI

 

[pbfoot]

Dumb kids

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Yeah I find it hard to believe anyone could think it means anything differently. Pretty stupid if you ask me.

 

[Thomas Clarke]

The twin Sigs are not unfamiliar to US Marines. They are trained to kill. So were the SS. Sepp Dietrich has long been portrayed as a good soldier doing his duty. These Marines have always known that their flag represented the Final Solution to the extermination of the Afghan enemy. That the Marine Corps continues to support an American Military Policy that emulates a criminal organization does not speak to traditional Allied values, but does kill a lot of people. Sepp would have been happy.

 

[evangilder]

Man, talk about fitting the stereotype of "dumb effin' Marines". Mass media and the ease at which photos and video can be shared has made it very dangerous for our troops. Anyone who has ever worn a uniform knows that soldiers sometimes do stupid (or politically incorrect) things. It's when they photograph or film it, it becomes a nightmare for the Public Affairs Officer.

Thomas, you are entitled to your opinion, but political commentary is not tolerated around here. Just a heads up.

 

[A4K]

Yeah I find it hard to believe anyone could think it means anything differently. Pretty stupid if you ask me.

Agree completely Chris.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

The twin Sigs are not unfamiliar to US Marines. They are trained to kill. So were the SS. Sepp Dietrich has long been portrayed as a good soldier doing his duty. These Marines have always known that their flag represented the Final Solution to the extermination of the Afghan enemy. That the Marine Corps continues to support an American Military Policy that emulates a criminal organization does not speak to traditional Allied values, but does kill a lot of people. Sepp would have been happy.

Does not make it any better. I served in the US military and was trained to kill, I still would not use such a symbol. Why would anyone?

 

[michaelmaltby]

"... These Marines have always known that their flag represented the Final Solution to the extermination of the Afghan enemy."

WTF .....

MM

 

[A4K]

No offence intended, but this is the typical idealistic sort of BS expression foreigners expect of the US forces.

 

[evangilder]

Evan, you raise a good point. With the political climate around the world the way it is, this kind of thing reinforces negative stereotypes of Americans/American troops, etc. If most Americans don't believe no one in the squad knew that symbols history, clearly the rest of the world feels the same. It was definitely a poor choice of fonts, at the very least.

 

[A4K]

Exactly, Eric.

 

[pbfoot]

The twin Sigs are not unfamiliar to US Marines. They are trained to kill. So were the SS. Sepp Dietrich has long been portrayed as a good soldier doing his duty. These Marines have always known that their flag represented the Final Solution to the extermination of the Afghan enemy. That the Marine Corps continues to support an American Military Policy that emulates a criminal organization does not speak to traditional Allied values, but does kill a lot of people. Sepp would have been happy.

I thought the Afghans were our allies and that Al Quaeda and to a lesser extent the Taliban were the enemy , I think you should do a crash course on current events. .

 

[mikewint]

Not trying to be political but it comes back to what has happened in and to our schools. US schools send a very clear message to students: Don't worry about passing just show up and breath. Public schools by and large have no retension policy especially in the Jr-highs. I talk to many freshmen/soph. They openly brag that they failed every subject but were still passed on to high school. Happy passing students make happy parents and sadly no one really cares if they actually have learned anything. Students are simply not responsible for any part of their education. Responsibility has shifted to the teachers. They are at fault is students do not pass, i.e. everyone passes. Even sadder is that Colleges love it. 80% of incoming college freshmen are placed in remedial classes. They are charged full tuition but receive no college credit. The US is 30th in the world in terms of education. So I can easily believe that these guys REALLY thought it stood for Sniper Scouts

 

[stona]

Dumb? Didn't know what it stood for? Maybe,or maybe we are making excuses. Noone has asked the question what were they doing with those symbols if they DID know their origin. They are pretty familiar to every neo-facist or white supremacist anywhere in the world. That,for me,is a far more worrying question.
The U.S. military is not alone in this,there were problems a few years ago in the Bundeswehr and the young Germans involved could not claim ignorance.

Steve

 

[michaelmaltby]

This is PC BS - the whole story. End of story. The Waffen SS was elite - like their politics or not. French, Norwegian, Estonian, Dutch and many other nationalities served in Waffen SS regiments - and weren't guarding Concentration Camps. I have no time for Nazism, racism or fascism .... but if you admire/respect the military "arts" how can you not respect a Michael Whitman or a Hans U. Rudel ....? Esprit de Corps in any organisation is based on elitism ... that, and discipline, is why it works.

MM

 

[mikewint]

Michael, all true but as in all things PERCEPTION trumps reality. Does it really matter any more that the swastika is an ancient symbol going all the way back to the Indus valley civilizations, that it is a chinese character, that it is used in Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism. It is forever Nazi and as such evokes a viseral reaction above and beyond being PC. I'm as far from being PC as one can get and yet I can remember my reaction when I saw swastikas on temples in Vietnam.

 

[tyrodtom]

The death camps was under the Allgemeine SS, but just as much SS as the Waffen SS. The Einsatzgruppen death squads were SS, Josef Mengele was SS. There's no PC about it, the SS runes are forever going to be immediately associated with murderers of defenseless people.
What's so bad about this is it appears this might have been their symbol for as many as 20 years. But I might just be passing on a rumor there.

 

[michaelmaltby]

"... What's so bad about this is it appears this might have been their symbol for as many as 20 years. But I might just be passing on a rumor there..."

OK, sorry you're so offended, tyrotom, , .... I guess it's a good thing they didn't have their "blood type" tattooed in their armpit ... OMG ... THAT would be fascist elitism of the worst kind ... .

I think you Americans are too close to this .... IMHO,

MM

 

[tyrodtom]

"... What's so bad about this is it appears this might have been their symbol for as many as 20 years. But I might just be passing on a rumor there..."

OK, sorry your're so offended, tyrotom, , .... I guess it's a good thing they didn't have their "blood type" tattooed in their armpit ... OMG ... THAT would be fascist elitism of the worst kind ... .

I think you Americans are too close to this .... IMHO,

MM

It's my country, and i'd like to see us not make enemies faster than we can kill them.

I was once a kid in combat, and we could get pretty gruesome around each other, but most of us understood what we saw, and what we did, was not for the general public.