Originally Posted by Deputy

BTW...the purpose of war is to make the OTHER guy "die for his country". Dep

Originally Posted by Deputy

I find it interesting that so many of these outspoken individuals that have made literally HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of posts on this forum, haven't taken the time to post ANYTHING about themselves. One of the first things I did when I signed up here was to give some background information about myself. All I see from others are a few tidbits about where they live. How about posting your AGE and OCCUPATION in there. So that I can tell if I'm talking with a bunch of high school kids or mature adults?

Dep

Originally Posted by kiwi_2005

Occupation - self employed.

Originally Posted by Deputy

You even were kind enough to correct the spelling from 'Seig' to 'Sieg', just to make sure I´d get the message.

Originally Posted by Danelov

Quote:"Soviet losses on the front were tremendous, and the country's international standing suffered. Even worse, the fighting ability of the Red Army was put into question, a fact that some argue contributed to Hitler's decision to launch Operation Barbarossa. Finally, the Soviet forces did not accomplish their primary objective of conquest of Finland, but gained only a secession of territory along Lake Ladoga. The Finns retained their sovereignity and gained considerable international goodwill."

Where you have finded that, in Reader Digest?



We go to the point after all this years, utilising for that neutral informations , no comunist propaganda, no Finnish or other propaganda.

First point , Molotov had make a petition the 31th October to corriged the frontier of some kilometers and that´s, sorry, but had a certain logic. Leningrad, today San Petesburg , was the second city of the URSS and is a 32 km of the Finnish border. Translading that to another scenery ,can you imagine the Citizens of Miami leaving at 32 km of Cuba? Wich can be the reaction of the USA people?
URSS was attacked from 1917 by White Russian, merceneries armed by the German,British, Poland ,USA, latter Japanese and then the Germans and was always under menace.Many of this expeditions anti-bolchevik had departed from Finnish territory.The safety of the Country was primordial ,specially for a so big city like Leningrad with so many industries, harbour,militar instalations, etc.
The petition of Stalin were clear the 12-10-39 :

1-The rent of the Base of Hanko
2-Cession of all external islands in the Gulf of Finland including Surursari
3-Frontier pushed of 65 km to make this one far of Leningrad
4-A portion of territory of the peninsule of Rybacij

In exchange Stalin gived to Finnland the Soviet Carelia( most of the double of the territory demanded by the Soviets, the aceptation of fortifications by Finland of the Islands AAland and the reatification of the pact of no agression of 1932.

In any moment the Soviet had intention of conquer Finland , not in 1939 and not in 1944 and the history is very clear about that!!!
There a good amount of books to read about that.And neutrals and objetives;No commies, or Imperialist Gringos, or Nazis,etc.

The Soviet propositions were rejected the the 12-10-39 ,Mannerheim had try to arrive a compromiss informing the Goverment that the Finnish Army can resist maybe two weeks maximum in a eventuell war , but he was only suported by Paasikivi.
The 03-11-39 the Finnish delegation was informed about the intentions of Stalin to purchase the base of Hanko, but that was also rejected by the Finnish.
The 13-11-39 the delegation of the Finnish Goverment and the Soviets had another encounter in Moscow , but the Finnish delegation had before received orders of cut all new speeches.
The 15th November and after all tentatives to arrive a pacific solution were discarted, the Soviet Army received the order to prepare to war.
The 26-11-39 a Mainila several Soviet soldiers were killed under artillery fire.The Soviet accusing of that the Finnish, but this ones replies the artillery fire was not done by his troops; and that´s true, the fire had come from the Soviet side of the border.The 27-11-39 Finland proposse the bilateral retiring of the troops; the 28-11-39 the Soviet Union dennonced the Pact of no Agression, the 29-11-39 broke the diplomatic relations with Finland no accepting the Finnish proposition of bilateral retiring of troops and the 30th November 1939 start the Invasion of Finland.
The tentatives of the Allieds(France and England) to entry in war together with Finnland were postponed ,Sweden had not accepted the transit of this troops in his territory and by the 17-02-40 the situation start to change drastically for the Finnish Army after lossing the line Mannerheim.The 23-02-40 were maked the first contact for a possible armistice via the Swedish Goverment; conditions by the Soviets are like the same :The rent of Hanko for 30 years, the Itsme of Carelia and the zone of the Ladoga lake ,exaclty the border of Peter The Great in 1721.
The 26th February the Sweden inform the allied if his territory was violated by the British and French troops , he must entry in war againts Finland,France England and involuntary allied with the Soviets.
The 5th March France and England sugest Finnland to make a "official Invitation" to intervene in the war againt the Soviet, and maybe also againt the Sweden.This propossion was postponed the same day to the 12th march.
But was too late .The 6th March the Finnish delegation under the lead of the 1th minister Ryti fly to Moscow to prepare the signature of the armistice.The Soviet propossition were again not accepted initially, but by the 9th March the militar situation was too catastrofic for the Finnish Army and the signature to save something was necessary.
The 11th March France and England make public his declaration with the offer of intervention.But the same day Sweden and also Norway declaring his opossition and the negative to allow the transit of troops in his territories.

And the same day the Finnish delegation signed the armistice and the war ended the 13 March 1940.
The war was very costly for the Soviets ,48.745 deaths and 158.000 wounded ,many by congellation.He had also show the serious carences and deficiences of the Red Army ,specially in officers, heavy handicaped after the purgues of 1937.
Finnish losses were 25.000 deaths and 45.000 wounded.

After the war Finland had loss a 10% of his territory ,his second most important city ,Viipuri and a important industrial center at Vuoski.The historical border of Peter the Great were stablished for the Soviets ,Hanko was now in rent for 30 years and the half of the Peninsule of Rybacij was now in Soviet hands. Petsamo was returned to Finland.

Quite different with the Reader Digest Version ,ehhh;) ?But I assure you, that´s exaclty true ,and nothing of propaganda here...

Originally Posted by kiwi_2005

Yep, but when a ppl are fighting against an enemy on their own land its a whole different war to them, their determination to win would probably be trebled compared to the opposite side. Your fighting for your country. I wonder our many americans in iraq are actually fighting because they want to or doing it because they have too. I wonder if they really give a toss if they win - as long as they survive the tour and get home thats probably all that matters to them. As its not their country its someone elses.

Age 42
Occupation - self employed.
Best thing to ever happen to me: Divorce.
Worse thing to ever happen to me: Slipping with a screwdriver resulting in a hole through a brand new motherboard while trying to attach a cpu.:nope:
Hobbies - pig hunting, gaming, addicted horror/war/comedy movie watcher. Ex builder in PC's (see the above). long walks.
Oh and forum surfer - especially subsim:arrgh!:

Originally Posted by Deputy

"We did lose the war in Vietnam Deputy! I hate to burst your bubble mate, but the baby killings over there didn't go over to well here, remember?"

Babys get killed in EVERY war. That had NOTHING to do with our withdrawl from Viet Nam. That was part of the Left Wingers in the US and their strategy for aiding the enemy. The same nitiwits are resurfacing as anti-Iraq protesters in the US. One wonders where they hide when there is no war. Maybe hugging trees? :lol:



"The war was unwinnable and nothing was accomplished there accpet further putting our government into debt with costly carpet bombings that did nothing but make a lot of trees turn into toothpicks."

We did not "carpet bomb" in Viet Nam. We has specific targets, even for the B52 attacks. I think the enemy troops that were interdicted and/or destroyed by those B52 attackes were definitely worth the effort. It certainly got North Vietnams attention and drove them to peace talks.



"This obviously made finding the enemy even more difficult for us since they were all about the size of toothpicks to begin with."

I would NOT show disdain for the North Vietnamese soldier as far as his height or fighting abilities. You don't have to be a giant to effectively weild an AK-47 and they certainly weren't lacking in courage or dedication. They also had a LOT more time to prepare their defenses compared to the amount of time we had trying to locate them.

"Therefore it was like trying to find a division of toothpicks in a huge pile of toothpicks to shoot at."

We had VERY effective electronic "people detectors" that could locate them and their movements. We knew where they were. We just had our hands tied as far as atacking where they were.

"Weed and war don't mix well either and neither did all that other crap you guys did back then. It's kinda hard to shoot Mickey Mouse when your high as a kite on PCP!"

THAT sir...is pure BS. I know of NOBODY in my unit that took drugs. And PCP didn't even exist as a form of drug that could be taken over there at that time.
If you are a front line soldier you CAN'T be stoned or high. You have to ba alert and aware all the time. You obviously have been getting a slanted description of the war. Put down the Kool Aid and read some non-leftist propaganda about the war.
I recommend the books about LRRPs that fought over there or books by Shelby Stanton. Forget about movies like Apocalypse Now and Platoon. Those were anti-war movies made by Hollywood types with an agenda. Watch "Hamburger Hill" if you want to see what it REALLY was like.

Dep

Originally Posted by bradclark1

Tell me again why we went to Iraq? Was it the first reason, second reason, or the third reason? Forgive me but the story kept on changing.

Originally Posted by SubSerpent

[In the end though, my dad admits we lost the war. He hates to have to state that, but he admits the truth. The reason why we lost the war was because our main objective was never accomplished - We didn't defeat the communism over there and keep North Vietnam from taking over South Vietnam. We just up and left - and in a hurry too. Quitting the battlefield is a form of failure. You can't base the war as a success on the fact that we killed more of them than they killed of us, that is not an accurate means of weighing the winner and loser of a war. Perhaps if we had found and killed Ho Chi Min we might have been declared a winner, but that didn't happen.

Originally Posted by bradclark1

LBJ lost the war. The military had one foot and one hand tied behind their backs and had no target they could shoot for. It was a matter of just survival. LBJ nearly single-handedly destroyed the U.S. military by his meddling.
It is worth reading a short military history of the Vietnam war.

Drug use was horrendous, racism was severe, and by that I mean blacks to whites. Pobably at least 20% or more of who you knew were given the choice of jail, army or marines. I hated the army back then but I had no place else to go.