Maybe this is a 'safe place' to say this.

I'm disturbed by how 'sheltered' our fellow citizens are ... as evidenced by many of the posts in GD. I have to wonder about the downside of living in a society where the standards for safety, freedom, and an isolation from the daily realities of life that so many on our planet face change our idea of 'normal.' Then again, I wonder whether, as a Viet Nam veteran, my short experience gave me a perspective that's too extreme. I really don't think so ... since I was one of the least 'involved' in the "Viet Nam experience." I wasn't a tunnel rat. I wasn't going on LRRPs. I wasn't stuck in some firebase in I-Corps. I saw combat (shooting back) only once - all the rest of the time it was a matter of taking cover.

But when people are insulated from the realities of the occupation and combat in Iraq ... and voice complaints about anyone even being shown the videos from Cho ... and haven't seen the abattoir that was Norris Hall ... I have to wonder whether we, as a society, have any grounding in reality that can inform our opinions reasonably. After all, photos and videos don't come close to what it's like to "be there" ... and, if we can't even handle images, how could we appreciate what it's like to smell it, taste it, feel it, and experience it so regularly it's more a part of life than morning coffee?

Why do I think it's BIZARRE to hear the anchor man say the "profanities" keep him from citing Chos writing? "Profanities"?? What was "Shock and Awe"? What about the horrors we wreak on others daily?

I again sometimes feel like I'm in some "other world" when it comes to any conversation with others regarding the VA Tech shootings and the combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. How can people get a clue if they even rush back to the friendly confines of Disneyland and don't get a better appreciation for what others (even our own troops!) are learning every minute?

Don't get me wrong ... I'm not expecting everyone to actually LIVE the 'Apocalypse Now' sense of fatalism. God forbid. But how to communicate across the chasm when they don't seem to know what that chasm is??

Sorry to rant and dig at old wounds.
Maybe I'm just not surprised enough at the VA Tech shootings - even though I mourn.
Maybe I mourn too much for Cho as well as the other victims of the train wreck of our society.
Maybe I worry that we'll all have to learn - sooner or later - and wonder whether many will survive the shock?
Dunno.

I agree with a lot of it, disagree with a little.
I, also, mourn for Cho and his family.

Just sad.
School shootings are as American as Apple Pie.
The next one is only a matter of time away.

I saw a generation of my male peers ruined in the VN war

I fear people do not realize yet the horrors that this war will spill into our society when the troops come home

lots of folks just don't want to confront the realities of war and there isn't much you can do if some one chooses to be blind

:shrug:

and for good measure :pals:

that it gives Cho the attention he craved, although posthumously. He gets to shock and horrify all over again.

It sets a bad precedent for all the other people who might be thinking of committing something similar. They are being lead to think: Well, they won't pay attention to me now, but once I do this THING, they certainly will.

But I agree that we MUST understand what constitutes an atrocity, especially in war time. Those pictures are vital for our comprehension.

The ravings of a mad man, not so much.

I think it shows people what neglect can cause. How can we prevent something like this from happening if we don't understand it completely?

This young man was neglected to a criminal degree. He had been identified as someone who needed much care, attention, medication, etc. Yet his needs were ignored. We need to know what he went through as much as we need to know what the victims went through.

Edited to say, if we can understand and see what happened here, perhaps we can stop it from happening again with someone else.

The message of these videos are that all you need to do to get people to pay attention to your loonball ravings is to kill a bunch of people. He was clearly insane, his ravings are divorced from reality, and the 24-7 coverage of his garbled "message" is a temptation to copycat killers.

I agree we need to understand what happened -- we REALLY need to understand what lead to the massacre. But the answer lies somewhere in the treatment of the mentally ill, and in the failure of social and family networks, and in the availability of guns. Those are what we need to study -- not his ghoulish ranting.

So we can more easily identify that same thing in others... including any copycat killers who would otherwise go unnoticed. All the clues could very well lie within his ghoulish ranting. To understand a madman, you must examine him and his rantings. Too bad he didn't make it. He should have been put under a microscope in a very safe place for a very long time so we could study him.

I felt the same way about Saddam Hussein... he should have never been killed. We will learn nothing from him now.

If we are not we are no longer a sane country and let the rest of the world and the few of us who still maintain some touch with reality beware.

You have described the precise reason the Bush administration will not allow us to see the coffins of our fallen brothers and sisters coming home. They want to "shelter" us from the heinous results of their lies and thievery. For their own reasons, of course. But the psychology is the same.

I raise this issue with parents all the time. If you shelter your child from the harsh realities of life, you do them a grave disservice. You can't be with them forever. Eventually they must go forward in life on their own, and face many difficulties. Isn't it much better for them to begin facing such things while they are still home and can get the support of their family to learn and grow from the experience?

We need to face reality! We need to know for sure what we are up against in this world, be it mental illness, violence, horrific scenes of carnage, whatever!

How can any of us make this world a better place if we don't have a firm grasp on what this place is all about to begin with?

Its just me. But I too remember the smells taste and blood of War. Cho is part of what has happen to America. I mourn those kids but cannot forget about the kids in the War Zone. As to contact in Nam I don't and won't talk to anyone but a Vet. Seen To Much Done To Much and still feeling the pain of that Dam War.

... I'm finding a degree of 'comfort' (not precisely the right word) when I visit the VFW for Friday night Fish Fry ... and spend a few minutes with other Viet Nam vets. It's not that we actually understand what each other's lonely experience was - but know that we know we had them and know, in a sense, that it's beyond another's understanding.

I feel like a guy on the "mean streets" of Anaheim when almost EVERYONE else lives inside Disneyland.

We had a Brother in Trouble you know who. But I saw people confused not understanding he had gone off. My PTSD kicked in for a while. Didn't want to go off on people who have no idea what you and our Brother was feeling. I do think the Shooting that day set him off. Still have not heard from him.

I recognized Bush for what he was back in 2000 ... and KNEW we'd all be in this deep shit even then. I KNEW it like I could sense Charles in the paddies across the road that night before the feces hit the fan. (Some strange reptilian survival instinct, I guess.)

Even with what little I had ... I'm visiting the boundaries of that "world," too. Maybe it's mass psychosis -- everyone's gone a bit 'off.'

:hug:

Thanks for the words in the op. Thanks for speaking.

:hug: Peace to you.

But I never stop thinking about our guys and gals in Iraq. Never. I see in their faces my own children, and their friends. And I hurt. And I cry. And I curse these fucking madmen who put them there for no goddamn fucking reason.

What pisses me off is that BushCo is paying more attention to these deaths than they are to the ones they caused.

He said it was due to my age. I told him I have felt this way since returning from Vietnam forty years ago. It makes a person wonder about the disconnect that will exist between today's veterans and this society. The amazement people show at this, compared with the overall lack of concern for the 100 times as many lives in Iraq, is what amazes me.

I guess it's a desperate grasp on some illusory 'innocence' - where others (figuratively) pay the bills and do the cleaning up out of the sight of the kids.

The most accurate description of Viet Nam veterans I ever heard was "growing up too fast." Sometimes I think it's more like some others not growing up at all. After all, there can be no wisdom unless, first, we lose our innocence. (No wonder there's so little wisdom - or appreciation for it - in our society.)

there." It's a cliche, but it's so true. You really can't know or understand. Seeing a thousand rifles firing a thousand rounds a minute into the night. Tracers everywhere. More noise than words can describe. The smell of cordite and gunpowder.

You can't know, your weren't there . . .

:scared: I can't ever forget that.

Oh, yes ... and (literally) napalm in the morning. :puke:

"profanities" and sex is bad while killing "shock and awe" is peachy? (I am agreeing with you, just ranting on).

Just like the Jews did
And all rape victims
And abused children

If we could only arm EVERY FUCKING PERSON in society things would be SOOO much better.

I know: maybe you should fly out to Blacksburg and stand right next to Fred Phelps holding up a sign saying God Hates Wimps. That'll show'em.

... If this had happened in the late 40s with classrooms loaded with WW2 veterans on the GI Bill, the death toll would've been far, far less.

I don't think it has to do with the bravery or character of the victims. No way. Their deaths and woundings are abominable. But what does it say about our society that the immediate and unthinking reaction was to bury Cho with bodies and disable him? What does it say about our society that the only thing many can say about Cho before this day was "he didn't bother me"??

Is that the only stake we have in our neighbors? It's NOT a matter of blaming anyone about doing less than expected. God forbid. But I'd sure like to expect more ... both of myself and of others. I'd sure like to think we could have a far greater stake in our neighbors' welfare.

We sure can argue about whether the generation that fought in WW2 was the 'Greatest Generation' ... or even if they possessed anything that would warrant such a nomination before December 1941. But the one thing I will say is that they were grown-ups! That doesn't mean they raised us, their children, to be grown-ups, though. That's too bad.

And how can any human being pile on the victims by saying they "let themselves be murdered". It's sociopathic. Anyone who would say that needs to check into the same mental health center Cho went to.

Scratch that -- they need to check into a better mental health center.

People have a good idea what they'd do when they've already "been there and done that."

Experience. Try it sometime. :shrug:

i was talking about certain horseshit DU posters who like to think they'd be fucking Dirty Harry if they ever managed to turn off the playstation and leave their parent's basement.

Now please go back to cleaning your guns. Just remember to load them first.

wide screen shows more of the picture, as I'm sure you know, than full screen does...more of the details and things happening to the left and the right of the center focus....

some people say the reason they don't like wide screen is because the picture is too small

funny how the mind works

I prefer wide screen

I'm betting you do too...

Somehow "ignorance is bliss" has NEVER appealed to me.

However, my dad who is a WWII vet STILL won't talk about the war. Absolutely refuses to do so under any conditions.

He was stationed in Panama in the mid 50's and I can remember the abject poverty there and how it bothered me even tho I was only 4 or so at the time.

I think EVERY american should have to go to a 3rd world country for a month and live among them and just see how damn lucky they are to be where they are and enjoy the freedoms we have. (and still do to a certain extent) No-one can understand just like you guys are saying until they have experienced it.

I have never been in a war zone and hope to never be. I lost a lot of friends in VN and I still think about them. Bless all of you guys....I can't even imagine the hell you had to be in.

On concerns from my family, one being a Colonel in the WWII European front. He predicted the decline of the military as more and more was outsourced to private contractors, as pay, benefits, healthcare eroded.

My dad didn't listen, and was about to go to Korea, when as he puts it, "He was touched by the Gods."-He got struck by lightening while training for deployment, and was discharged(no pun intended).

The military folk have my utmost respect, and my profound gratitude.

I grew up in the US and it may as well been a 3rd world country. I never counted myself as unlucky, rather it was just the way some people lived. Wasn't great...But, it wasn't bad either.
Our electricity was ok, except when it went out, then...lets just say we cooked a few meals on the fireplace.
As a child, I had clothes made on a foot peddle sewing machine(I still have it).
We had running well water, albeit saltwater...Gumming up the lines, breaking pumps, smelled funny-I'll bet you never took a saltwater bath-it sucks. Better than an outhouse though, and I knew folks who still had them...Actually, some still do.
So we had a cistern for drinking water-you know the hand crank box, with the paddle wheel cups. Had a screen on the spout to strain out the little water snails. Fetched many-a-pail 'o water for the kitchen(that's where we kept it).
Heating was by propane, so the house smelled weird...and don't forget to vent the windows in the winter, don't want to sleep so deeply you forget to inhale ya know...And you know what? I miss the place.

The man had cut a maid up into even sized pieces, starting at her feet, using a butcher knife. The killer, for whatever reasons, stayed behind at the scene. My dad was with the medical examiners at the time as a forensic expert.

My dad was telling us about it later, with the family expressing the appropriate noises of shock and horror - except for me. Oh, I was appalled but all I could think was, had that been me, I wouldn't have had the sense (or luck) to die until he got to my head.

I can't tune out the bad.

I want the truth/facts - regardless of how ugly or how painful, and I want to remember without time distorting just how bad (or good) things actually were.

of what goes on in wartime from reading yours and others' posts, articles, etc. The VT tragedy was a little slice of what's happening in Iraq, and I'm not writing that to downplay what happened in Virginia at the hands of one very disturbed person.
I can't, however, forget how much that is multiplied elsewhere.
And please rant on; your views are more valid than most, and informative to boot. That's how we can all learn.:pals:

:thumbsup:

But you've got enough recs now that you will be climbing on the greatest page and that's good. This is very important stuff.

... that I see is somewhat more silent than usual in GD. I've sensed that there's a lapse in consciousness that we have DUers who've been in combat - a kind of insensate rhetoric that's not very accommodating. Indeed, several polls seemed to labor under the presumption that all 'gun violence' is civil and the DU audience would relate solely to such a context. Even my briefest of remark ("D'uhh") attracted a schoolyard bully's Inquisitorial challenge - clueless even with the 'clue' I offered.

I'm a bit taken aback that so many have generously 'recommended' my somewhat perplexed discomfort here. I find myself with a bit of inner conflict with my own sworn allegiance to Peter Pan and simultaneous impatience with those not yet grown-up. (Where's Tinker Bell when I need her?)

My few months in Somalia along with Haiti made me the person I am today.

I did mourn for those people who lost their lives. But at the same time, seeing how people are reacting around me and I want to scream out, "30 of my brothers and sisters died this week too!" I was tempted to point out that if you multiply those that died at VT by 100 you have close to the death toll that our guys and gals have suffered in Bush's war. Multiply those wounded by 1000 and you have a ball park of those wounded thanks to Bush.

I think for me, what has hit me is, we hear reports of the casualties in Iraq and Afgan as a side note and your average American can shrug it off. Then when we have a tragedy like this, it's 24/7 coverage.

This was another one of those times where I have realized how different I am, especially in the response between myself and my wife when we heard the reports.

Jeez now that I’m reading back over this wondering if I just need to delete. Been having a problem with putting my thoughts down properly on anything lately.

desperately needs. It amazes me how we can have so much violence in movies, video games, music, television, etc. and yet be so disturbed by real life atrocities played on our nightly news. Our society has surrounded itself in fantasy violence to the extent that when we are faced with reality we have no idea how to deal with it. Many have lost perspective and the ability to empathize. IMO the only way to cure this nation of what ails it is to show these images and images of this war as much as possible. To not show the full story is suppressing the truth of the story. I for one can't gain a true perspective of a situation if I have limited information. I say flash these images of Cho, the victims, the soldiers in Iraq, and the Iraqis. Our nation needs to come back to reality. Cho was a delusional person, but most of this nation is as well when we choose to ignore the truth.

You posted this around the time I posted a poll about whether Olberman would show the videos and I expressed a wish that he wouldn't. I want to respond just in case that prompted this.

I may just be as sheltered as you imagine. I certainly have not been to war and seen or experienced what you have. I am grateful for your service and I can only imagine how that has affected your entire life. Yet, I don't think that was what was motivating my desire to not have the videos shown.

First, it just seemed so soon after the event. People are traumatized, bodies have yet to be buried. There is plenty of time to learn what can be learned from these tapes at a later time. So I wonder how the people directly victimized would view this so soon on TV.

More than that I wonder how showing these videos endlessly, analyzing his writings, and photos on every show does not just reward his actions, give him exactly what he wanted. That makes me sick. How does that not just encourage more troubled teens that this is the way to be heard and solve their problems? Crimes like this usually have copycats. I think this would increase that possibility and the media has blood on their hands.

Also it is disgusting to think that the Media will now exploit this very sick individual, mental illness itself, for profit and pleasure. There will be nothing positive from this considering how the media is now. It's just the new Imus, Anna Nicole, obsession/distraction. It's just something to suck all of the possible ratings from nothing else.

So that's why I was against it. I think most people here, regardless of their life experiences is attempting to face harsh truth no matter how unpleasant and frightening it is. If that wasn't the case, we'd be watching Fox News and actually believing it.

... someone else instead of making choices based on the principles of honesty, education, and respect for others, we enter into a codependency.

"Why do you drink?" "Because she nags." "Why do you nag?" "Because he drinks." (Classic codependency.)

We're drowning in codependent, dysfunctional mental models. "We kill them there so they don't kill us here."

Cho's rants were saturated with codependent logic traps. What I constantly note is how a consequentialist ethical perspective (i.e. ends justify the means) is so easily perverted into codependent and destructive behavior. It's the sole artifice of sociopaths.

We have an occupant of the Offal Orifice who's a pathological narcissist - and narcissism is 100% reactive and codependent. His entire sense of his very existence is tied to the reactions of others. The mere fact that people can't see this as 'abnormal' or remarkable - standing out in stark relief - is because we're swimming in this kind of thinking in this country.

"Fish will be the last to discover water." (Einstein)


Now ... to tie the above into the theme of this thread. Narcissism is a completely normal stage of human development. It's most common in adolescence. Infants are 100% about themselves - feeding, sleeping, peeing, crapping ... it's all about being dependent and needing others (parents) to satisfy their needs. At some point, we all need to grow up. We're just not doing that in this country. We worship some mythical, Disneyesque model of childhood. We cling to it. We LOVE our MYTHS! We want to spend our lives in Disneyland - in playrooms FILLED WITH TOYS! (After all, more toys means more 'happiness'.)

Wisdom is the least-valued character attribute of any in our culture. We marginalize older people. We have no patience. We deify the young and nubile. The more Clueless the better. Anna Nicole Smith. Britney. Jenna and not-Jenna. Sanjaya.

Wisdom cannot be attained without the surrender of innocence. It's solely attainable by experience and sufferance. Nobody wants it. The 'price' is too high and the market value too low. That's a major problem in our culture, imho.

:silly:

Thank you!

I do not agree with your premise that quote "were the least involved in Vietnam""" that jerked my shorts,, you were a solider doing your job whatever it was, from being a cook to being one of those snake eaters that we all hear about,,,getting shot at did not make you a Vet,,, Being there made you a Vet,,,, Welcome Home Brother