# Members Interview: Jhungary



## WAJsal

Hope you all enjoy, Thank you @jhungary for giving us the time.
*----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction:*
My name is Gary, I was born on the 1980 in the United States. My father is a Mexican-American hailed from Central Mexico and my Mother was Vietnam Born Chinese. I am of mixed Heritage, I have Chinese, Iberia, Anglo-Saxon, Hawaiian and Aztec heritage. My first language is Chinese, English and Spanish. I also speak some Swedish and German and some degree of Arabic.

I spend my child hood in Hong Kong and Southern China (Shenzhen) and was educated in various school in both places, I attended both Chinese University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University for between 1999-2000, then I left Hong Kong in 2000 and went back to the US, studying in Colorado.

I enlisted in the US Army right after I arrived back in the US, and have went thru Reserve Officer Training Corp at CU Boulder with the Golden Buffalo Battalion thru something called Green for Gold scholarship.

I was commissioned as a 2LT with the US Army at 2002 after I graduated from college with a BA in International Affair, and was assigned as a 19C Cavalry officer, as I enlisted as a 19D one station training, I was a cavalrymen.

My First deployment come in the opening hours of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I was with the Third Infantry Division and I was in charge of a platoon of soldier act as mounted troop to drive all the way to Baghdad, I served around 13 months on that tour, volunteer to stay behind and help out the Marines until mid 2004. And rotated back to the US afterward.

Stateside, I was promoted to 1LT and assigned another billing, before I apply for Airborne School and went pass the Airborne school and subsequently attend Ranger School. Afterward, I went to Army Intelligence School for HUMINT Training for 4 months. Promoted to Captain in my fifth years of service. And billed as a Battalion S2 for the 82nd Airborne Division.

Afterward I was deployed again to Afghanistan in 2005 to a classified location in charge of a TOC between a few SpecOp team operating in the area. I was in charge of intelligence gathering and interrogation. These team bring their POW to me and I will extract intel from these individual, or if it was a time sensitive job, I am going to fly to these outpost for the job.

I was seriously wounded in this tour, I was send back stateside and afterward discharged from the Army, afterward I work in private sectors in the US, UK and Canada, and then I help a friend of mine train local police in rural Kansas town, and move to Sweden in 2008 and got married there.

After Sweden, I live between US and Hong Kong for a period and finally settle in Australia in 2011, which I am currently reside. I graduated from International College of Management, Sydney with a Master in International Business, and currently studying in Australian National University with the MPhil Research program in Strategic Studies.

I am married without children. My wife was a Major in Swedish Armed Forces, she was a lawyer and she is currently working as a legal consultant to a human right group in Australia.
I am a keen photographer, I like driving, writing computer programs/apps, I like study history, I am a big documentary buff, I also like topic related to economics, military, tactics.

I am also very keen in sports, I had played baseball for CU boulder, and I had joined quite a few leisure softball league, I also love basketball.

I have 3 pet cats with my wife.
* If a combat soldier had to go to Vietnam war and Iraq/Afghan war, then what differences would he face as a soldier? Which one was the bigger and more difficult war?*

Jhungary: Although I wasn't in Vietnam, (Can't be, I will be -15 years old then) and my dad never really did talk about his time in Vietnam. I would have imagined there is not much difference between the two wars.

Granted, technological advance give us a bit more goodie to play with, and it make your fight a bit easier, but by no mean it would be easy to fight a war, especially in a close quarter.

Of course, the environment and exposure is different, while one war happened in a jungle in South East Asia, and the other happened in a desert in the Middle East, the nature of the warfare is also different. In a jungle, where you literally cannot see your enemy, they can be hiding everywhere, a hut in the field, under the vegetation, tunnel under the rice paddy and so on. In the desert, beside the urban area, it’s basically wide open.

The enemy we face is both determined and know what they are doing, perhaps the most important of all is that we are fighting in their turf, they know more than you, while you need to study everything, weather, terrain and population.

But Perhaps the biggest different of all is the people who fight the war, in Vietnam, more than half the US force there was draftee or selective servicemen, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the soldier who were in those wars are professional, the minds of the soldier have been shifted from just trying to stay alive in battle for most GI in Vietnam, to actually trying to achieve the objective given to us professionally.

As for which war is more difficult, I have never understood the tenacity soldier faced in Vietnam, for my own experience, a war is a war, when you break it down, you are doing the same thing in each war, maybe the road it take you to your objective is longer in one and the other, but the ultimate goal is the same, and I can imagine whatever I have bitched about in Iraq and Afghanistan, the heat, the constant fighting, supplies, hygiene and home sickness, I am pretty sure those are the same stuff Vietnam vet bitch about in Vietnam. I guess, for me, a War is a War; there is no war which is particularly difficult, or particularly easy.

*
A soldier is expected to kill the enemies but what emotional turmoil does a soldier go through after killing one? How does a soldier maintain his sanity after different operations? 
*
Jhungary: You feel nothing, at least at that moment.

You train to react to contact, and everything starts from there, you basically don’t think about it, you just do it. In fact, unless the decision of killing is conscious, like I am a sniper shooting at someone far away, you probably won’t remember what you did at all with adrenaline pumping, What you do know is that you have just kill someone, and you move on.

What happens is when you have time to think, the so called “Downtime” you started replay the situation over and over again, you see the same picture in your mind, but at the same time, you don’t actually know what happened. It is a strange feeling to remember something clearly when you don’t remember the detail. Then, your brain is trying to play tricks on you; you started to fill the gap with your own imagination, trying to make sense of the situation.

Then you try to give the scenario details you won’t possibly know. Like their name, what they were doing, their back story. One day you are telling you they did that, so they deserve that, other day you tell you with different detail and that you may have another option.

Contrary to common believe, your first kill was hard, your second kill does not make thing easier, it’s actually harder, because you have expected for your first kill, you run up all kind of scenario in your mind, you expected, you anticipated for your first kill. For your second, you don’t have your bravado, your anticipation to push you over that obstacle anymore, you are doing this alone. But once you did it 5, 6, 7 or 8 times, then you sort of get used to it. And at that point, you just do it.

It is essential for soldier to have soldier get in touch with civilization and reality when they have a down time. Time to relax, time to go back to your normal self, trying to go back to your routine, get in touch with your family via phone call or e-mail, or play some games. Everything you will do when you are not at war.

This is very important, because even a bit of civilization that make you felt like you are back home, will bring you out from that mentality and keep you from going insane.

*What does a soldier pack when he's deployed to places like Afghanistan or Iraq? *

Jhungary: Not much you can really bring on your deployment, most of your stuff are government issued gear, you will have to bring your Personal Weapon (Rifle +Sidearm), Personal Protection item (Like Body Armour, Helmet, Vest, Padding and so on), Accessories (NVG, Blanket, Sleeping Bag, Gasmask and so on) and personal item (wallet, phone, computer and so on) Ammunition and Rifle Accessories are provided when you are over there.

You are allowed a box of comfort item, for an officer, it's about as big as a standard footlocker, which can be outside Army regulation TO&E, which can be books, board games, portable gaming console, ipod, plush doll (especially if you are a girl) and so on. They can be handy for you to stay at war but still enjoy a touch of home.

*What do you think of the America's decision to invade Iraq for reasons which were not revealed to the American populace? Should America have used its soldiers as pawns? What is your opinion as a soldier?*

Jhungary: As a soldier, I don’t think much on the issue whether or not US was hiding facts for the reason we invaded Iraq, as a soldier, this is what you do, you follow order, whatever, wherever and whenever your CO asked you to move out, you go. A soldier’s duty is not to reason why, but to do and die.

As a soldier, you do not have the luxury to question your order, an army works because you know the person below you will carry out what you said to their best ability, you will also carry out what you have dealt with to your best ability, when soldier started to question the morality of an order, then things will start to go pear shape from there, because if you can question this order because of that reason to which end can you question an order? In the end, you will end up doing nothing but questioning orders.

As a person, I believe the war is right, and the reason is justify enough to send US boots on the ground, however, I also believe the whole handling of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is wrong. You never overthrown a government without some sort of backbone government left for implementation, the years of in-fighting and insurgency in Iraq is borne from power vacuum, the coalition should at least retain a framework from former Ba’ath Sunni government to help with the transition, the Shia party have been targeted for a long time and it cannot be effectively govern the whole country.

In Afghanistan, the situation can be best be describe as summer camp, I don’t see anyone trying their best to put the country back together, there are people who are willing and able to do that, but those people are not in any way at any leadership capacity. The US and ISAF troop was there basically to protect the Kabul regime, not to help their own independence post Taliban era. As such, the country is in turmoil simply because we were there, not because of the country trying to get back on its own feet.

As for whether or not the US government used US soldier as a pawn? I would like to say we are a tool for the politician, Von Clausewitz once said war is simply an extension of policy, and soldier have the extended duty for politician. The question is, we all know that when we join, nobody is forcing anyone to join the Military in the US, so I cannot say we are used as pawn, but an instrument of politics.

*How do you see American policy of military intervention globally, changing in next 15-20 years? *

Jhungary: It’s my view that the American Foreign Policy will not change in the next 15-20 years, the military intervention will continue, but with significant difficulty and resistance from regional power, such as Russia, China and Middle Eastern power.

*
What was our experience during war being posted abroad? How the locals see foreigners and treated you/foreign forces on any occasion? *

Jhungary: The local see the foreign troop with a mistrust and confusion. At first, when the US/ISAF/NATO troop overthrown the respective regime, they welcome the troop and their decision, however, as times goes by, and they did not see we leave, they then started to wonder why the foreigner is still in their country.

At a point when they don’t understand why or for what purpose we are still there in 2008 when the mission was supposed to be accomplished in 2004 in Iraq, mistrust started to set in.

Notice that most of these local people have low education or no education at all, they simply don’t understand the need of foreign troop in their country to stabilise the situation. For a local shepherd or farmer, they don’t know much about politics or concept of military operation, the only thing they do understand is that, we were there, then the Taliban or insurgent then started shooting at us, and we bomb the crap out of them and destroying their farm, field or sheep. Then the distrust set in, and we started to hate them when they did not tell us bad people are going to ambush us in their village.

The war would have been so much easier if the local people have basic understanding on what we were doing over there and if they understand their value, and what we are doing, it’s with my estimation they will lean more toward the foreign troop.
*
What is your opinion on Trump's policies and what impact will they have on the world?*

Jhungary: While Trump is the POTUS (President of the United States) Trump’s in fact does not have a major swing in foreign policy. The one biggest impact for Trump’s Policy is the fear factor, Trump is the kind of person will try to scare you straight and manipulate you to do what he wanted or what you’ve been told.

However, in reality, this probably works in a company, but for a country, the United States is govern by 3 separate and equal entities, the Congress, the Senate and the President, Trump only represent one of the pillars, Trump can threaten a country, but without Congress funding and Senate approval, that would always be an empty threat. And people see Trump as a monkey and a clown; it would be a long way for Trump to win over both Congress and Senate to do what he wants.

At the end of the day, it’s always the Republican Party’s policy that matters, not Trump, Trump is simply a figure head, we had seen it with Obama, and we had seen it with G W Bush.
* If you were asked to end terrorism in the world what major steps would you take?*

Jhungary: There are only one way to end terrorism for sure, and that is a world in harmony, where every country, every religion and every race is equal. Because if one of them is not, then there be war, and if one side think they cannot win a war with another party, then they will resort to terrorism.

However, I don’t think we can achieve world harmony, may be I am a pessimists, I do think war are going to be there and keep going until the day I died, or even until the day my children dies, so the second best step I would take is to establish an international reaction team, where they have the authority to deal with terrorism related activities worldwide, for which intel can be exchanged, and have the capability to strike and prevent terrorist attack world wide.
* Advantages of F-35 over A10 in a close air support role? And was it a mistake on part of US to stop F 22 production? Answer should also talk about the F-35 program itself. *

Jhungary: Not an Air force man, maybe you should ask @gambit on this and he will give you a more technical satisfying answer.

For me tho, A-10 can* NEVER* be replaced, if it is up to me, I would never replace both A-10 and AC-130. Not because they have a great payload or how they help out ground troop, but simply because of the scare that injected into the enemy’s mind when they see one of them over the horizon and the comfort they give you when you see one above you.

The best weapon of an A-10 is the psychological effect casted on both you and your enemy. When you see an A-10 above you, you know everything is going to be okay. And times and times again, the enemy disappear when they saw the A-10 appear in the AO.

Physically, A-10 have a larger payload, longer loitering time, but F-35 hold one distinct advantage over A-10, which is the radar system. A better ASEA suit can detect target or sometime jam target within a larger and longer spectrum, it will give you a better picture of the battlefield, and it helps you if you have more information on the table.

F-35 is a good platform, it wasn’t matured as of yet, but it will at the end of the cycle. And by then it will be probably one of the most potent platform in the world.

Most people do not understand F-35 is there not to be an air superiority fighter like F-15C or F-22, but as a multi-role fighter. They are to be used in conjunction to other platform, thus either act as force multiplier themselves or enjoy the boost from other platform.

Standalone, F-35 probably cannot goes toe to toe to other platform, they may not be as good a dogfighter or stealthier than F-22, or have more payload than an A-10, or the sensor is not as good as E-3, and ASEA radar may not be as powerful as Growler, but when you combine F-35 with other platform, you will basically get a super group that allow you to do and perform every single function in the battlefield, which is the main point of a fighter like F-35 exist.

F-22 is a test platform, it serves its purpose, rather linger on and make more F-22, the USAF should use those resources to devote to 6th Gen fighter to stay ahead. So I would say the US is right on terminating the F-22 production.

*11. Which gear/equipment/weapon do you think will be a break through for Soldiers in modern warfare? *
Most people will say its firepower, other will say it’s protection equipment, for me, it’s COM.

I think it doesn’t matter if you are using the latest state of the arts M4 with ACOG with PEG-2 and Flashlight, or how ergonomically the grip can be, yes, it may make your life a bit easier, but in the end, you give me a Vietnam era M16 or XM-177, I am pretty sure it’s the same.

COM, on the other hand, make more impact on a battlefield then soldier usually credit it for, yes, you curse at your COM when it was on a frizz, but when it did real good, you probably never going to appreciated that. In fact, COM allows you to be connected to other people in the same field. COM allows you to understand not just what’s happening to you, but also what’s happening to other unit.

In War, we always going for the big picture, only you know what is happening everywhere in your Area of Operation, you can control the battlefield. And the only way to do that is by communication, simply because you cannot be in 2 places at once, and the only way you can do is by communicating with the person who was there in a different place.

So, for me, the next breakthrough of a modern battlefield is the field of communication. Like how to shorten the range of communication; increase its security (both way); how to communicate clearly between two places; and how to provide a better quality communication equipment.
* During the duty/posting abroad while seeing locals around and families, how much did you miss your home? And how does it feel to return home from a tour?*

Jhungary: Probably everyone will say the same, when you are over there, you constantly thinking about home, but when you are at home, you constantly thinking about going back over there.

Over there, you constantly compare the local to your local street or city, you keep seeing kids play in the corner of the street, the image you got in your head is that it could have been you playing downtown at your home, you started to feel more at home when you try to get comfortable to the life over there, to a point by the end of a year of deployment, you would think your home is in Iraq or Afghanistan.

But then eventually, you do go home, and when you see local street kids playing ball in the local park, you started to think back your time in Iraq or Afghanistan. And you started to think you don’t belong there.
*How does a soldier prefer to chill or relax during tensed times of war especially while posted abroad?*

Jhungary: Everyone have a different regime to chillax, I cannot be able to say for most, for example, one of my fellow officer relax by reading case file of his own homicide case (He was a reserve officer he is a police detective by day) I never understand how that can relax him, but I guess it is up to him.

For me, I relax by a combination of writing letter back home, sports, watching TV (Mostly Cartoon) and games, not really into the music and movie scene and I did not own an IPod/IPhone until 2008….

I guess whatever different than the day to day life in war (Which is quite repetitive and boring) will relax you.

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## WAJsal

@WebMaster ,@Horus ,@Oscar ,@TaimiKhan ,@Manticore ,@waz ,@Jungibaaz ,@Emmie ,@Slav Defence ,@Shotgunner51 ,@ahojunk ,@Fenrir ,@Levina ,@Joe Shearer ,@scorpionx ,@MilSpec ,@jbgt90 ,@anant_s ,@AUSTERLITZ ,@nair ,@saiyan0321 ,@Gufi ,@TankMan ,@HRK ,@Arsalan ,@fatman17 ,@notorious_eagle ,@abdulbarijan ,@The Eagle ,@That Guy ,@The Sandman ,@Moonlight ,@Chauvinist ,@Spring Onion ,@django ,@Mr.Meap ,@PARIKRAMA ,@Khafee ,@Neutron ,@Zibago ,@Chinese-Dragon ,@Icarus ,@Zibago ,@Armstrong ..............
@Green Arrow ,@Nilgiri ....

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## The Sandman

Very interesting read.

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3


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## bananarepublic

Amazing read


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## Drongo

Good to see a fellow ANU student on here.

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1


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## WarFariX

Nice one


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## Green Arrow

Very Interesting and Informative read. An insight view of the Soldier's mind

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## T-123456

WAJsal said:


> As a person, I believe the war is right, and the reason is justify enough to send US boots on the ground


Strange coming from you,you justified the war in Iraq.
But interesting,overall.

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## Kambojaric

Very interesting read. Thanks for sharing.


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## AUSTERLITZ

Great.


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## fatman17

Thanks for sharing and God bless you for your services to your country.

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## padamchen

WAJsal said:


> Hope you all enjoy, Thank you @jhungary for giving us the time.
> *----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Introduction:*
> My name is Gary, I was born on the 1980 in the United States. My father is a Mexican-American hailed from Central Mexico and my Mother was Vietnam Born Chinese. I am of mixed Heritage, I have Chinese, Iberia, Anglo-Saxon, Hawaiian and Aztec heritage. My first language is Chinese, English and Spanish. I also speak some Swedish and German and some degree of Arabic.
> 
> I spend my child hood in Hong Kong and Southern China (Shenzhen) and was educated in various school in both places, I attended both Chinese University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University for between 1999-2000, then I left Hong Kong in 2000 and went back to the US, studying in Colorado.
> 
> I enlisted in the US Army right after I arrived back in the US, and have went thru Reserve Officer Training Corp at CU Boulder with the Golden Buffalo Battalion thru something called Green for Gold scholarship.
> 
> I was commissioned as a 2LT with the US Army at 2002 after I graduated from college with a BA in International Affair, and was assigned as a 19C Cavalry officer, as I enlisted as a 19D one station training, I was a cavalrymen.
> 
> My First deployment come in the opening hours of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I was with the Third Infantry Division and I was in charge of a platoon of soldier act as mounted troop to drive all the way to Baghdad, I served around 13 months on that tour, volunteer to stay behind and help out the Marines until mid 2004. And rotated back to the US afterward.
> 
> Stateside, I was promoted to 1LT and assigned another billing, before I apply for Airborne School and went pass the Airborne school and subsequently attend Ranger School. Afterward, I went to Army Intelligence School for HUMINT Training for 4 months. Promoted to Captain in my fifth years of service. And billed as a Battalion S2 for the 82nd Airborne Division.
> 
> Afterward I was deployed again to Afghanistan in 2005 to a classified location in charge of a TOC between a few SpecOp team operating in the area. I was in charge of intelligence gathering and interrogation. These team bring their POW to me and I will extract intel from these individual, or if it was a time sensitive job, I am going to fly to these outpost for the job.
> 
> I was seriously wounded in this tour, I was send back stateside and afterward discharged from the Army, afterward I work in private sectors in the US, UK and Canada, and then I help a friend of mine train local police in rural Kansas town, and move to Sweden in 2008 and got married there.
> 
> After Sweden, I live between US and Hong Kong for a period and finally settle in Australia in 2011, which I am currently reside. I graduated from International College of Management, Sydney with a Master in International Business, and currently studying in Australian National University with the MPhil Research program in Strategic Studies.
> 
> I am married without children. My wife was a Major in Swedish Armed Forces, she was a lawyer and she is currently working as a legal consultant to a human right group in Australia.
> I am a keen photographer, I like driving, writing computer programs/apps, I like study history, I am a big documentary buff, I also like topic related to economics, military, tactics.
> 
> I am also very keen in sports, I had played baseball for CU boulder, and I had joined quite a few leisure softball league, I also love basketball.
> 
> I have 3 pet cats with my wife.
> * If a combat soldier had to go to Vietnam war and Iraq/Afghan war, then what differences would he face as a soldier? Which one was the bigger and more difficult war?*
> 
> Jhungary: Although I wasn't in Vietnam, (Can't be, I will be -15 years old then) and my dad never really did talk about his time in Vietnam. I would have imagined there is not much difference between the two wars.
> 
> Granted, technological advance give us a bit more goodie to play with, and it make your fight a bit easier, but by no mean it would be easy to fight a war, especially in a close quarter.
> 
> Of course, the environment and exposure is different, while one war happened in a jungle in South East Asia, and the other happened in a desert in the Middle East, the nature of the warfare is also different. In a jungle, where you literally cannot see your enemy, they can be hiding everywhere, a hut in the field, under the vegetation, tunnel under the rice paddy and so on. In the desert, beside the urban area, it’s basically wide open.
> 
> The enemy we face is both determined and know what they are doing, perhaps the most important of all is that we are fighting in their turf, they know more than you, while you need to study everything, weather, terrain and population.
> 
> But Perhaps the biggest different of all is the people who fight the war, in Vietnam, more than half the US force there was draftee or selective servicemen, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the soldier who were in those wars are professional, the minds of the soldier have been shifted from just trying to stay alive in battle for most GI in Vietnam, to actually trying to achieve the objective given to us professionally.
> 
> As for which war is more difficult, I have never understood the tenacity soldier faced in Vietnam, for my own experience, a war is a war, when you break it down, you are doing the same thing in each war, maybe the road it take you to your objective is longer in one and the other, but the ultimate goal is the same, and I can imagine whatever I have bitched about in Iraq and Afghanistan, the heat, the constant fighting, supplies, hygiene and home sickness, I am pretty sure those are the same stuff Vietnam vet bitch about in Vietnam. I guess, for me, a War is a War; there is no war which is particularly difficult, or particularly easy.
> 
> *
> A soldier is expected to kill the enemies but what emotional turmoil does a soldier go through after killing one? How does a soldier maintain his sanity after different operations?
> *
> Jhungary: You feel nothing, at least at that moment.
> 
> You train to react to contact, and everything starts from there, you basically don’t think about it, you just do it. In fact, unless the decision of killing is conscious, like I am a sniper shooting at someone far away, you probably won’t remember what you did at all with adrenaline pumping, What you do know is that you have just kill someone, and you move on.
> 
> What happens is when you have time to think, the so called “Downtime” you started replay the situation over and over again, you see the same picture in your mind, but at the same time, you don’t actually know what happened. It is a strange feeling to remember something clearly when you don’t remember the detail. Then, your brain is trying to play tricks on you; you started to fill the gap with your own imagination, trying to make sense of the situation.
> 
> Then you try to give the scenario details you won’t possibly know. Like their name, what they were doing, their back story. One day you are telling you they did that, so they deserve that, other day you tell you with different detail and that you may have another option.
> 
> Contrary to common believe, your first kill was hard, your second kill does not make thing easier, it’s actually harder, because you have expected for your first kill, you run up all kind of scenario in your mind, you expected, you anticipated for your first kill. For your second, you don’t have your bravado, your anticipation to push you over that obstacle anymore, you are doing this alone. But once you did it 5, 6, 7 or 8 times, then you sort of get used to it. And at that point, you just do it.
> 
> It is essential for soldier to have soldier get in touch with civilization and reality when they have a down time. Time to relax, time to go back to your normal self, trying to go back to your routine, get in touch with your family via phone call or e-mail, or play some games. Everything you will do when you are not at war.
> 
> This is very important, because even a bit of civilization that make you felt like you are back home, will bring you out from that mentality and keep you from going insane.
> 
> *What does a soldier pack when he's deployed to places like Afghanistan or Iraq? *
> 
> Jhungary: Not much you can really bring on your deployment, most of your stuff are government issued gear, you will have to bring your Personal Weapon (Rifle +Sidearm), Personal Protection item (Like Body Armour, Helmet, Vest, Padding and so on), Accessories (NVG, Blanket, Sleeping Bag, Gasmask and so on) and personal item (wallet, phone, computer and so on) Ammunition and Rifle Accessories are provided when you are over there.
> 
> You are allowed a box of comfort item, for an officer, it's about as big as a standard footlocker, which can be outside Army regulation TO&E, which can be books, board games, portable gaming console, ipod, plush doll (especially if you are a girl) and so on. They can be handy for you to stay at war but still enjoy a touch of home.
> 
> *What do you think of the America's decision to invade Iraq for reasons which were not revealed to the American populace? Should America have used its soldiers as pawns? What is your opinion as a soldier?*
> 
> Jhungary: As a soldier, I don’t think much on the issue whether or not US was hiding facts for the reason we invaded Iraq, as a soldier, this is what you do, you follow order, whatever, wherever and whenever your CO asked you to move out, you go. A soldier’s duty is not to reason why, but to do and die.
> 
> As a soldier, you do not have the luxury to question your order, an army works because you know the person below you will carry out what you said to their best ability, you will also carry out what you have dealt with to your best ability, when soldier started to question the morality of an order, then things will start to go pear shape from there, because if you can question this order because of that reason to which end can you question an order? In the end, you will end up doing nothing but questioning orders.
> 
> As a person, I believe the war is right, and the reason is justify enough to send US boots on the ground, however, I also believe the whole handling of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is wrong. You never overthrown a government without some sort of backbone government left for implementation, the years of in-fighting and insurgency in Iraq is borne from power vacuum, the coalition should at least retain a framework from former Ba’ath Sunni government to help with the transition, the Shia party have been targeted for a long time and it cannot be effectively govern the whole country.
> 
> In Afghanistan, the situation can be best be describe as summer camp, I don’t see anyone trying their best to put the country back together, there are people who are willing and able to do that, but those people are not in any way at any leadership capacity. The US and ISAF troop was there basically to protect the Kabul regime, not to help their own independence post Taliban era. As such, the country is in turmoil simply because we were there, not because of the country trying to get back on its own feet.
> 
> As for whether or not the US government used US soldier as a pawn? I would like to say we are a tool for the politician, Von Clausewitz once said war is simply an extension of policy, and soldier have the extended duty for politician. The question is, we all know that when we join, nobody is forcing anyone to join the Military in the US, so I cannot say we are used as pawn, but an instrument of politics.
> 
> *How do you see American policy of military intervention globally, changing in next 15-20 years? *
> 
> Jhungary: It’s my view that the American Foreign Policy will not change in the next 15-20 years, the military intervention will continue, but with significant difficulty and resistance from regional power, such as Russia, China and Middle Eastern power.
> 
> *
> What was our experience during war being posted abroad? How the locals see foreigners and treated you/foreign forces on any occasion? *
> 
> Jhungary: The local see the foreign troop with a mistrust and confusion. At first, when the US/ISAF/NATO troop overthrown the respective regime, they welcome the troop and their decision, however, as times goes by, and they did not see we leave, they then started to wonder why the foreigner is still in their country.
> 
> At a point when they don’t understand why or for what purpose we are still there in 2008 when the mission was supposed to be accomplished in 2004 in Iraq, mistrust started to set in.
> 
> Notice that most of these local people have low education or no education at all, they simply don’t understand the need of foreign troop in their country to stabilise the situation. For a local shepherd or farmer, they don’t know much about politics or concept of military operation, the only thing they do understand is that, we were there, then the Taliban or insurgent then started shooting at us, and we bomb the crap out of them and destroying their farm, field or sheep. Then the distrust set in, and we started to hate them when they did not tell us bad people are going to ambush us in their village.
> 
> The war would have been so much easier if the local people have basic understanding on what we were doing over there and if they understand their value, and what we are doing, it’s with my estimation they will lean more toward the foreign troop.
> *
> What is your opinion on Trump's policies and what impact will they have on the world?*
> 
> Jhungary: While Trump is the POTUS (President of the United States) Trump’s in fact does not have a major swing in foreign policy. The one biggest impact for Trump’s Policy is the fear factor, Trump is the kind of person will try to scare you straight and manipulate you to do what he wanted or what you’ve been told.
> 
> However, in reality, this probably works in a company, but for a country, the United States is govern by 3 separate and equal entities, the Congress, the Senate and the President, Trump only represent one of the pillars, Trump can threaten a country, but without Congress funding and Senate approval, that would always be an empty threat. And people see Trump as a monkey and a clown; it would be a long way for Trump to win over both Congress and Senate to do what he wants.
> 
> At the end of the day, it’s always the Republican Party’s policy that matters, not Trump, Trump is simply a figure head, we had seen it with Obama, and we had seen it with G W Bush.
> * If you were asked to end terrorism in the world what major steps would you take?*
> 
> Jhungary: There are only one way to end terrorism for sure, and that is a world in harmony, where every country, every religion and every race is equal. Because if one of them is not, then there be war, and if one side think they cannot win a war with another party, then they will resort to terrorism.
> 
> However, I don’t think we can achieve world harmony, may be I am a pessimists, I do think war are going to be there and keep going until the day I died, or even until the day my children dies, so the second best step I would take is to establish an international reaction team, where they have the authority to deal with terrorism related activities worldwide, for which intel can be exchanged, and have the capability to strike and prevent terrorist attack world wide.
> * Advantages of F-35 over A10 in a close air support role? And was it a mistake on part of US to stop F 22 production? Answer should also talk about the F-35 program itself. *
> 
> Jhungary: Not an Air force man, maybe you should ask @gambit on this and he will give you a more technical satisfying answer.
> 
> For me tho, A-10 can* NEVER* be replaced, if it is up to me, I would never replace both A-10 and AC-130. Not because they have a great payload or how they help out ground troop, but simply because of the scare that injected into the enemy’s mind when they see one of them over the horizon and the comfort they give you when you see one above you.
> 
> The best weapon of an A-10 is the psychological effect casted on both you and your enemy. When you see an A-10 above you, you know everything is going to be okay. And times and times again, the enemy disappear when they saw the A-10 appear in the AO.
> 
> Physically, A-10 have a larger payload, longer loitering time, but F-35 hold one distinct advantage over A-10, which is the radar system. A better ASEA suit can detect target or sometime jam target within a larger and longer spectrum, it will give you a better picture of the battlefield, and it helps you if you have more information on the table.
> 
> F-35 is a good platform, it wasn’t matured as of yet, but it will at the end of the cycle. And by then it will be probably one of the most potent platform in the world.
> 
> Most people do not understand F-35 is there not to be an air superiority fighter like F-15C or F-22, but as a multi-role fighter. They are to be used in conjunction to other platform, thus either act as force multiplier themselves or enjoy the boost from other platform.
> 
> Standalone, F-35 probably cannot goes toe to toe to other platform, they may not be as good a dogfighter or stealthier than F-22, or have more payload than an A-10, or the sensor is not as good as E-3, and ASEA radar may not be as powerful as Growler, but when you combine F-35 with other platform, you will basically get a super group that allow you to do and perform every single function in the battlefield, which is the main point of a fighter like F-35 exist.
> 
> F-22 is a test platform, it serves its purpose, rather linger on and make more F-22, the USAF should use those resources to devote to 6th Gen fighter to stay ahead. So I would say the US is right on terminating the F-22 production.
> 
> *11. Which gear/equipment/weapon do you think will be a break through for Soldiers in modern warfare? *
> Most people will say its firepower, other will say it’s protection equipment, for me, it’s COM.
> 
> I think it doesn’t matter if you are using the latest state of the arts M4 with ACOG with PEG-2 and Flashlight, or how ergonomically the grip can be, yes, it may make your life a bit easier, but in the end, you give me a Vietnam era M16 or XM-177, I am pretty sure it’s the same.
> 
> COM, on the other hand, make more impact on a battlefield then soldier usually credit it for, yes, you curse at your COM when it was on a frizz, but when it did real good, you probably never going to appreciated that. In fact, COM allows you to be connected to other people in the same field. COM allows you to understand not just what’s happening to you, but also what’s happening to other unit.
> 
> In War, we always going for the big picture, only you know what is happening everywhere in your Area of Operation, you can control the battlefield. And the only way to do that is by communication, simply because you cannot be in 2 places at once, and the only way you can do is by communicating with the person who was there in a different place.
> 
> So, for me, the next breakthrough of a modern battlefield is the field of communication. Like how to shorten the range of communication; increase its security (both way); how to communicate clearly between two places; and how to provide a better quality communication equipment.
> * During the duty/posting abroad while seeing locals around and families, how much did you miss your home? And how does it feel to return home from a tour?*
> 
> Jhungary: Probably everyone will say the same, when you are over there, you constantly thinking about home, but when you are at home, you constantly thinking about going back over there.
> 
> Over there, you constantly compare the local to your local street or city, you keep seeing kids play in the corner of the street, the image you got in your head is that it could have been you playing downtown at your home, you started to feel more at home when you try to get comfortable to the life over there, to a point by the end of a year of deployment, you would think your home is in Iraq or Afghanistan.
> 
> But then eventually, you do go home, and when you see local street kids playing ball in the local park, you started to think back your time in Iraq or Afghanistan. And you started to think you don’t belong there.
> *How does a soldier prefer to chill or relax during tensed times of war especially while posted abroad?*
> 
> Jhungary: Everyone have a different regime to chillax, I cannot be able to say for most, for example, one of my fellow officer relax by reading case file of his own homicide case (He was a reserve officer he is a police detective by day) I never understand how that can relax him, but I guess it is up to him.
> 
> For me, I relax by a combination of writing letter back home, sports, watching TV (Mostly Cartoon) and games, not really into the music and movie scene and I did not own an IPod/IPhone until 2008….
> 
> I guess whatever different than the day to day life in war (Which is quite repetitive and boring) will relax you.



Salute.


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## Levina

WAJsal said:


> I guess, for me, a War is a War; there is no war which is particularly difficult, or particularly easy.


Spoke like a true soldier. 



WAJsal said:


> What happens is when you have time to think, the so called “Downtime” you started replay the situation over and over again, you see the same picture in your mind, but at the same time, you don’t actually know what happened. It is a strange feeling to remember something clearly when you don’t remember the detail. Then, your brain is trying to play tricks on you; you started to fill the gap with your own imagination, trying to make sense of the situation.


I agree. 
Could i rephrase the question and ask you "how do you prevent your brain from replaying the incident, on a loop, inside your head?". 


WAJsal said:


> It is essential for soldier to have soldier get in touch with civilization and reality when they have a down time. Time to relax, time to go back to your normal self, trying to go back to your routine, get in touch with your family via phone call or e-mail, or play some games. Everything you will do when you are not at war.


Reminds me of a line from a Pakistani soldier's diary "Back to civilization". Apparently the captain had not shaved for about 6 months,for he was posted close to the most dreaded post in the world- Kargil. Well, the topic can be reserved for a more appropriate thread. 


WAJsal said:


> which can be books, board games, portable gaming console, ipod, *plush doll (especially if you are a girl) and so on*. They can be handy for you to stay at war but still enjoy a touch of home.




So what is the weirdest thing you have ever seen a soldier pack for his deployment? 



WAJsal said:


> For me tho, A-10 can* NEVER* be replaced, if it is up to me, I would never replace both A-10 and AC-130. Not because they have a great payload or how they help out ground troop, but simply because of the scare that injected into the enemy’s mind when they see one of them over the horizon and the comfort they give you when you see one above you.


  



Thank you @WAJsal for convincing Gary for this interview. Luvd it! 
@jhungary as i know him is a very honest person, and pens down one of the best military and personal snippets (Donut dollies being one of 'em) on the forum. Wishing him good luck in his future endeavors.

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## jhungary

I would like to thank @WAJsal for this opportunities to brought forward my point of view on this subject matter, if you like it, I hope to serve you all in this forum as much as I can, and if you have any question on anything regrading on land warfare, please do not hesitate and ask  



The Sandman said:


> Very interesting read.



Thank You



bananarepublic said:


> Amazing read



Thank You



Drongo said:


> Good to see a fellow ANU student on here.



I don't go to ANU much (I live in NSW), I have done all my classes there, now I am only require to meet my advisor once a fortnight, and I hate to drive 3 hours from where I live to ANU.......

BTW, what you studying at ANU?



MarvellousThunder@PDC said:


> Nice one



Thank You



Green Arrow said:


> Very Interesting and Informative read. An insight view of the Soldier's mind



Yes, I hope you like it, and Thank You



T-123456 said:


> Strange coming from you,you justified the war in Iraq.
> But interesting,overall.



That's what I said, not what @WAJsal Point of View, he is relaying the interview he did with me

In any case, Thank You



Kambojaric said:


> Very interesting read. Thanks for sharing.



No Problem, thank you for reading



AUSTERLITZ said:


> Great.



Thanks Buddy 



fatman17 said:


> Thanks for sharing and God bless you for your services to your country.



Thank You for your reply, I know we did not see things eyes to eyes, but glad you see thru that and look at this as a point of view of a soldier.

Once again, I thank you.



padamchen said:


> Salute.



Thank You (Playing Reveille at the background  )

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## T-123456

jhungary said:


> That's what I said, not what @WAJsal Point of View, he is relaying the interview he did with me
> 
> In any case, Thank You


I meant you,not @WAJsal .
Why do you think the Iraqi war was just?


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## The Sandman

jhungary said:


> I would like to thank @WAJsal for this opportunities to brought forward my point of view on this subject matter, if you like it, I hope to serve you all in this forum as much as I can, and if you have any question on anything regrading on land warfare, please do not hesitate and ask


Thank you for your answers i have some questions too.

1) Can you tell us which and how many weapon choices a soldier can choose from?
2) What was your favorite weapon during war? 
3) Is it officially allowed to pickup weapons from dead enemy soldiers?
4) Tell us more about your experience during any firefight you remember? share only of you're comfortable to share with us.
5) What was your primary weapon and secondary weapon and did you like it in comparison to the weapon that enemy possessed?
6) During training how did it felt when you fired a gun for the first time how much different it was compared to firing it during war for the first time?
7) Do you remember when and why you fired your weapon for the first time in war?

these may sound really weird but i always wanted to ask a soldier these types of questions!

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## jhungary

Levina said:


> Spoke like a true soldier.







> I agree.
> Could i rephrase the question and ask you "how do you prevent your brain from replaying the incident, on a loop, inside your head?".



To be honest? I will tell you when I find out how....

There are no ending in this, to this day 10 years after I was in Afghanistan, I still have dream about the things that I did, the things that I think I do and the things that I did not do.

I remember someone said "If you run over and killed a dog or a cat, would you ever be able forget that? What about killing a person in an automobile accident?" You won't ever forget what you have done, or not thinking about it. It's a part of your memory, this is something you can never shake it off.

And it come out and remind you time and again about what you had done, one minute you are walking along the Breakfast Cereal counter in your local supermarket, the next minute, you are back in Afghanistan, I am not joking, I once tackle a child to the ground in a local Costco because he was charging at me holding a box of Kellogg's Cereal. Just because it suddenly appear to me that child looks like a suicide bomber because the way he is holding the box.

It did, however, got a bit easy over time, you learn to accept that and you move on, it may give you 5 minutes of cold chill, but you realise it's over when you wake up.

But as to how you can prevent it looping on the back of your mind? You are the first one I will tell when I figure it out myself.




> Reminds me of a line from a Pakistani soldier's diary "Back to civilization". Apparently the captain had not shaved for about 6 months, for he was posted close to the most dreaded post in the world- Kargil. Well, the topic can be reserved for a more appropriate thread.



We can talk about that here.

Well, I guess it best said is to balance the feeling between feeling back at home and making you homesick. You still need to understand and remember that you are over there fighting a war, if you make your battlefield feel like at home, you will start and wonder why are you here.

However, you still can't be too foreign, because you will again, thinking why the hell are you in this god forsaken hellhole.

The right balance is just enough, just enough for your people to wind down, and just enough for them not to miss it too much when they are out doing patrol or setting up COP.

It's hard, but without this balance, people will get crazy, you can't just bring a man out of a world when the biggest decision they make is to go to MacDonald or Hungry Jack for lunch? Or which DVD I am going to rent/buy, to a place when you are making decision that would probably your life is depend upon.




> So what is the weirdest thing you have ever seen a soldier pack for his deployment?



Well, there are one guy who bring a giant size (I think about 3 ft tall) winnie-the-pooh flush doll, in the end, it ended up on the bonnet of one of our Humvee as a mascot, that bear has been shot at, run over and drag around until the colonel come down and ask us to remove it....

Then there are this guy who have bring about 20 homemade apple pecan pies that his mom made him, it did not last a month.

There are all sort of crazy stuff people would bring for comfort, pillows, blankets, books, clothes (you are allow to wear them in your quarter only tho), firearms, even girlfriend's underwear.


> Thank you @WAJsal for convincing Gary for this interview. Luvd it!
> @jhungary as i know him is a very honest person, and pens down one of the best military and personal snippets (Donut dollies being one of 'em) on the forum. Wishing him good luck in his future endeavors.



Thank You

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## Moon

WAJsal said:


> Hope you all enjoy, Thank you @jhungary for giving us the time.
> *----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Introduction:*
> My name is Gary, I was born on the 1980 in the United States. My father is a Mexican-American hailed from Central Mexico and my Mother was Vietnam Born Chinese. I am of mixed Heritage, I have Chinese, Iberia, Anglo-Saxon, Hawaiian and Aztec heritage. My first language is Chinese, English and Spanish. I also speak some Swedish and German and some degree of Arabic.
> 
> I spend my child hood in Hong Kong and Southern China (Shenzhen) and was educated in various school in both places, I attended both Chinese University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University for between 1999-2000, then I left Hong Kong in 2000 and went back to the US, studying in Colorado.
> 
> I enlisted in the US Army right after I arrived back in the US, and have went thru Reserve Officer Training Corp at CU Boulder with the Golden Buffalo Battalion thru something called Green for Gold scholarship.
> 
> I was commissioned as a 2LT with the US Army at 2002 after I graduated from college with a BA in International Affair, and was assigned as a 19C Cavalry officer, as I enlisted as a 19D one station training, I was a cavalrymen.
> 
> My First deployment come in the opening hours of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I was with the Third Infantry Division and I was in charge of a platoon of soldier act as mounted troop to drive all the way to Baghdad, I served around 13 months on that tour, volunteer to stay behind and help out the Marines until mid 2004. And rotated back to the US afterward.
> 
> Stateside, I was promoted to 1LT and assigned another billing, before I apply for Airborne School and went pass the Airborne school and subsequently attend Ranger School. Afterward, I went to Army Intelligence School for HUMINT Training for 4 months. Promoted to Captain in my fifth years of service. And billed as a Battalion S2 for the 82nd Airborne Division.
> 
> Afterward I was deployed again to Afghanistan in 2005 to a classified location in charge of a TOC between a few SpecOp team operating in the area. I was in charge of intelligence gathering and interrogation. These team bring their POW to me and I will extract intel from these individual, or if it was a time sensitive job, I am going to fly to these outpost for the job.
> 
> I was seriously wounded in this tour, I was send back stateside and afterward discharged from the Army, afterward I work in private sectors in the US, UK and Canada, and then I help a friend of mine train local police in rural Kansas town, and move to Sweden in 2008 and got married there.
> 
> After Sweden, I live between US and Hong Kong for a period and finally settle in Australia in 2011, which I am currently reside. I graduated from International College of Management, Sydney with a Master in International Business, and currently studying in Australian National University with the MPhil Research program in Strategic Studies.
> 
> I am married without children. My wife was a Major in Swedish Armed Forces, she was a lawyer and she is currently working as a legal consultant to a human right group in Australia.
> I am a keen photographer, I like driving, writing computer programs/apps, I like study history, I am a big documentary buff, I also like topic related to economics, military, tactics.
> 
> I am also very keen in sports, I had played baseball for CU boulder, and I had joined quite a few leisure softball league, I also love basketball.
> 
> I have 3 pet cats with my wife.
> * If a combat soldier had to go to Vietnam war and Iraq/Afghan war, then what differences would he face as a soldier? Which one was the bigger and more difficult war?*
> 
> Jhungary: Although I wasn't in Vietnam, (Can't be, I will be -15 years old then) and my dad never really did talk about his time in Vietnam. I would have imagined there is not much difference between the two wars.
> 
> Granted, technological advance give us a bit more goodie to play with, and it make your fight a bit easier, but by no mean it would be easy to fight a war, especially in a close quarter.
> 
> Of course, the environment and exposure is different, while one war happened in a jungle in South East Asia, and the other happened in a desert in the Middle East, the nature of the warfare is also different. In a jungle, where you literally cannot see your enemy, they can be hiding everywhere, a hut in the field, under the vegetation, tunnel under the rice paddy and so on. In the desert, beside the urban area, it’s basically wide open.
> 
> The enemy we face is both determined and know what they are doing, perhaps the most important of all is that we are fighting in their turf, they know more than you, while you need to study everything, weather, terrain and population.
> 
> But Perhaps the biggest different of all is the people who fight the war, in Vietnam, more than half the US force there was draftee or selective servicemen, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the soldier who were in those wars are professional, the minds of the soldier have been shifted from just trying to stay alive in battle for most GI in Vietnam, to actually trying to achieve the objective given to us professionally.
> 
> As for which war is more difficult, I have never understood the tenacity soldier faced in Vietnam, for my own experience, a war is a war, when you break it down, you are doing the same thing in each war, maybe the road it take you to your objective is longer in one and the other, but the ultimate goal is the same, and I can imagine whatever I have bitched about in Iraq and Afghanistan, the heat, the constant fighting, supplies, hygiene and home sickness, I am pretty sure those are the same stuff Vietnam vet bitch about in Vietnam. I guess, for me, a War is a War; there is no war which is particularly difficult, or particularly easy.
> 
> *
> A soldier is expected to kill the enemies but what emotional turmoil does a soldier go through after killing one? How does a soldier maintain his sanity after different operations?
> *
> Jhungary: You feel nothing, at least at that moment.
> 
> You train to react to contact, and everything starts from there, you basically don’t think about it, you just do it. In fact, unless the decision of killing is conscious, like I am a sniper shooting at someone far away, you probably won’t remember what you did at all with adrenaline pumping, What you do know is that you have just kill someone, and you move on.
> 
> What happens is when you have time to think, the so called “Downtime” you started replay the situation over and over again, you see the same picture in your mind, but at the same time, you don’t actually know what happened. It is a strange feeling to remember something clearly when you don’t remember the detail. Then, your brain is trying to play tricks on you; you started to fill the gap with your own imagination, trying to make sense of the situation.
> 
> Then you try to give the scenario details you won’t possibly know. Like their name, what they were doing, their back story. One day you are telling you they did that, so they deserve that, other day you tell you with different detail and that you may have another option.
> 
> Contrary to common believe, your first kill was hard, your second kill does not make thing easier, it’s actually harder, because you have expected for your first kill, you run up all kind of scenario in your mind, you expected, you anticipated for your first kill. For your second, you don’t have your bravado, your anticipation to push you over that obstacle anymore, you are doing this alone. But once you did it 5, 6, 7 or 8 times, then you sort of get used to it. And at that point, you just do it.
> 
> It is essential for soldier to have soldier get in touch with civilization and reality when they have a down time. Time to relax, time to go back to your normal self, trying to go back to your routine, get in touch with your family via phone call or e-mail, or play some games. Everything you will do when you are not at war.
> 
> This is very important, because even a bit of civilization that make you felt like you are back home, will bring you out from that mentality and keep you from going insane.
> 
> *What does a soldier pack when he's deployed to places like Afghanistan or Iraq? *
> 
> Jhungary: Not much you can really bring on your deployment, most of your stuff are government issued gear, you will have to bring your Personal Weapon (Rifle +Sidearm), Personal Protection item (Like Body Armour, Helmet, Vest, Padding and so on), Accessories (NVG, Blanket, Sleeping Bag, Gasmask and so on) and personal item (wallet, phone, computer and so on) Ammunition and Rifle Accessories are provided when you are over there.
> 
> You are allowed a box of comfort item, for an officer, it's about as big as a standard footlocker, which can be outside Army regulation TO&E, which can be books, board games, portable gaming console, ipod, plush doll (especially if you are a girl) and so on. They can be handy for you to stay at war but still enjoy a touch of home.
> 
> *What do you think of the America's decision to invade Iraq for reasons which were not revealed to the American populace? Should America have used its soldiers as pawns? What is your opinion as a soldier?*
> 
> Jhungary: As a soldier, I don’t think much on the issue whether or not US was hiding facts for the reason we invaded Iraq, as a soldier, this is what you do, you follow order, whatever, wherever and whenever your CO asked you to move out, you go. A soldier’s duty is not to reason why, but to do and die.
> 
> As a soldier, you do not have the luxury to question your order, an army works because you know the person below you will carry out what you said to their best ability, you will also carry out what you have dealt with to your best ability, when soldier started to question the morality of an order, then things will start to go pear shape from there, because if you can question this order because of that reason to which end can you question an order? In the end, you will end up doing nothing but questioning orders.
> 
> As a person, I believe the war is right, and the reason is justify enough to send US boots on the ground, however, I also believe the whole handling of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is wrong. You never overthrown a government without some sort of backbone government left for implementation, the years of in-fighting and insurgency in Iraq is borne from power vacuum, the coalition should at least retain a framework from former Ba’ath Sunni government to help with the transition, the Shia party have been targeted for a long time and it cannot be effectively govern the whole country.
> 
> In Afghanistan, the situation can be best be describe as summer camp, I don’t see anyone trying their best to put the country back together, there are people who are willing and able to do that, but those people are not in any way at any leadership capacity. The US and ISAF troop was there basically to protect the Kabul regime, not to help their own independence post Taliban era. As such, the country is in turmoil simply because we were there, not because of the country trying to get back on its own feet.
> 
> As for whether or not the US government used US soldier as a pawn? I would like to say we are a tool for the politician, Von Clausewitz once said war is simply an extension of policy, and soldier have the extended duty for politician. The question is, we all know that when we join, nobody is forcing anyone to join the Military in the US, so I cannot say we are used as pawn, but an instrument of politics.
> 
> *How do you see American policy of military intervention globally, changing in next 15-20 years? *
> 
> Jhungary: It’s my view that the American Foreign Policy will not change in the next 15-20 years, the military intervention will continue, but with significant difficulty and resistance from regional power, such as Russia, China and Middle Eastern power.
> 
> *
> What was our experience during war being posted abroad? How the locals see foreigners and treated you/foreign forces on any occasion? *
> 
> Jhungary: The local see the foreign troop with a mistrust and confusion. At first, when the US/ISAF/NATO troop overthrown the respective regime, they welcome the troop and their decision, however, as times goes by, and they did not see we leave, they then started to wonder why the foreigner is still in their country.
> 
> At a point when they don’t understand why or for what purpose we are still there in 2008 when the mission was supposed to be accomplished in 2004 in Iraq, mistrust started to set in.
> 
> Notice that most of these local people have low education or no education at all, they simply don’t understand the need of foreign troop in their country to stabilise the situation. For a local shepherd or farmer, they don’t know much about politics or concept of military operation, the only thing they do understand is that, we were there, then the Taliban or insurgent then started shooting at us, and we bomb the crap out of them and destroying their farm, field or sheep. Then the distrust set in, and we started to hate them when they did not tell us bad people are going to ambush us in their village.
> 
> The war would have been so much easier if the local people have basic understanding on what we were doing over there and if they understand their value, and what we are doing, it’s with my estimation they will lean more toward the foreign troop.
> *
> What is your opinion on Trump's policies and what impact will they have on the world?*
> 
> Jhungary: While Trump is the POTUS (President of the United States) Trump’s in fact does not have a major swing in foreign policy. The one biggest impact for Trump’s Policy is the fear factor, Trump is the kind of person will try to scare you straight and manipulate you to do what he wanted or what you’ve been told.
> 
> However, in reality, this probably works in a company, but for a country, the United States is govern by 3 separate and equal entities, the Congress, the Senate and the President, Trump only represent one of the pillars, Trump can threaten a country, but without Congress funding and Senate approval, that would always be an empty threat. And people see Trump as a monkey and a clown; it would be a long way for Trump to win over both Congress and Senate to do what he wants.
> 
> At the end of the day, it’s always the Republican Party’s policy that matters, not Trump, Trump is simply a figure head, we had seen it with Obama, and we had seen it with G W Bush.
> * If you were asked to end terrorism in the world what major steps would you take?*
> 
> Jhungary: There are only one way to end terrorism for sure, and that is a world in harmony, where every country, every religion and every race is equal. Because if one of them is not, then there be war, and if one side think they cannot win a war with another party, then they will resort to terrorism.
> 
> However, I don’t think we can achieve world harmony, may be I am a pessimists, I do think war are going to be there and keep going until the day I died, or even until the day my children dies, so the second best step I would take is to establish an international reaction team, where they have the authority to deal with terrorism related activities worldwide, for which intel can be exchanged, and have the capability to strike and prevent terrorist attack world wide.
> * Advantages of F-35 over A10 in a close air support role? And was it a mistake on part of US to stop F 22 production? Answer should also talk about the F-35 program itself. *
> 
> Jhungary: Not an Air force man, maybe you should ask @gambit on this and he will give you a more technical satisfying answer.
> 
> For me tho, A-10 can* NEVER* be replaced, if it is up to me, I would never replace both A-10 and AC-130. Not because they have a great payload or how they help out ground troop, but simply because of the scare that injected into the enemy’s mind when they see one of them over the horizon and the comfort they give you when you see one above you.
> 
> The best weapon of an A-10 is the psychological effect casted on both you and your enemy. When you see an A-10 above you, you know everything is going to be okay. And times and times again, the enemy disappear when they saw the A-10 appear in the AO.
> 
> Physically, A-10 have a larger payload, longer loitering time, but F-35 hold one distinct advantage over A-10, which is the radar system. A better ASEA suit can detect target or sometime jam target within a larger and longer spectrum, it will give you a better picture of the battlefield, and it helps you if you have more information on the table.
> 
> F-35 is a good platform, it wasn’t matured as of yet, but it will at the end of the cycle. And by then it will be probably one of the most potent platform in the world.
> 
> Most people do not understand F-35 is there not to be an air superiority fighter like F-15C or F-22, but as a multi-role fighter. They are to be used in conjunction to other platform, thus either act as force multiplier themselves or enjoy the boost from other platform.
> 
> Standalone, F-35 probably cannot goes toe to toe to other platform, they may not be as good a dogfighter or stealthier than F-22, or have more payload than an A-10, or the sensor is not as good as E-3, and ASEA radar may not be as powerful as Growler, but when you combine F-35 with other platform, you will basically get a super group that allow you to do and perform every single function in the battlefield, which is the main point of a fighter like F-35 exist.
> 
> F-22 is a test platform, it serves its purpose, rather linger on and make more F-22, the USAF should use those resources to devote to 6th Gen fighter to stay ahead. So I would say the US is right on terminating the F-22 production.
> 
> *11. Which gear/equipment/weapon do you think will be a break through for Soldiers in modern warfare? *
> Most people will say its firepower, other will say it’s protection equipment, for me, it’s COM.
> 
> I think it doesn’t matter if you are using the latest state of the arts M4 with ACOG with PEG-2 and Flashlight, or how ergonomically the grip can be, yes, it may make your life a bit easier, but in the end, you give me a Vietnam era M16 or XM-177, I am pretty sure it’s the same.
> 
> COM, on the other hand, make more impact on a battlefield then soldier usually credit it for, yes, you curse at your COM when it was on a frizz, but when it did real good, you probably never going to appreciated that. In fact, COM allows you to be connected to other people in the same field. COM allows you to understand not just what’s happening to you, but also what’s happening to other unit.
> 
> In War, we always going for the big picture, only you know what is happening everywhere in your Area of Operation, you can control the battlefield. And the only way to do that is by communication, simply because you cannot be in 2 places at once, and the only way you can do is by communicating with the person who was there in a different place.
> 
> So, for me, the next breakthrough of a modern battlefield is the field of communication. Like how to shorten the range of communication; increase its security (both way); how to communicate clearly between two places; and how to provide a better quality communication equipment.
> * During the duty/posting abroad while seeing locals around and families, how much did you miss your home? And how does it feel to return home from a tour?*
> 
> Jhungary: Probably everyone will say the same, when you are over there, you constantly thinking about home, but when you are at home, you constantly thinking about going back over there.
> 
> Over there, you constantly compare the local to your local street or city, you keep seeing kids play in the corner of the street, the image you got in your head is that it could have been you playing downtown at your home, you started to feel more at home when you try to get comfortable to the life over there, to a point by the end of a year of deployment, you would think your home is in Iraq or Afghanistan.
> 
> But then eventually, you do go home, and when you see local street kids playing ball in the local park, you started to think back your time in Iraq or Afghanistan. And you started to think you don’t belong there.
> *How does a soldier prefer to chill or relax during tensed times of war especially while posted abroad?*
> 
> Jhungary: Everyone have a different regime to chillax, I cannot be able to say for most, for example, one of my fellow officer relax by reading case file of his own homicide case (He was a reserve officer he is a police detective by day) I never understand how that can relax him, but I guess it is up to him.
> 
> For me, I relax by a combination of writing letter back home, sports, watching TV (Mostly Cartoon) and games, not really into the music and movie scene and I did not own an IPod/IPhone until 2008….
> 
> I guess whatever different than the day to day life in war (Which is quite repetitive and boring) will relax you.


Amazing thread @WAJsal I find these types of threads refreshing and informative. Keep up the great work.
And thank you @jhungary for sharing this with us, it was an amazing insight.

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## Zee-shaun

I enjoyed reading it.
Thanks for sharing.


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## jhungary

The Sandman said:


> Thank you for your answers i have some questions too.
> 
> 1) Can you tell us which and how many weapon choices a soldier can choose from?
> 2) What was your favorite weapon during war?
> 3) Is it officially allowed to pickup weapons from dead enemy soldiers?
> 4) Tell us more about your experience during any firefight you remember? share only of you're comfortable to share with us.
> 5) What was your primary weapon and secondary weapon and did you like it in comparison to the weapon that enemy possessed?
> 6) During training how did it felt when you fired a gun for the first time how much different it was compared to firing it during war for the first time?
> 7) Do you remember when and why you fired your weapon for the first time in war?
> 
> these may sound really weird but i always wanted to ask a soldier these types of questions!



sounded like you are about to join the military yourself 

Question is always cool, as long as it did not goes up in sensitive area (personal or professional), in fact, if you are really wanting to join the military, it's important for you to understand what soldier does and know what you are getting into before you make your decision.

1.) You cannot choose which weapon you want, you can choose your MOS and your position within the squad. But that position will dictate what weapon you will use. Each weapon you use you would have to qualified for it before hand, you need to attend a short course to qualify for the weapon you use.

There are 5 Position in a squad of 11 soldier. Squad Leader, Support Gunner, Rifleman (Fire Team Leader), Rifleman/Marksman and Grenadier.

For Squad Leader/Fire Team Leader, your standard weapon is a M4, you can put a M203 and double as a Grenadier if you can find one or requisition for one. But normally, we just don't bother (Although I did have a M203 attached to my M4 when I was in Iraq). 

For Support Gunner, your standard weapon is M249 SAW, you also go to battle with 200-300 rounds of extra ammo.

For Rifleman/Marksman, your main choice of weapon is M4, however, soldier who qualified for SDM (Squad Designated Marksman) can carry a SR-25 with a 14x50 Scope on top of the M4. Rifleman would be the only person that have optic support in my days, now everyone gets a ACOG. 

For Grenadier, your main weapon is M4 with attached M203, which you will have 10 HE round and 4 Smoke round to goes with. 

Sometime soldier within a squad will cross train with each other weapon, unless they do it officially (not just play with your team mate weapon) you are basically not allow to touch weapon that you are not qualified. 

In a Platoon, when we have 3 squads, plus a HQ section, the weapon you use are the same with the execption of Heavy Weapon Squad, when a Platoon MG Gunner will use a M240Bravo instead of a M249, and you can sometime have a sniper team attached to your HQ section, which they will use M24SWS, otherwise Platoon Leader uses the same load out than the Squad Leader and Fire team Leader, Medic and Radioman uses reduced loading of a Rifleman Load out.

Today, almost all the weapon comes with full accessories (PEG-2, ACOG, Handgrip) but in my time, those stuff are allotted, you can trade within each other or you can apply for stuff that you think you need but you don't have.

Sidearm on the other hand, is quite relax, the standard sidearm is M9. But basically with CO approval, you can use whatever you want. Bullet is a bit tricky tho, but since you don't have more than 2 or 3 clips anyway, if you decided to go off rail, you will find a way to find bullet somehow.

2.) For all the weapon I fired, I love the .50 cal machinegun, but my favourite is always going to be my own M4. 

3.) Not a sanctioned act, but you are allow to do something like that in an emergency, but you are not allow to use captured weapon. If you captured enemy weapon (like AK, or RPG) you need to give them to the Quartermaster and they decide what to do with it. Some people do keep captured weapon tho as I know of, but if you are doing it, those are illegal weapon.

People think why this is important? Well, soldier train to react to fire, you were trained to react to anything other than your own weapon (AK and M4 have a different sound, so does M249 and even 240 Bravo) You train to face incoming fire by listen to where the AK round is coming in, if someone in your team shooting AK behind you, that a good recipe for Blue on Blue.

4.) There are a few firefight I have been in, mostly in Iraq, but some are in Afghanistan (I was working intelligence in Afghanistan, mostly confined to a room) I remembered one time I was in Iraq, we are driving along Highway 1 toward Baghdad, my Humvee is the lead element in our group and we are riding with 2 Bradley from another platoon, a semi-trailer was park across the road and block the whole road in a perfect ambush position, since we are not allow to stop on the side (because there may be UXO and was not cleared by the engineer) We stopped on both side of the road and got out and let the Bradley through, at this stage, the Iraqi open fire on us as I was about to get out and direct the Bradley. I want the Bradley to put a few 25 mike on the semitrailer and blow it up and push it thru and we in the Humvee follow. 

Once I open the door, bullet just fly over, you know when they are shooting at you as bullet pass next to your head have a ringing to it, and you know when dust keep kicking up around you, means those bullet misses up and shoot up everything behind you. They are setting up on either side of the road, and behind the Trailer in a perfect V shape ambush.

So, I close the door, and fire my M4 thru the window, half looking and half listening in the ICOM, they teach you to scan the threat and open fire wisely, but I can tell you that, it does not happen this way in a real firefight, bullet goes everywhere, yours', theirs', you hear something or you glance something out of your eyes, and you point your rifle in that direction and pull the trigger.

So, we are in a Humvee, there are 4 of us and we all shooting outside the window, the guy in the back passenger seat on the passenger side is shooting with his sidearm because his rifle was stuck between the seat. Then I realise something is missing. I did not hear the Machine Gun on top of our Humvee firing, so I look back and keep yelling "Get the 50, Get the 50" 

Just as I look back outside my window, I fire a round before I actually looking at the target, the round bounce back inside the Humvee, then I saw my whole window was blocked, that's because the Bradley have rolled up against my door. The guy behind the driver say "Fuxk" and he was almost hit by round I fired. So he look at me a bit, got up and stand in the portal, and he started open fire on the 50 cal, first a few shot, and then a long burst.

Then I pad the shoulder of my driver and tell him to get out of the vehicle so we can clear the check point. I jump over the gear box and got off from his door, both of us dash for 10 meters, and go behind the back of the semi-trailer. Just as this time the stupid Bradley open up on it and smashing the glass and pepping the cab around us, we run back as quickly as we can and I go back to my second Humvee and tell the soldier inside to come out and clear the roadblock. 

And then we move behind the 2 Bradley, and we pin down the enemy so the Bradley can shoot us a path. After they destroy the cab enough, the 2 Bradley ram the Semi-trailer and we just use this time to mount up and follow the Bradley and get the hell out of there. 

Once we clear, we call for gunship support and they deal with whoever left at that roadblock.

And is one of the more comfortable story I can tell you. Because the next time I hear about an ambush at that site, the insurgent start using kids and RPG instead of Pickup trucks and semi-trailer..

5.) My Primary Weapon is a M4 with a 40 mm M203 grenade launcher, and my side arms is a M9 with 15 rounds mag. M4 have a shorter range than the AK and SKS the insurgent is using, the problem is then we most likely have to move into position before we can hit them. But on the other hand, AK lacking accuracy beyond 150 yards, so you are relative safe moving this close to a person firing a AK. 

Closer to it, it come down to luck and skill. But then we can compensate with Marksman rifle, they can pin down people with AK further out up to 300 yards.

In all, our weapon is good for mauver warfare, theirs are good for close up contact. So if they ambush us, they will need to get close, but if we ambush them, we can do it further out.

6.) Shooting a Steel plate target in training and shooting a person in war is different. 

When you shoot at a steel target, it was easy, you have plenty of time to aim for your shot and fire. You don't have anything urge you to do it, nor any distraction.

In War, the noise level is TREMENDOUS. First of all, your target shoot back, so you have to constantly look at your target and duck to take cover, on top of that, you have other people shooting, you can put an aimed shot but ruin it because someone is pumping round behind you with theirs, and finally the adrenaline means it's like you are firing your weapon when you are high. just that you can still control your action. 

When you are in war, all you want is firing your weapon and get this over with. 

7.) The first time I fire a weapon in war is a warning shot. We were in a convoy going into Baghdad and somebody got extremely close (like within 10 yards of us) and I have to stand up on the gun port and fire my rifle around his car so he have to stop.

Hope that help you in your question

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## Levina

WAJsal said:


> Although I wasn't in Vietnam, (Can't be, I will be -15 years old then) and my dad never really did talk about his time in Vietnam. I would have imagined there is not much difference between the two wars.


Forgot to ask you @jhungary , how do you guys fortify your FOBs in such places?


That also brings me to one more question, a British soldier once said "American army has a great unit cohesion and a sense of purpose and loyalty to each other that was hard to beat". 
What do you think separates your army from the rest?



jhungary said:


> Well, there are one guy who bring a giant size (I think about 3 ft tall)


Lol
Thats weird.
The camp leatherneck incident is pretty famous.
Is it really true that a lot of Xbox consoles for marines and soldiers were ordered by a General in Helmand,Afghanistan?




jhungary said:


> I once tackle a child to the ground in a local Costco because he was charging at me holding a box of Kellogg's Cereal.


Reflex action?



jhungary said:


> You are the first one I will tell when I figure it out myself.


  



jhungary said:


> We can talk about that here.


Gary your permission isnt enough. @The Eagle keeps warning me to stick to the topic all the time. I will discuss "KARGIL diaries" only if i get tagged in a thread related to it. Lol
I'm not taking any risk this time. 



jhungary said:


> Well, I guess it best said is to balance the feeling between feeling back at home and making you homesick. You still need to understand and remember that you are over there fighting a war, if you make your battlefield feel like at home, you will start and wonder why are you here.
> 
> However, you still can't be too foreign, because you will again, thinking why the hell are you in this god forsaken hellhole.


I concur.
I really wonder what goes through a soldier's mind when he gets to such FOBs?
I remember reading one such incident penned down by an American soldier who had a crush on a Kurdish female contractor, who was kidnapped by Al-Qaeeda, and tortured in the basement of a mosque. He and his team later found her remains there. He felt guilty deep down because prolly the woman was tortured for she knew him and worked in close contact with his team.
I seriously can not imagine a "normal" man penning down such personal accounts. A soldier? May be.



jhungary said:


> There are all sort of crazy stuff people would bring for comfort, pillows, blankets, books, clothes (you are allow to wear them in your quarter only tho), firearms, even girlfriend's underwear.


Ahem!

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## The Eagle

Levina said:


> Gary your permission isnt enough. @The Eagle keeps warning me to stick to the topic all the time. I will discuss "KARGIL diaries" only if i get tagged in a thread related to it. Lol
> I'm not taking any risk this time.



Keeps warning  that I don't think as such happened even in last 7 days. 

However, a soldier's life is related to interview that being shared though Kargil is totally different subject.

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## Levina

The Eagle said:


> However, a soldier's life is related to interview that being shared though Kargil is totally different subject



I just fainted!!!


There you go @jhungary !
Eagle just confirmed it in a very subtle manner that I don't have the permission to discuss Kargil diaries here. Lolz

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## The Eagle

Levina said:


> How very smart of you Mr mod!



For courtesy, I wouldn't discuss in open thread nor is practice to disclose to others as such. That was on lighter note, though. Kindly edit the post. 

Thanks.


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## jhungary

Mr.Meap said:


> Amazing thread @WAJsal I find these types of threads refreshing and informative. Keep up the great work.
> And thank you @jhungary for sharing this with us, it was an amazing insight.



Thank You



Zee-shaun said:


> I enjoyed reading it.
> Thanks for sharing.



Thank You

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## The Sandman

jhungary said:


> sounded like you are about to join the military yourself


At one point i wanted to but well.... 


jhungary said:


> 2.) For all the weapon I fired, I love the .50 cal machinegun, but my favourite is always going to be my own M4.


Well that thing is a beast! so who's not gonna love it! 


jhungary said:


> 3.) Not a sanctioned act, but you are allow to do something like that in an emergency, but you are not allow to use captured weapon. If you captured enemy weapon (like AK, or RPG) you need to give them to the Quartermaster and they decide what to do with it. Some people do keep captured weapon tho as I know of, but if you are doing it, those are illegal weapon.
> 
> People think why this is important? Well, soldier train to react to fire, you were trained to react to anything other than your own weapon (AK and M4 have a different sound, so does M249 and even 240 Bravo) You train to face incoming fire by listen to where the AK round is coming in, if someone in your team shooting AK behind you, that a good recipe for Blue on Blue.
> 
> 4.) There are a few firefight I have been in, mostly in Iraq, but some are in Afghanistan (I was working intelligence in Afghanistan, mostly confined to a room) I remembered one time I was in Iraq, we are driving along Highway 1 toward Baghdad, my Humvee is the lead element in our group and we are riding with 2 Bradley from another platoon, a semi-trailer was park across the road and block the whole road in a perfect ambush position, since we are not allow to stop on the side (because there may be UXO and was not cleared by the engineer) We stopped on both side of the road and got out and let the Bradley through, at this stage, the Iraqi open fire on us as I was about to get out and direct the Bradley. I want the Bradley to put a few 25 mike on the semitrailer and blow it up and push it thru and we in the Humvee follow.
> 
> Once I open the door, bullet just fly over, you know when they are shooting at you as bullet pass next to your head have a ringing to it, and you know when dust keep kicking up around you, means those bullet misses up and shoot up everything behind you. They are setting up on either side of the road, and behind the Trailer in a perfect V shape ambush.
> 
> So, I close the door, and fire my M4 thru the window, half looking and half listening in the ICOM, they teach you to scan the threat and open fire wisely, but I can tell you that, it does not happen this way in a real firefight, bullet goes everywhere, yours', theirs', you hear something or you glance something out of your eyes, and you point your rifle in that direction and pull the trigger.
> 
> So, we are in a Humvee, there are 4 of us and we all shooting outside the window, the guy in the back passenger seat on the passenger side is shooting with his sidearm because his rifle was stuck between the seat. Then I realise something is missing. I did not hear the Machine Gun on top of our Humvee firing, so I look back and keep yelling "Get the 50, Get the 50"
> 
> Just as I look back outside my window, I fire a round before I actually looking at the target, the round bounce back inside the Humvee, then I saw my whole window was blocked, that's because the Bradley have rolled up against my door. The guy behind the driver say "Fuxk" and he was almost hit by round I fired. So he look at me a bit, got up and stand in the portal, and he started open fire on the 50 cal, first a few shot, and then a long burst.
> 
> Then I pad the shoulder of my driver and tell him to get out of the vehicle so we can clear the check point. I jump over the gear box and got off from his door, both of us dash for 10 meters, and go behind the back of the semi-trailer. Just as this time the stupid Bradley open up on it and smashing the glass and pepping the cab around us, we run back as quickly as we can and I go back to my second Humvee and tell the soldier inside to come out and clear the roadblock.
> 
> And then we move behind the 2 Bradley, and we pin down the enemy so the Bradley can shoot us a path. After they destroy the cab enough, the 2 Bradley ram the Semi-trailer and we just use this time to mount up and follow the Bradley and get the hell out of there.
> 
> Once we clear, we call for gunship support and they deal with whoever left at that roadblock.
> 
> And is one of the more comfortable story I can tell you. Because the next time I hear about an ambush at that site, the insurgent start using kids and RPG instead of Pickup trucks and semi-trailer..
> 
> 5.) My Primary Weapon is a M4 with a 40 mm M203 grenade launcher, and my side arms is a M9 with 15 rounds mag. M4 have a shorter range than the AK and SKS the insurgent is using, the problem is then we most likely have to move into position before we can hit them. But on the other hand, AK lacking accuracy beyond 150 yards, so you are relative safe moving this close to a person firing a AK.
> 
> Closer to it, it come down to luck and skill. But then we can compensate with Marksman rifle, they can pin down people with AK further out up to 300 yards.
> 
> In all, our weapon is good for mauver warfare, theirs are good for close up contact. So if they ambush us, they will need to get close, but if we ambush them, we can do it further out.
> 
> 6.) Shooting a Steel plate target in training and shooting a person in war is different.
> 
> When you shoot at a steel target, it was easy, you have plenty of time to aim for your shot and fire. You don't have anything urge you to do it, nor any distraction.
> 
> In War, the noise level is TREMENDOUS. First of all, your target shoot back, so you have to constantly look at your target and duck to take cover, on top of that, you have other people shooting, you can put an aimed shot but ruin it because someone is pumping round behind you with theirs, and finally the adrenaline means it's like you are firing your weapon when you are high. just that you can still control your action.
> 
> When you are in war, all you want is firing your weapon and get this over with.
> 
> 7.) The first time I fire a weapon in war is a warning shot. We were in a convoy going into Baghdad and somebody got extremely close (like within 10 yards of us) and I have to stand up on the gun port and fire my rifle around his car so he have to stop.
> 
> Hope that help you in your question


Thank you so much for answering all the questions! PDF is a really lucky place to have members like you Niaz and so many others!! 

Yep it did 
@Hell hound @django @Arsalan you guys maybe will love to read this post!

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## Hell hound

The Sandman said:


> At one point i wanted to but well....
> 
> Well that thing is a beast! so who's not gonna love it!
> 
> Thank you so much for answering all the questions! PDF is a really lucky place to have members like you Niaz and so many others!!
> 
> Yep it did
> @Hell hound @django @Arsalan you guys maybe will love to read this post!


Thanks for the tag @The Sandman and great interview @jhungary really learned a lot from it.


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## jhungary

Levina said:


> Forgot to ask you @jhungary , how do you guys fortify your FOBs in such places?
> 
> 
> That also brings me to one more question, a British soldier once said "American army has a great unit cohesion and a sense of purpose and loyalty to each other that was hard to beat".
> What do you think separates your army from the rest?



You mean FOB or COP? FOB is a quite established base, where most defence system/measure are permanent. They can be pick up and removed but their defensive structure is quite extensive with blast wall, reinforced concrete bunker, steel door couple with watch tower and such.

COP on the other hand is very primitive, they build around natural defence, there maybe huts, houses or barn in between. Defence is makeshift, you uses rocks, sandbag, or cargo container to build a defence of a COP.

I would say we are there to get by, what separate us and the other I guess is the devotion we have to one and other, we trained together, deployed together and we see each other as the brother (or sister) we never met, and they are closer than the actual brother and sister you had. And we fought for each other. Pretty sure this happened to all in the same profession. It's like the St Crispian's Speech in Henry V

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

Maybe because we serve longer together, as we spend a whole year instead if 6 months in battle with each other.
But still, I would say this happens to every soldier across the field.





> Lol
> Thats weird.
> The camp leatherneck incident is pretty famous.
> Is it really true that a lot of Xbox consoles for marines and soldiers were ordered by a General in Helmand,Afghanistan?



what is the camp leatherneck incident??

I think he had that when he was a kid, I am not sure, but just that we stole it from him and put him up on a Humvee. It needed a good wash after our deployment.

Yes, each base have rec rooms which filled with everything you want, to relax, from gym equipment, TV/DVD, to Xbox, PS2/3/4 and Gamecube (Which is very popular in my days) 

Mostly you can play PG/M games with it, they won't sell anything in the PX that deem inappropriate to soldier deployed overseas (Grand Theft Auto is one of them) Mostly you will play either FPS game (Halo, Call of Duty) or RPG (Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda) or Adventure Game (Mario Brother and so on) and Racing game.

Also, officer within a company will rotate to the job of "Morale Officer" usually there ate 6-8 officers in a company, and what Morale Officer do is to organise some sort of leisure activities to either build cohesion or raise morale. When I was in charge of this, I usually just organise some Sporting event and Poker Night. Some will organise game night or movie marathon, but that's up to individual officer




> Reflex action?



Flashback. It just looks like he is holding a bomb, and it trigger past memory and it fused between the two, that that point, I was living at the present and the past. And that is just a reflex I tackle him, well, at least this is what the psychiatrist said. I don't really know what happened, I just know one minute I was shopping in the breakfast cereal aisle, next minute I was on the floor pushing my feet up against the child chest and 2 guys try to restrain me.



>



:ok:



> Gary your permission isnt enough. @The Eagle keeps warning me to stick to the topic all the time. I will discuss "KARGIL diaries" only if i get tagged in a thread related to it. Lol
> I'm not taking any risk this time.



Have no idea what that [Kargil Diaries] is, and if you want to talk about it in private, you know my e-mail address. 




> I concur.
> I really wonder what goes through a soldier's mind when he gets to such FOBs?
> I remember reading one such incident penned down by an American soldier who had a crush on a Kurdish female contractor, who was kidnapped by Al-Qaeeda, and tortured in the basement of a mosque. He and his team later found her remains there. He felt guilty deep down because prolly the woman was tortured for she knew him and worked in close contact with his team.
> I seriously can not imagine a "normal" man penning down such personal accounts. A soldier? May be.



There are a long and a short for it, short version is, shit happens everyday, and if you have to document it all, whether or not you think if that's civilize by your standard, that does not stop it from happening all over again.

The long version is that we don't live by their standard. Even Muslim from other region have their eyes open wide by the practices to these people. I have a guy who was an Indonesian Muslim migrate to the State and deployed in my unit. Most of the time he understand why people do what they do but some time, some practices would still be bothering him.

The problem is, we live in one world, they lived in another. When we were over there, it is important to remember that we are there to fight a war, not to get into someone else's life, or even not to understand how their life works, we need to be separate because in a normal circumstance, we should not be there.

Your job is to, well, do your job, whatever you been told to do in Iraq or Afghanistan, that may involve helping local but at no time should any of the soldier be involve in local's daily life. When you do, you brought yourself, your unit and the local in danger. Because their livelihood is probably different, sometime conflicting to ours, if we care about it too much and try to change things for them to be more inline with us, things will go sideway because it may not be acceptable to the local standard. 

In your case, that soldier have violate this golden rules by having an interaction with this Kurdish female, it ended up hurting her, and I know it is bad saying this, but it happen quite often over there.



> Ahem!



........Well, people did believe in all kind of crazy stuff. I am just telling it like it is 



The Sandman said:


> At one point i wanted to but well....
> 
> Well that thing is a beast! so who's not gonna love it!
> 
> Thank you so much for answering all the questions! PDF is a really lucky place to have members like you Niaz and so many others!!
> 
> Yep it did
> @Hell hound @django @Arsalan you guys maybe will love to read this post!



No problem.

Wish you luck on the military front 

Thank you



Hell hound said:


> Thanks for the tag @The Sandman and great interview @jhungary really learned a lot from it.



Thank You

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## Drongo

jhungary said:


> I don't go to ANU much (I live in NSW), I have done all my classes there, now I am only require to meet my advisor once a fortnight, and I hate to drive 3 hours from where I live to ANU.......
> 
> BTW, what you studying at ANU?


Fair enough, there's not really that much to do here in Canberra. I'm doing undergrad, looking at security/conflict resolution/state building/languages etc. It's a nice change from army life.


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## Nilgiri

Hey @jhungary did you ever get to fire a ma deuce at some baddies. Few things sort things out like a repeated stream of .50 BMG 

An excellent read as usual btw. It was fun sharing our HK memories in the other thread too.

BTW regarding your spoken Chinese, is it Mandarin or Cantonese?

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## Levina

jhungary said:


> Have no idea what that [Kargil Diaries] is, and if you want to talk about it in private, you know my e-mail address.



Yes I still have your email ID.
Infact I stumbled upon one of your emails just yesterday when I was searching for an old email. Lol 
The Kargil diary is reserved for the email then.


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## jhungary

Drongo said:


> Fair enough, there's not really that much to do here in Canberra. I'm doing undergrad, looking at security/conflict resolution/state building/languages etc. It's a nice change from army life.



Canberra is boring, I would rather not spend my time in ACT, no offence 

However, ANU suit the purpose because there aren't any distraction for their student.

I did my undergrad in Colorado, its kind of like doing a course in ACT...hehe



Nilgiri said:


> Hey @jhungary did you ever get to fire a ma deuce at some baddies. Few things sort things out like a repeated stream of .50 BMG
> 
> An excellent read as usual btw. It was fun sharing our HK memories in the other thread too.
> 
> BTW regarding your spoken Chinese, is it Mandarin or Cantonese?



Fired the 50 cal, but never toward a person. I was an officer, I sit at the front so I have no access to the turret in battle. If you get into the receiving end of a .50 BMG, well, most likely you will put up your arms and surrender.

Yeah, I don't quite remember much about Hong Kong, a friend of mind went to Hong Kong at the beginning of this month for RUgby 7 and she talked about a lot of stuff about Hong Kong where I have absolutely no idea 

By the way, I speak perfect Cantonese, but only limited Mandarin.



Levina said:


> Yes I still have your email ID.
> Infact I stumbled upon one of your emails just yesterday when I was searching for an old email. Lol
> The Kargil diary is reserved for the email then.



okay, shoot me an e-mail if you want, whenever you want

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## Blue Marlin

good read @jhungary kudos


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## Deidara

Once you said that you chat about war with your wife but I think that's a mistake because she is an officer and you are not. Officers look at the most general principles which soldiers dont. I mean you are not playing to your strengths when you do that. I know her grip on the subject cause i talked with her about it when she was here. Which was of a typical european officer. i.e complete understanding.
I mean women are constantly evaluating men no matter how close the relationship. And i dont want no good man like yourself having some points deducted.


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## jhungary

Blue Marlin said:


> good read @jhungary kudos



Thank You

You are one of the most intelligent member I had a chance to converse with. Please keep up the good work



JungleBook said:


> Once you said that you chat about war with your wife but I think that's a mistake because she is an officer and you are not. Officers look at the most general principles which soldiers dont. I mean you are not playing to your strengths when you do that. I know her grip on the subject cause i talked with her about it when she was here. Which was of a typical european officer. i.e complete understanding.
> I mean women are constantly evaluating men no matter how close the relationship. And i dont want no good man like yourself having some points deducted.



lol....She is bossy, right?

Anyway, I am an officer too, but I am a Captain (O-3) which is a company grade officer (which is a class of junior officer) and she is a Major (O-4) which is a field grade officer, while I am the most senior of the junior officer, she is the most junior of senior officer (like the word play here), she was also a professional officer while I am a ground officer, which means most of the time she spend in a desk, while I spend most of my time commanding troop on the field, while she lack field experience, she have professional knowledge to administrate and manage a larger unit, and something which I don't have, but I do have extensive field experience.

Arguing with my wife in military matter is, one word, crazy, maybe it's like you said, it's an European Officer trait, many of the issue when I see no importance, she see the need to discuss to the end in that issue. Hence, it usually ended up I sleep on the crouch after an argument (Beside, she is a lawyer....)

Well, I am not going to say which side is of a better argument, I do understand at her position, every little thing count as these are the little thing that make up the whole picture, but for a ground hog like me, you need to measure what you do with the time you need to do it, and you usually cannot have a complete analysis before you do something. I think that is the different between us.

But yeah, in the end, I think I am always right and she think she is always right.

and thanks for your thought

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## Nilgiri

jhungary said:


> By the way, I speak perfect Cantonese, but only limited Mandarin.



Only the Cantonese swear words (and few slangs) have stuck with me lol. They are some of the most creative I have seen in the world .

But I really do appreciate the sound of Cantonese, a beautiful language with those musical tones....easier on the ear than mandarin for me.

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## Blue Marlin

jhungary said:


> Thank You
> 
> You are one of the most intelligent member I had a chance to converse with. Please keep up the good work


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## jhungary

Nilgiri said:


> Only the Cantonese swear words (and few slangs) have stuck with me lol. They are some of the most creative I have seen in the world .
> 
> But I really do appreciate the sound of Cantonese, a beautiful language with those musical tones....easier on the ear than mandarin for me.



Well, I do know the whole range........(from normal word to swearing) but I don't think that's a beautiful language, probably when you have to be punished by dictation (a very common way to punish a student) and wrote the same thing over and over again for 50 times, you don't find it fun.

And to be honest, Cantonese is rude, it does not have the "elegance" of the mandarin, when you are talking in Cantonese, it always ended up like the two of you are arguing. 

I did not learn Mandarin because it was not compulsory when I was in Hong Kong, I have classes maybe for 2 years when I was studying in Shenzhen? My mandarin is probably at the same level as your Cantonese.



Blue Marlin said:


>



lol

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## Nilgiri

jhungary said:


> Well, I do know the whole range........(from normal word to swearing) but I don't think that's a beautiful language, probably when you have to be punished by dictation (a very common way to punish a student) and wrote the same thing over and over again for 50 times, you don't find it fun.
> 
> And to be honest, Cantonese is rude, it does not have the "elegance" of the mandarin, when you are talking in Cantonese, it always ended up like the two of you are arguing.
> 
> I did not learn Mandarin because it was not compulsory when I was in Hong Kong, I have classes maybe for 2 years when I was studying in Shenzhen? My mandarin is probably at the same level as your Cantonese.
> 
> 
> 
> lol



Lol i dunno, cantonese drawn out endings and tones always sounded nice to me (all the aaaa's and euuhhh's etc.)...especially after all the guttural ends in the middle of the sentence (ik's um's at's etc) but its probably because I never had to learn it properly like you said (just what i picked up from friends at school etc). Mandarin to me sounds just like typical mix of eee's and urrr's in the middle with much less music in the sentence ending hehe.


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## jhungary

T-123456 said:


> I meant you,not @WAJsal .
> Why do you think the Iraqi war was just?



Why do I think the Iraq war was just?

To answer this question, can you give me a reason why War should started in the first place?

To fight in a war, is not to ask whether or not the war was right or wrong, this is not for a soldier to determined, to support a war, you need to understand the process is not something that within reason.

Hence go back to the original question, why Iraq was just? Then the answer is, why not just?

People killing people everyday, you heard about it in Africa, you heard about it in Middle East, you heard about it in Europe, for a person, irrespective of your political believe, you can either be a part of it, or think it's none of your business, but in the end, whatever you do, those killing will not stop. But whether or not you opt to do something about it, or you stay behind as if it's none of your business. It does not mean the war is justified, or unjustified in that sense. What that question entail is that, how you see a war.

If war cannot be justified without a reason, then war should not have happen in the first place, knowing this, you need to realise, yes, the US may fight for Oil, the US may fight for Human Right, the US may have done this or may have done that to its own interest and right, but either way, standing down or be a part of it. You gotta choose, and when we are sitting at home doing nothing, that is the world I don't want to live in.

*All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing - Edmund Burke
*
You may not agree on why I fight, but that does not mean a war is unjust, it just mean you and I see things differently.



Nilgiri said:


> Lol i dunno, cantonese drawn out endings and tones always sounded nice to me (all the aaaa's and euuhhh's etc.)...especially after all the guttural ends in the middle of the sentence (ik's um's at's etc) but its probably because I never had to learn it properly like you said (just what i picked up from friends at school etc). Mandarin to me sounds just like typical mix of eee's and urrr's in the middle with much less music in the sentence ending hehe.



I don't remember how I learn Cantonese in Hong Kong, when you go to school in Hong Kong, you sort of immerse yourself in that culture, and you pick up the word as you converse with your friends, and perhaps my friend is not as "elegant" or "musical" as they should be  but in the end, when you understand enough Cantonese. You will know that the wording is quite colloquial

I don't speak Cantonese much these day, and even I don't remember a lot of Cantonese as we don't use it, when you stop writing it, you probably will completely forgot about it and that's a problem.

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## Drongo

jhungary said:


> People killing people everyday, you heard about it in Africa, you heard about it in Middle East, you heard about it in Europe, for a person, irrespective of your political believe, you can either be a part of it, or think it's none of your business, but in the end, whatever you do, those killing will not stop. But whether or not you opt to do something about it, or you stay behind as if it's none of your business. It does not mean the war is justified, or unjustified in that sense. What that question entail is that, how you see a war.
> 
> If war cannot be justified without a reason, then war should not have happen in the first place, knowing this, you need to realise, yes, the US may fight for Oil, the US may fight for Human Right, the US may have done this or may have done that to its own interest and right, but either way, standing down or be a part of it. You gotta choose, and when we are sitting at home doing nothing, that is the world I don't want to live in.


There's a whole "just war" theoretical framework that the Iraq war fails at pretty much every step. You can disagree with the theory and that's fine, but there was very little violence in Iraq in 2002. I'm not a pacifist (having fought in a war myself), but I think it's almost universally accepted with the benefit of hindsight that the invasion was an enormous error in judgement if not outright criminal.

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## jhungary

Drongo said:


> There's a whole "just war" theoretical framework that the Iraq war fails at pretty much every step. You can disagree with the theory and that's fine, but there was very little violence in Iraq in 2002. I'm not a pacifist (having fought in a war myself), but I think it's almost universally accepted with the benefit of hindsight that the invasion was an enormous error in judgement if not outright criminal.



Again, what justified a war?

Money? If so, how much money should it be for a war to justify? 10 millions? 100 millions? 1 billions?
Violence? If so, how much violence should it be for a war to justify? 1 people killed? 10? 100?

The problem for you, and many people included is that you try to look at a war and justify it "WITH HIND SIGHT" in realty, it does not have anything to do with "THE HIND SIGHT" You justify a decision, and then you go do them AT THAT MOMENT. If you think back on every decision you made or somebody make, you always ended up finding a reason, way or excuse to say "Oh, we shouldn't do that". I am surprise for you to claim you fought in war yourself, you do not seems to think using the end result to try to judge something in hindsight is basically useless.

Most people said the war is illegal because there are no WMD, or that Iraq was worse off than it was before the invasion in Iraq.

For the first part, how do you exactly know there would not be WMD in Iraq back in 2002/2003? The only way you can know for sure there does not exist WMD in Iraq is for people to go inside unhindered and try to see if there is active WMD in Iraq, the problem is, Iraqi government wasn't doing that, so it beg a question, how do people know Iraq does not have WMD if Iraqi government itself are dodgy on the topic? You went it, you didn't find WMD does not make the decision to go in wrong in the first place, after all, if the American did not went in, How exactly anyone know Iraq does not process any WMD? Beside, Iraq did have expired Nerve Agent and the US found them in 2008.

The second thing about violence, the reason why Iraq was like its state today is because the bad management form the initial invasion, the problem is, they should have had a framework to try and secure a stable government in Iraq once they ousted Saddam, they didn't, in the end, Iraq ended up in a power vacuum, and civil war broke out and insurgency brooding.

The problem is, again, does it mean the invasion was wrong? You can argue they handle the situation badly, but that does not mean the war is wrong in this aspect. What if the US and Allies went in, supporting the local sunni government and use them to rebuild Iraq with the majority of military and police still loyal to the Sunni government? The insurgency would not happen, and we may have a different say by then. The problem is, how the allies handle the war does not justify or unjustified the war to begin with. They could have good intention to start a war, but handle it badly (which is what I think it is the case) but at the end of the day, whether or not a war should start does not equate to how they deal with it afterward. They may handle it badly or perfectly, that's beside the point.

The question then you need to ask, is not why the war in Iraq is justified, but rather, why the war in Iraq is unjust? That way, you will get a better perspective on the issue.


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## Drongo

jhungary said:


> Again, what justified a war?


"Jus ad bellum" is a decent theoretical framework for what justifies starting a war. They are:

*Proper authority and public declaration - *If you care about international norms, the invasion certainly fails this one as it went against the UN security council.
*Just cause / right intention* - arguably it passes this one if they actually put the welfare of the Iraqi people first, but few people would believe that was the reason behind it. It was of course meant to further US interests.
*Probability of success* - again this is arguable. At the time people probably thought it could be done looking at Japan as an example of how an occupying force can rebuild a country, but the arrogance of thinking the West can magically create thriving democracies in the Middle East is perplexing.
*Proportionality* - I wasn't there so I won't talk about it.
*Last resort - *it definitely fails this one, as there was absolutely no reason to expect imminent aggression from Iraq.
It's widely accepted that intelligence indicating there was a danger from WMDs was misconstrued and interpreted to fit a predetermined agenda, a mistake which unfortunately seems to keep being repeated. In essence it was a war of aggression designed to enhance US influence in the region. As somebody who has seen war, I absolutely hate it. I think people who start wars unnecessarily are just about the worst people on earth.

Anyway I'll leave it at that if I'm derailing the thread.

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## jhungary

Drongo said:


> "Jus ad bellum" is a decent theoretical framework for what justifies starting a war. They are:
> 
> *Proper authority and public declaration - *If you care about international norms, the invasion certainly fails this one as it went against the UN security council.
> *Just cause / right intention* - arguably it passes this one if they actually put the welfare of the Iraqi people first, but few people would believe that was the reason behind it. It was of course meant to further US interests.
> *Probability of success* - again this is arguable. At the time people probably thought it could be done looking at Japan as an example of how an occupying force can rebuild a country, but the arrogance of thinking the West can magically create thriving democracies in the Middle East is perplexing.
> *Proportionality* - I wasn't there so I won't talk about it.
> *Last resort - *it definitely fails this one, as there was absolutely no reason to expect imminent aggression from Iraq.
> It's widely accepted that intelligence indicating there was a danger from WMDs was misconstrued and interpreted to fit a predetermined agenda, a mistake which unfortunately seems to keep being repeated. In essence it was a war of aggression designed to enhance US influence in the region. As somebody who has seen war, I absolutely hate it. I think people who start wars unnecessarily are just about the worst people on earth.
> 
> Anyway I'll leave it at that if I'm derailing the thread.



The problem is, you are again justifying the war with the negative outcome, unless at that point in 2002/2003, that outcome is possibly clear by all means, you cannot go back and say "Since we did not find any live WMD, the whole war in Iraq was not just."

What I did not find in that war does not equal to those WMD had not been there to begin with. Your whole argument of war is unjust based on this sentence



> It's widely accepted that intelligence indicating there was a danger from WMDs was misconstrued and interpreted to fit a predetermined agenda



The problem is, it is not possible for anyone to know the intel is misconstrued. At that point in time, nobody actually know that, because Saddam Hussein refuse any inspector to carry out the inspection.

In January 2003, Hans Blix, the lead investigator on behalf of UN stated that Iraq is not cooperate with UN inspector in regard of allowing UN Inspector on the ground and not allowing surveillance plane to fly thru certain area.

The question on whether or not the intel is accurate is not the issue here, the problem is that there are no way to verify whether or not the intelligence was indeed correct, or wrong, because Iraq have blocked that avenue for personnel on the ground to verify that piece of information.

On the other hand, not been able to find WMD does not mean WMD does not exist. US was in Iraq for 8 years (2003-2011) 8 years may seems a long time for you, but most of these time were spend to stabilise the country, the actual operation to look for WMD may well be within just 2 or 3 years, (Around 2004 to 2006 and around 2008-2010), the problem is, when the insurgency started, those time the WMD inspector could be spinning on their tail because no way you can tell if the insurgent actually hide the WMD, even today, there still chances to find WMD in Iraq

Couple with the fact that expired Chemical Weapon did exist in Iraq in 2008, that would mean the intel is at least partially correct, that go back to the original question.

Did US fabricate the intel to fight a war in Iraq? As a former intelligence officer myself, I have my share of Iraqi intelligence, while I cannot tell you what they are or what they said, I can tell you that most, if not all, intel is vetted by multiple source. Granted, they can still be fabricated, but you also need to know one thing, if I were to invade Iraq while fabricating the Iraqi Government having WMD? Why not I fabricate some connection between AQ and Iraq and say Iraq was also responsible for 9/11 attacks? It would be a lot easier to fabricate something that can be associated with real incident, rather make things up in thin air.

And the rest of the question is how you see the operation ended up and trying to say the war is unjust, but in 2003, none of us know anything, because Iraqi government was holding back information and access, and that alone would be enough for US to send force to invade Iraq.


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## padamchen

@jhungary 

In your opinion, do you think the USA will attack North Korea?


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## jhungary

padamchen said:


> @jhungary
> 
> In your opinion, do you think the USA will attack North Korea?



No. 

North Korea is a god send for USA, granted, they are making nuke, but China don't want NK to have Nuke as much as US, that's because if they are to use nuke against anyone, US will retaliate and drop nuke on NK, and even if the Nuke was not targeting China, resulting fall out and explosion near the nuclear site (all of which close to China) and that would mean it will most definitely bring China into a thermal nuclear war.

And for the American, as long as NK is there, that is a very good reason to mike SK, be it buy US weapon or allow US to do all sort of crazy stuff in SK, THAAD is one of those occasion. The existence of NK give US leeway into the game in the region, all the while earn some bucks.

On the other hand, if NK is removed, Korea united under the South, then there are no need for the American in Korea anymore. Worse, since all these troop have to go somewhere, they will be redirected to Japan, which is Korean arch rival, which mean it would probably push Korea into Chinese or Russian camp. Which is not ideal

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## HannibalBarca

jhungary said:


> No.
> 
> North Korea is a god send for USA, granted, they are making nuke, but China don't want NK to have Nuke as much as US, that's because if they are to use nuke against anyone, US will retaliate and drop nuke on NK, and even if the Nuke was not targeting China, resulting fall out and explosion near the nuclear site (all of which close to China) and that would mean it will most definitely bring China into a thermal nuclear war.
> 
> And for the American, as long as NK is there, that is a very good reason to mike SK, be it buy US weapon or allow US to do all sort of crazy stuff in SK, THAAD is one of those occasion. The existence of NK give US leeway into the game in the region, all the while earn some bucks.
> 
> On the other hand, if NK is removed, Korea united under the South, then there are no need for the American in Korea anymore. Worse, since all these troop have to go somewhere, they will be redirected to Japan, which is Korean arch rival, which mean it would probably push Korea into Chinese or Russian camp. Which is not ideal



Well if the zone became a nuclear battlefield... I pretty think SK will not exist as we know it today... Therefore to side to take, whatever it's with US or /CN/RU...


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## jhungary

HannibalBarca said:


> Well if the zone became a nuclear battlefield... I pretty think SK will not exist as we know it today... Therefore to side to take, whatever it's with US or /CN/RU...



Well, I was saying that to point out China don't want nuclearized NK as much as the US.

Yes, if there is a nuclear war, then whichever side SK take will be a moot point.

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## Drongo

jhungary said:


> The problem is, you are again justifying the war with the negative outcome, unless at that point in 2002/2003, that outcome is possibly clear by all means, you cannot go back and say "Since we did not find any live WMD, the whole war in Iraq was not just."


That's not what I'm saying at all though. All of my points were readily apparent (except for the intel being dodgy) before the invasion even happened, which is why there was so much international opposition to the war and why everybody who took part took a massive credibility hit.



> in 2003, none of us know anything, because Iraqi government was holding back information and access, and that alone would be enough for US to send force to invade Iraq.


A country wasn't cooperating so you get the right to invade? That isn't how it works. See my previous point about war only being justified as a legitimate last resort, and unnecessarily starting a war as being unconscionable.


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## jhungary

Drongo said:


> That's not what I'm saying at all though. All of my points were readily apparent (except for the intel being dodgy) before the invasion even happened, which is why there was so much international opposition to the war and why everybody who took part took a massive credibility hit.



Again, you are judging the case by what happened afterward.

The invasion was blame because of the outcome of the operation. Because
1.)Iraq is worse off than before
2.)US failed to find any live WMD

The problem is, as I said, you look at the situation as of 2002/2003, the decision is 50/50 at worse, 70/30 in favour of invasion due to the Iraqi non-complying of the UN observer.




> A country wasn't cooperating so you get the right to invade? That isn't how it works. See my previous point about war only being justified as a legitimate last resort, and unnecessarily starting a war as being unconscionable.



In this case, they do, as per UN resolution 1441.

Resolution 1441 is basically the ultimatum UN given to Iraq in 2002 for their last chance to allow UN observer to access site without hindrance, impediment and restriction. The resolution was passed in 2002 unanimously. Which is referring to the resolution 687 signed into effect in 1990. (Meaning if Iraq fail to comply with 1441, it would have breached the ceasefire condition as given by resolution 687. I.e., nullify the ceasefire agreement.)

What people generally argue is that Whether or not violation of 687 would mean an automatic void of ceasefire agreement, and if so, 687 did not outline the situation what will happen after 687 was nullified, in usual custom, another security resolution should be raise and passed in order to authorise the use of force (Which arguing on the fact that nullifying an agreement does not mean the automatically use of force was authorised).

On the other hand, the absent of word regarding how UN should act in the event of Iraq nullifying the ceasefire agreement set forth by resolution 687 would mean it does not means military action is prohibited (as it did not said so, and you cannot have it both way) Also Paragraph 34 of Resolution 687 stated



> _Decides_ to remain seized of the matter and to *take such further steps as may be required for the implementation of the present resolution and to secure peace and security in the area*.



While this is commonly interpreted as Security Council Decided to remain seized to the matter and would use WHATEVER MEAN to secure peace and security to enforce the implementation of this resolution.

There are no argue that the use of force is one of the option reserved, however, one will argue by Security Council, it mean all the security council member, but at the same time, it did not explicitly refer to the council as a whole, or explicitly require another Security Council Resolution, again, this can swing both way.

Hence the US and UK decision to invade Iraq is neither legal, nor illegal if the resolution were followed thru up to each letter. Simply because it did not restrict nor limited the role of the security council and individual country, as it did not say that clearly.

What we know so far is this, By passing 1441 and by ignoring 1441, Iraq broke resolution 687 (this part is for sure) but whether or not 687 allow or disallow military action without another council meeting is not clear, it did not say, and since it did not explicitly mentioned, it's neither legal, nor illegal. In practices, it followed the resolutions given by the US and UK, it give the right, but not the how.


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## ayesha.a

jhungary said:


> Did US fabricate the intel to fight a war in Iraq? As a former intelligence officer myself, I have my share of Iraqi intelligence, while I cannot tell you what they are or what they said, I can tell you that most, if not all, intel is vetted by multiple source. Granted, they can still be fabricated, but you also need to know one thing, if I were to invade Iraq while fabricating the Iraqi Government having WMD? Why not I fabricate some connection between AQ and Iraq and say Iraq was also responsible for 9/11 attacks? It would be a lot easier to fabricate something that can be associated with real incident, rather make things up in thin air.



Oh but you (the Bush administration) did, repeatedly. The entire administration, including the president repeatedly hammered it everyday, and an unquestioning media failed to ask hard questions, and the public swallowed that lie. That is documented in innumerable speeches and press conferences of the president and senior white house officials. It was laughable, because Saddam was AQ's sworn enemy, because of his anti-Islamist and secular credentials.

Bush's speech in 2002:



> We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy -- the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq.
> 
> These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We have learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb making, poisons, and deadly gases.
> 
> And we know that after September 11, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists.
> 
> Alliances with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.
> 
> Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract from the war against terror. To the contrary, confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror.
> 
> When I spoke to the Congress more than a year ago, I said that those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves. Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror, the instruments of mass death and destruction.



http://edition.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/07/bush.transcript/


Cheney in 2003:



> We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the ’90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization.



http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3080244/default.htm

Cheney, alleging that one of the hijackers, Mohammad Atta, met Iraqi intel officers before the attack:



> CHENEY: Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that's been pretty well confirmed, that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/cheneytext_120901.html



TL/DR: The US govt repeatedly alleged that Saddam and Al Qaeda had connections, and that the Saddam regime had contact with the hijackers of 9/11 and so on. That was one of the reasons for the public support of the war at the time. Without those allegations, support for the war would have been far less forthcoming from the general American public.

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## jhungary

ayesha.a said:


> Oh but you (the Bush administration) did, repeatedly. The entire administration, including the president repeatedly hammered it everyday, and an unquestioning media failed to ask hard questions, and the public swallowed that lie. That is documented in innumerable speeches and press conferences of the president and senior white house officials. It was laughable, because Saddam was AQ's sworn enemy, because of his anti-Islamist and secular credentials.
> 
> Bush's speech in 2002:
> 
> 
> 
> http://edition.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/07/bush.transcript/
> 
> 
> Cheney in 2003:
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3080244/default.htm
> 
> Cheney, alleging that one of the hijackers, Mohammad Atta, met Iraqi intel officers before the attack:
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/cheneytext_120901.html
> 
> 
> 
> TL/DR: The US govt repeatedly alleged that Saddam and Al Qaeda had connections, and that the Saddam regime had contact with the hijackers of 9/11 and so on. That was one of the reasons for the public support of the war at the time. Without those allegations, support for the war would have been far less forthcoming from the general American public.



You did not get my point.

I am not talking about Should US president turn the blame on Iraq and try to link them to 9/11, They do talk about it.

What I am saying is that, if someone in that position have to lies to try to fabricate a clause to start a war with Iraq, why not fabricate some document or some "intel" to give hard evidence to some clause that already have the lead and have been fanning, instead they have to do it with a whole new issue about WMD? WMD was not really talked about in international community up to the point when Blix release the report saying the Iraqi government refuse their inspection, and most people wake up to the fact when US actually invade Iraq, before than, it was a forgotten news.

it's like you said, US public will go nuts on anything remotely related to 9/11, we even invaded Philippine for it, if Bush is really trying to find a reason to go to war, why not do what he HAD ALREADY been doing? Try to make up something and point it to Iraq and invade Iraq that way? Wouldn't it be a lot easier and without a lot of repercussion?


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## ayesha.a

jhungary said:


> You did not get my point.
> 
> I am not talking about Should US president turn the blame on Iraq and try to link them to 9/11, They do talk about it.
> 
> What I am saying is that, if someone in that position have to lies to try to fabricate a clause to start a war with Iraq, why not fabricate some document or some "intel" to give hard evidence to some clause that already have the lead and have been fanning, instead they have to do it with a whole new issue about WMD? WMD was not really talked about in international community up to the point when Blix release the report saying the Iraqi government refuse their inspection, and most people wake up to the fact when US actually invade Iraq, before than, it was a forgotten news.
> 
> it's like you said, US public will go nuts on anything remotely related to 9/11, we even invaded Philippine for it, if Bush is really trying to find a reason to go to war, why not do what he HAD ALREADY been doing? Try to make up something and point it to Iraq and invade Iraq that way? Wouldn't it be a lot easier and without a lot of repercussion?



The US govt supplied multiple lies to justify invading Iraq. Do you want to go into the why for each lie? We could do that, but before that I wanted to make it clear that the US did, in fact, convince the American people about Saddam-Al Qaeda connections (laughable though that is, given their history.)

The WMD lie was because there needed to be a sense of imminence for the invasion. Officials even said that Saddam could deploy a WMD in "as little as 45 minutes". Such claims from senior officials can and did create a sense of panic and urgency in the minds of the public, and the US congress. It provided an imminent threat to justify an invasion.

The 9/11 lie? Well that's easy to figure out the "why" for - Americans were understandably still deeply scarred by that wound, and that was an easily exploitable one. US forces were already waging war in Afg for that, and telling people that this invasion was part of that war, part of the retribution, was an easy way to gain support.


The "why" for each lie can be figured out easily, but the important point here is that we should not forget the lies in the first place. I had to comment, because you made it sound like Bush and co did not offer lies about Saddam and 9/11, and only about WMDs. Just one lie could be passed off as an honest mistake - but that was not the case. There was a whole bunch of lies.


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## jhungary

ayesha.a said:


> The US govt supplied multiple lies to justify invading Iraq. Do you want to go into the why for each lie? We could do that, but before that I wanted to make it clear that the US did, in fact, convince the American people about Saddam-Al Qaeda connections (laughable though that is, given their history.)
> 
> The WMD lie was because there needed to be a sense of imminence for the invasion. Officials even said that Saddam could deploy a WMD in "as little as 45 minutes". Such claims from senior officials can and did create a sense of panic and urgency in the minds of the public, and the US congress. It provided an imminent threat to justify an invasion.
> 
> The 9/11 lie? Well that's easy to figure out the "why" for - Americans were understandably still deeply scarred by that wound, and that was an easily exploitable one. US forces were already waging war in Afg for that, and telling people that this invasion was part of that war, part of the retribution, was an easy way to gain support.
> 
> 
> The "why" for each lie can be figured out easily, but the important point here is that we should not forget the lies in the first place. I had to comment, because you made it sound like Bush and co did not offer lies about Saddam and 9/11, and only about WMDs. Just one lie could be passed off as an honest mistake - but that was not the case. There was a whole bunch of lies.



You do not get my point at all.

A just war is not about morality, in just war theory (Which someone have already quoted in this thread) The morality issue was not included, that is because it was for a very good reason, if war can be justify or in-justify by moral value, then war, itself is immoral, will not happens, as Carl Von Clausewitz said, if we all hold to high regard on moral value, war will never, and should never happens.

So what if POTUS lies to the public (given if you can proof it, under court, without reasonable doubt) it would make the war immoral, but will it make the war unjust? That's an separate issue.

For me, my reason for the war in Iraq is a just war, the point of view was already there, the point to the matter is that the Iraqi refusal to allow UN inspector to freely inspect their WMD program is a direct violation of resolution 1441, hence resulting the violation of resolution 687 in response to the Iraqi Government and UN with the cease fire agreement.

That is the casus belli for the war, you and I can argue with this, if you want, but if you want to argue whether or not lying would mean the war is unjust? That would be a moot point.

Another thing is, from conspiracy theorist (like yourself), the main casus belli is because Iraq alleged process WMD and refusing the UN inspector to inspect the site, the question I raise in response to this is if this is a not true, (not a lies, not a deception, but simply false) why would the US go for it, instead of going after the 9/11 angle.

You can call many stuff a lies, that's your opinion, unless you can proof it in court without reasonable doubt that such thing never existed. All that you hear, or you think is hearsay. If you want to think the WMD Angle is a lies, or 9/11 Angle is a lies, then you can try to prove or disprove it without reasonable doubt. But either way, that does not justify or unjustified a war.


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## ayesha.a

jhungary said:


> You do not get my point at all.
> 
> A just war is not about morality, in just war theory (Which someone have already quoted in this thread) The morality issue was not included, that is because it was for a very good reason, if war can be justify or in-justify by moral value, then war, itself is immoral, will not happens, as Carl Von Clausewitz said, if we all hold to high regard on moral value, war will never, and should never happens.
> 
> So what if POTUS lies to the public (given if you can proof it, under court, without reasonable doubt) it would make the war immoral, but will it make the war unjust? That's an separate issue.
> 
> For me, my reason for the war in Iraq is a just war, the point of view was already there, the point to the matter is that the Iraqi refusal to allow UN inspector to freely inspect their WMD program is a direct violation of resolution 1441, hence resulting the violation of resolution 687 in response to the Iraqi Government and UN with the cease fire agreement.
> 
> That is the casus belli for the war, you and I can argue with this, if you want, but if you want to argue whether or not lying would mean the war is unjust? That would be a moot point.
> 
> Another thing is, from conspiracy theorist (like yourself), the main casus belli is because Iraq alleged process WMD and refusing the UN inspector to inspect the site, the question I raise in response to this is if this is a not true, (not a lies, not a deception, but simply false) why would the US go for it, instead of going after the 9/11 angle.
> 
> You can call many stuff a lies, that's your opinion, unless you can proof it in court without reasonable doubt that such thing never existed. All that you hear, or you think is hearsay. If you want to think the WMD Angle is a lies, or 9/11 Angle is a lies, then you can try to prove or disprove it without reasonable doubt. But either way, that does not justify or unjustified a war.



Wow. I think you might be confusing my posts with another member's, and have lost track of who posted what. Otherwise, I have no explanation for you calling me terms like "conspiracy theorist". Pray tell me, what conspiracy did I spin? That 9/11 was an inside job? That Jews did it?

I did not - repeat - did not get into the morality or legality of the war. I was picking one specific claim you made, and pointing out that that was untrue. You claimed that the US govt could have alleged spurious links between Iraq and 9/11 instead of Iraq having WMDs. I was pointing out that your govt did, in fact claim that as well.

All the talk about justifications for war etc, and principles of a just war, was between you and another member. My only point was to point out that the govt did in fact allege Saddam-9/11 connections, when you asked why they didn't, if they could have.

I didn't put forward any conspiracy theories, and I didn't talk about the justifications for war.

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## jhungary

ayesha.a said:


> I did not - repeat - did not get into the morality or legality of the war. I was picking one specific claim you made, and pointing out that that was untrue. *You claimed that the US govt could have alleged spurious links between Iraq and 9/11 instead of Iraq having WMDs*. I was pointing out that your govt did, in fact claim that as well.



Then you also misunderstood what I said.

I have NEVER said US have not try to connect AQI with 9/11 or AQ to Laden. In fact, when I said this.

Why not I fabricate some connection between AQ and Iraq and say Iraq was also responsible for 9/11 attacks? *It would be a lot easier to fabricate something that can be associated with real incident*, rather make things up in thin air.

I do mean the relationship between the two is absurd.

What I say is, if I were to fabricate intel to make the war legit, why not fabricate something that's a lot easier and can push people to war in a lopsided advantage, like pointing Iraq to 9/11. It's quite easy to fabricate connection, HUMINT report and other source of Funding related intel. Why not build up an actual case via Hard Evidence to push the point into a Casus Belli

Did I said the US government NEVER alleged the Iraqi government have some sort of connection to AQ prior to Iraq war? No, but that all limited to speculation and conjecture, at the same time, it does not reflex or support the theory for Iraqi Involvement in 9/11, hence, is this the reason for Iraq war? No.

I don't know if you have read too deep into my word, or you simply do not understand what I said.


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## gambit

ayesha.a said:


> Oh but you (the Bush administration) did, repeatedly. The entire administration, including the president repeatedly hammered it everyday, and an unquestioning media failed to ask hard questions, and the public swallowed that lie. That is documented in innumerable speeches and press conferences of the president and senior white house officials. It was laughable, because Saddam was AQ's sworn enemy, because of his anti-Islamist and secular credentials.


You are talking as if somehow what we did was unique in the history of foreign affairs. Absurd.

When you have multiple enemies and/or potential adversaries, it have always been prudent to consider the possibility that two or more of them *WILL* collude to do you harm. Not merely can -- but *WILL*. Whether you are correct in that estimation or not -- is not the point. Are there no bookstores wherever you live ?


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## jhungary

gambit said:


> You are talking as if somehow what we did was unique in the history of foreign affairs. Absurd.
> 
> When you have multiple enemies and/or potential adversaries, it have always been prudent to consider the possibility that two or more of them *WILL* collude to do you harm. Not merely can -- but *WILL*. Whether you are correct in that estimation or not -- is not the point. Are there no bookstores wherever you live ?



lol......people just don't understand the basic idea of "Association" 

When something happens, it's quite common to associate all of the different group in order to get a better picture, in an investigative standpoint. every lead need to be turn in order to proof or disproof a theory. There are no "Automatic" renouncing an action just because of on the face value, the math does not match. 

The question is, whether or not these turn out to be true is another problem, but speculation and association is normal during the first part of investigation.


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## ayesha.a

gambit said:


> You are talking as if somehow what we did was unique in the history of foreign affairs. Absurd.



Nope. Never said or implied that it's unique in history. Care to point out where I made such a claim, implied or explicit?



gambit said:


> When you have multiple enemies and/or potential adversaries, it have always been prudent to consider the possibility that two or more of them *WILL* collude to do you harm. Not merely can -- but *WILL*. Whether you are correct in that estimation or not -- is not the point. Are there no bookstores wherever you live ?



Again:

jhungary made the claim that the US govt did not allege Saddam-al Qaeda connections. I pointed out that they did.

Do you dispute that?

Anything else about me being a conspiracy theorist or not having access to bookstores is unnecessary verbiage that distracts from my clear, short and straightforward point. I'll put it down in bold underneath, since there may be no reading glasses where you live. (Yea, just taking a leaf from your rhetorical book; not really my style.) If you want to dispute the bolded sentence, be my guest.

*The US govt did, as a matter of fact, allege Saddam-Qaeda links.*


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## jhungary

ayesha.a said:


> jhungary made the claim that the US govt did not allege Saddam-al Qaeda connections.



umm.......I *NEVER* actually said that.


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## ayesha.a

jhungary said:


> umm.......I *NEVER* actually said that.



Well, then maybe I am misunderstanding your statements. I'll simply requote you below, and leave it at that, for others to judge:



> if I were to invade Iraq while fabricating the Iraqi Government having WMD? *Why not I fabricate some connection between AQ and Iraq and say Iraq was also responsible for 9/11 attacks?* It would be a lot easier to fabricate something that can be associated with real incident, rather make things up in thin air.



"Why did we not fabricate connections between Iraq and 9/11?" sounds precisely like saying that you did not fabricate such a connection.


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## jhungary

ayesha.a said:


> Well, then maybe I am misunderstanding your statements. I'll simply requote you below, and leave it at that, for others to judge:
> 
> 
> 
> "Why did we not fabricate connections between Iraq and 9/11?" sounds precisely like saying that you did not fabricate such a connection.



What I said was, if the war in Iraq have to be justified by fabricating evidence on WMD, why not try to fabricate evidence on 9/11 relation.

US did insinuate Iraq have some degree of connection to AQ (Which is a smoking gun) but the proof is lacking (a visit here and there does not contribute as proof, those hijacker had also visited Saudi and Germany, does that mean that indicated Saudi and Germany have a hand on it?), you cannot point to one involvement simply by point to those people travel to which country.

If US were to fabricate evidence, they could have provide fake financial backing/contribution, or training camp evidence on Iraq, which is quite easy to do, rather than fabricate the WMD existence in Iraq (assume it was never there)

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## gambit

jhungary said:


> lol......people just don't understand the basic idea of "Association"
> 
> When something happens, it's quite common to associate all of the different group in order to get a better picture, in an investigative standpoint. every lead need to be turn in order to proof or disproof a theory. There are no "Automatic" renouncing an action just because of on the face value, the math does not match.
> 
> The question is, whether or not these turn out to be true is another problem, but speculation and association is normal during the first part of investigation.


The intent here is to deny US as much possibilities of self defense as possible, even the denial of common sense thoughts and legitimate investigative methods.



ayesha.a said:


> Well, then maybe I am misunderstanding your statements.


You absolutely did not understand Gary's thoughts.

Let me make it much easier for you...

You showed how much we alleged that there was a connection between Iraq and AQ.

Fine.

But why bother to go thru all that when we could have fabricated evidences ? We do not need proof for a proof is a chain of overwhelmingly convincing evidences. Wars and feuds have been waged for far less evidences that we presented at the UN. Gary's point was that we did not need to allege anything, even though we did.



> The US govt supplied multiple lies to justify invading Iraq.


How did we 'lied' ?


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## NoOne'sBoy

@jhungary Did you participate in the initial invasion? If so what was your experience like? I am also interested in knowing how a soldier overcomes challenges such as food and sleep in such circumstances. Would be helpful if you can provide any info.


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## jhungary

NoOne'sBoy said:


> @jhungary Did you participate in the initial invasion? If so what was your experience like? I am also interested in knowing how a soldier overcomes challenges such as food and sleep in such circumstances. Would be helpful if you can provide any info.



Yes I was at the opening salvo of Operation Iraqi Freedom. We were one of the first (discounting the 173rd Airborne Brigade) that enter Baghdad thru a blitzkrieg all the way from Kuwait.

The experience of war is chaotic and exciting. People all have their objective yet somehow, they don't usually go after those objective, more than once, someone would have stray into your AO. And the invasion is quick, and since we did not stay and fight, (our objective is to roll into Baghdad from the west), we did not actually do much really, most of the engagement were left for 4th ID and the Marine, we only started to fight when we arrive in Baghdad.
It quite "war like" when we are at the business end of the operation.

Well, there are no way to overcome food and sleep, most of the time you fight empty stomach, although you usually have a large chunk of MRE in the back of your truck or Humvee, it tasted so bad you either didn't want it or you didn't have time to eat it. Sleeping on the other hand is something you would try to get as much as you can, rotating shut eyes and if you are in a firefight, you usually too pump up on adrenaline to go to sleep anyway, but then afterward, when the firefight is over, you get all kinds of headache and basically you crashed until someone woke you up in your bunk. It's not at all uncommon to have 36 hours (maybe more) without sleep or with nothing to eat. And you probably won't notice that you have gone 36 hours without food and sleep, until whatever you are doing is over, and then you go on to do what you will normally do.

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## NoOne'sBoy

jhungary said:


> Yes I was at the opening salvo of Operation Iraqi Freedom. We were one of the first (discounting the 173rd Airborne Brigade) that enter Baghdad thru a blitzkrieg all the way from Kuwait.
> 
> The experience of war is chaotic and exciting. People all have their objective yet somehow, they don't usually go after those objective, more than once, someone would have stray into your AO. And the invasion is quick, and since we did not stay and fight, (our objective is to roll into Baghdad from the west), we did not actually do much really, most of the engagement were left for 4th ID and the Marine, we only started to fight when we arrive in Baghdad.
> It quite "war like" when we are at the business end of the operation.
> 
> Well, there are no way to overcome food and sleep, most of the time you fight empty stomach, although you usually have a large chunk of MRE in the back of your truck or Humvee, it tasted so bad you either didn't want it or you didn't have time to eat it. Sleeping on the other hand is something you would try to get as much as you can, rotating shut eyes and if you are in a firefight, you usually too pump up on adrenaline to go to sleep anyway, but then afterward, when the firefight is over, you get all kinds of headache and basically you crashed until someone woke you up in your bunk. It's not at all uncommon to have 36 hours (maybe more) without sleep or with nothing to eat. And you probably won't notice that you have gone 36 hours without food and sleep, until whatever you are doing is over, and then you go on to do what you will normally do.


Thanks for your reply. Do you have any experience in dealing with civilians in Iraq and did you have the opportunity to get to know their views about the occupation?


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## jhungary

NoOne'sBoy said:


> Thanks for your reply. Do you have any experience in dealing with civilians in Iraq and did you have the opportunity to get to know their views about the occupation?



Was not in an occupation role when I was in Iraq, so I did not talk to local much, most of the time we are on a schedule.

Was in Afghanistan, sentiment depends on how and where were they, most of them just did not bother unless they are making a target for themselves, most of them just want to carry on with their life in peace, and while most don't care, some do hate foreign occupation.


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## Nilgiri

@WAJsal can we pin this thread for consistency? Thanks.

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## NoOne'sBoy

You should write a book about your life.


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## jhungary

NoOne'sBoy said:


> You should write a book about your life.



Who? Me??

I thought about it, but then I think to myself. meh....

What I went thru is something what 3 millions American went thru already, you probably hear this story over and over and over again, but still, it's good when you make my story into a movie, but that just because movie are usually not the true representation of what really was happening over there, in reality? War is quite boring. You basically do the same things, eat the same things and see the same things day after day, on a good day, you get bored and nothing happened, on a bad day, all hell broke loose, and you may go home in a box.

Then there are stuff that I did and I cannot tell anybody about (I was involved in some serious black shit over there in Afghanistan) and there are stuff that I don't want to remember even if I am allowed to tell you, and if you put all these away, my story is the same as every American who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, so why bother writing the same book again ?? 

I did wrote paper and article for company and think tank, but that is another thing altogether.

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## NoOne'sBoy

jhungary said:


> Who? Me??
> 
> I thought about it, but then I think to myself. meh....
> 
> What I went thru is something what 3 millions American went thru already, you probably hear this story over and over and over again, but still, it's good when you make my story into a movie, but that just because movie are usually not the true representation of what really was happening over there, in reality? War is quite boring. You basically do the same things, eat the same things and see the same things day after day, on a good day, you get bored and nothing happened, on a bad day, all hell broke loose, and you may go home in a box.
> 
> Then there are stuff that I did and I cannot tell anybody about (I was involved in some serious black shit over there in Afghanistan) and there are stuff that I don't want to remember even if I am allowed to tell you, and if you put all these away, my story is the same as every American who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, so why bother writing the same book again ??
> 
> I did wrote paper and article for company and think tank, but that is another thing altogether.


Out of them, not everyone is born in the USA, grew up in China, served in US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, married a swede, lived in Sweden. In that sense you are not belonged to the rest of the 3 million.


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## jhungary

NoOne'sBoy said:


> Out of them, not everyone is born in the USA, grew up in China, served in US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, married a swede, lived in Sweden. In that sense you are not belonged to the rest of the 3 million.



lol, I don't think my background have anything to do with my Military Service, well, yes, its kinda funky for people to meet me, but still, where I came from does not alter my warfighting experience once. What I did over there is the same as the rest of my platoon, sure everyone have a different take on the war they fought, but still, I don't think mine warranted to write a book about it  I mean, I wasn't the one that pull Saddam Hussein from the cave or the one that shot dead Osama Bin Laden....

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## ptldM3

WAJsal said:


> Hope you all enjoy, Thank you @jhungary for giving us the time.
> *----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Introduction:*
> My name is Gary, I was born on the 1980 in the United States. My father is a Mexican-American hailed from Central Mexico and my Mother was Vietnam Born Chinese. I am of mixed Heritage, I have Chinese, Iberia, Anglo-Saxon, Hawaiian and Aztec heritage. My first language is Chinese, English and Spanish. I also speak some Swedish and German and some degree of Arabic.
> 
> I spend my child hood in Hong Kong and Southern China (Shenzhen) and was educated in various school in both places, I attended both Chinese University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University for between 1999-2000, then I left Hong Kong in 2000 and went back to the US, studying in Colorado.
> 
> I enlisted in the US Army right after I arrived back in the US, and have went thru Reserve Officer Training Corp at CU Boulder with the Golden Buffalo Battalion thru something called Green for Gold scholarship.
> 
> I was commissioned as a 2LT with the US Army at 2002 after I graduated from college with a BA in International Affair, and was assigned as a 19C Cavalry officer, as I enlisted as a 19D one station training, I was a cavalrymen.
> 
> My First deployment come in the opening hours of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I was with the Third Infantry Division and I was in charge of a platoon of soldier act as mounted troop to drive all the way to Baghdad, I served around 13 months on that tour, volunteer to stay behind and help out the Marines until mid 2004. And rotated back to the US afterward.
> 
> Stateside, I was promoted to 1LT and assigned another billing, before I apply for Airborne School and went pass the Airborne school and subsequently attend Ranger School. Afterward, I went to Army Intelligence School for HUMINT Training for 4 months. Promoted to Captain in my fifth years of service. And billed as a Battalion S2 for the 82nd Airborne Division.
> 
> Afterward I was deployed again to Afghanistan in 2005 to a classified location in charge of a TOC between a few SpecOp team operating in the area. I was in charge of intelligence gathering and interrogation. These team bring their POW to me and I will extract intel from these individual, or if it was a time sensitive job, I am going to fly to these outpost for the job.
> 
> I was seriously wounded in this tour, I was send back stateside and afterward discharged from the Army, afterward I work in private sectors in the US, UK and Canada, and then I help a friend of mine train local police in rural Kansas town, and move to Sweden in 2008 and got married there.
> 
> After Sweden, I live between US and Hong Kong for a period and finally settle in Australia in 2011, which I am currently reside. I graduated from International College of Management, Sydney with a Master in International Business, and currently studying in Australian National University with the MPhil Research program in Strategic Studies.
> 
> I am married without children. My wife was a Major in Swedish Armed Forces, she was a lawyer and she is currently working as a legal consultant to a human right group in Australia.
> I am a keen photographer, I like driving, writing computer programs/apps, I like study history, I am a big documentary buff, I also like topic related to economics, military, tactics.
> 
> I am also very keen in sports, I had played baseball for CU boulder, and I had joined quite a few leisure softball league, I also love basketball.
> 
> I have 3 pet cats with my wife.
> * If a combat soldier had to go to Vietnam war and Iraq/Afghan war, then what differences would he face as a soldier? Which one was the bigger and more difficult war?*
> 
> Jhungary: Although I wasn't in Vietnam, (Can't be, I will be -15 years old then) and my dad never really did talk about his time in Vietnam. I would have imagined there is not much difference between the two wars.
> 
> Granted, technological advance give us a bit more goodie to play with, and it make your fight a bit easier, but by no mean it would be easy to fight a war, especially in a close quarter.
> 
> Of course, the environment and exposure is different, while one war happened in a jungle in South East Asia, and the other happened in a desert in the Middle East, the nature of the warfare is also different. In a jungle, where you literally cannot see your enemy, they can be hiding everywhere, a hut in the field, under the vegetation, tunnel under the rice paddy and so on. In the desert, beside the urban area, it’s basically wide open.
> 
> The enemy we face is both determined and know what they are doing, perhaps the most important of all is that we are fighting in their turf, they know more than you, while you need to study everything, weather, terrain and population.
> 
> But Perhaps the biggest different of all is the people who fight the war, in Vietnam, more than half the US force there was draftee or selective servicemen, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the soldier who were in those wars are professional, the minds of the soldier have been shifted from just trying to stay alive in battle for most GI in Vietnam, to actually trying to achieve the objective given to us professionally.
> 
> As for which war is more difficult, I have never understood the tenacity soldier faced in Vietnam, for my own experience, a war is a war, when you break it down, you are doing the same thing in each war, maybe the road it take you to your objective is longer in one and the other, but the ultimate goal is the same, and I can imagine whatever I have bitched about in Iraq and Afghanistan, the heat, the constant fighting, supplies, hygiene and home sickness, I am pretty sure those are the same stuff Vietnam vet bitch about in Vietnam. I guess, for me, a War is a War; there is no war which is particularly difficult, or particularly easy.
> 
> *
> A soldier is expected to kill the enemies but what emotional turmoil does a soldier go through after killing one? How does a soldier maintain his sanity after different operations?
> *
> Jhungary: You feel nothing, at least at that moment.
> 
> You train to react to contact, and everything starts from there, you basically don’t think about it, you just do it. In fact, unless the decision of killing is conscious, like I am a sniper shooting at someone far away, you probably won’t remember what you did at all with adrenaline pumping, What you do know is that you have just kill someone, and you move on.
> 
> What happens is when you have time to think, the so called “Downtime” you started replay the situation over and over again, you see the same picture in your mind, but at the same time, you don’t actually know what happened. It is a strange feeling to remember something clearly when you don’t remember the detail. Then, your brain is trying to play tricks on you; you started to fill the gap with your own imagination, trying to make sense of the situation.
> 
> Then you try to give the scenario details you won’t possibly know. Like their name, what they were doing, their back story. One day you are telling you they did that, so they deserve that, other day you tell you with different detail and that you may have another option.
> 
> Contrary to common believe, your first kill was hard, your second kill does not make thing easier, it’s actually harder, because you have expected for your first kill, you run up all kind of scenario in your mind, you expected, you anticipated for your first kill. For your second, you don’t have your bravado, your anticipation to push you over that obstacle anymore, you are doing this alone. But once you did it 5, 6, 7 or 8 times, then you sort of get used to it. And at that point, you just do it.
> 
> It is essential for soldier to have soldier get in touch with civilization and reality when they have a down time. Time to relax, time to go back to your normal self, trying to go back to your routine, get in touch with your family via phone call or e-mail, or play some games. Everything you will do when you are not at war.
> 
> This is very important, because even a bit of civilization that make you felt like you are back home, will bring you out from that mentality and keep you from going insane.
> 
> *What does a soldier pack when he's deployed to places like Afghanistan or Iraq? *
> 
> Jhungary: Not much you can really bring on your deployment, most of your stuff are government issued gear, you will have to bring your Personal Weapon (Rifle +Sidearm), Personal Protection item (Like Body Armour, Helmet, Vest, Padding and so on), Accessories (NVG, Blanket, Sleeping Bag, Gasmask and so on) and personal item (wallet, phone, computer and so on) Ammunition and Rifle Accessories are provided when you are over there.
> 
> You are allowed a box of comfort item, for an officer, it's about as big as a standard footlocker, which can be outside Army regulation TO&E, which can be books, board games, portable gaming console, ipod, plush doll (especially if you are a girl) and so on. They can be handy for you to stay at war but still enjoy a touch of home.
> 
> *What do you think of the America's decision to invade Iraq for reasons which were not revealed to the American populace? Should America have used its soldiers as pawns? What is your opinion as a soldier?*
> 
> Jhungary: As a soldier, I don’t think much on the issue whether or not US was hiding facts for the reason we invaded Iraq, as a soldier, this is what you do, you follow order, whatever, wherever and whenever your CO asked you to move out, you go. A soldier’s duty is not to reason why, but to do and die.
> 
> As a soldier, you do not have the luxury to question your order, an army works because you know the person below you will carry out what you said to their best ability, you will also carry out what you have dealt with to your best ability, when soldier started to question the morality of an order, then things will start to go pear shape from there, because if you can question this order because of that reason to which end can you question an order? In the end, you will end up doing nothing but questioning orders.
> 
> As a person, I believe the war is right, and the reason is justify enough to send US boots on the ground, however, I also believe the whole handling of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is wrong. You never overthrown a government without some sort of backbone government left for implementation, the years of in-fighting and insurgency in Iraq is borne from power vacuum, the coalition should at least retain a framework from former Ba’ath Sunni government to help with the transition, the Shia party have been targeted for a long time and it cannot be effectively govern the whole country.
> 
> In Afghanistan, the situation can be best be describe as summer camp, I don’t see anyone trying their best to put the country back together, there are people who are willing and able to do that, but those people are not in any way at any leadership capacity. The US and ISAF troop was there basically to protect the Kabul regime, not to help their own independence post Taliban era. As such, the country is in turmoil simply because we were there, not because of the country trying to get back on its own feet.
> 
> As for whether or not the US government used US soldier as a pawn? I would like to say we are a tool for the politician, Von Clausewitz once said war is simply an extension of policy, and soldier have the extended duty for politician. The question is, we all know that when we join, nobody is forcing anyone to join the Military in the US, so I cannot say we are used as pawn, but an instrument of politics.
> 
> *How do you see American policy of military intervention globally, changing in next 15-20 years? *
> 
> Jhungary: It’s my view that the American Foreign Policy will not change in the next 15-20 years, the military intervention will continue, but with significant difficulty and resistance from regional power, such as Russia, China and Middle Eastern power.
> 
> *
> What was our experience during war being posted abroad? How the locals see foreigners and treated you/foreign forces on any occasion? *
> 
> Jhungary: The local see the foreign troop with a mistrust and confusion. At first, when the US/ISAF/NATO troop overthrown the respective regime, they welcome the troop and their decision, however, as times goes by, and they did not see we leave, they then started to wonder why the foreigner is still in their country.
> 
> At a point when they don’t understand why or for what purpose we are still there in 2008 when the mission was supposed to be accomplished in 2004 in Iraq, mistrust started to set in.
> 
> Notice that most of these local people have low education or no education at all, they simply don’t understand the need of foreign troop in their country to stabilise the situation. For a local shepherd or farmer, they don’t know much about politics or concept of military operation, the only thing they do understand is that, we were there, then the Taliban or insurgent then started shooting at us, and we bomb the crap out of them and destroying their farm, field or sheep. Then the distrust set in, and we started to hate them when they did not tell us bad people are going to ambush us in their village.
> 
> The war would have been so much easier if the local people have basic understanding on what we were doing over there and if they understand their value, and what we are doing, it’s with my estimation they will lean more toward the foreign troop.
> *
> What is your opinion on Trump's policies and what impact will they have on the world?*
> 
> Jhungary: While Trump is the POTUS (President of the United States) Trump’s in fact does not have a major swing in foreign policy. The one biggest impact for Trump’s Policy is the fear factor, Trump is the kind of person will try to scare you straight and manipulate you to do what he wanted or what you’ve been told.
> 
> However, in reality, this probably works in a company, but for a country, the United States is govern by 3 separate and equal entities, the Congress, the Senate and the President, Trump only represent one of the pillars, Trump can threaten a country, but without Congress funding and Senate approval, that would always be an empty threat. And people see Trump as a monkey and a clown; it would be a long way for Trump to win over both Congress and Senate to do what he wants.
> 
> At the end of the day, it’s always the Republican Party’s policy that matters, not Trump, Trump is simply a figure head, we had seen it with Obama, and we had seen it with G W Bush.
> * If you were asked to end terrorism in the world what major steps would you take?*
> 
> Jhungary: There are only one way to end terrorism for sure, and that is a world in harmony, where every country, every religion and every race is equal. Because if one of them is not, then there be war, and if one side think they cannot win a war with another party, then they will resort to terrorism.
> 
> However, I don’t think we can achieve world harmony, may be I am a pessimists, I do think war are going to be there and keep going until the day I died, or even until the day my children dies, so the second best step I would take is to establish an international reaction team, where they have the authority to deal with terrorism related activities worldwide, for which intel can be exchanged, and have the capability to strike and prevent terrorist attack world wide.
> * Advantages of F-35 over A10 in a close air support role? And was it a mistake on part of US to stop F 22 production? Answer should also talk about the F-35 program itself. *
> 
> Jhungary: Not an Air force man, maybe you should ask @gambit on this and he will give you a more technical satisfying answer.
> 
> For me tho, A-10 can* NEVER* be replaced, if it is up to me, I would never replace both A-10 and AC-130. Not because they have a great payload or how they help out ground troop, but simply because of the scare that injected into the enemy’s mind when they see one of them over the horizon and the comfort they give you when you see one above you.
> 
> The best weapon of an A-10 is the psychological effect casted on both you and your enemy. When you see an A-10 above you, you know everything is going to be okay. And times and times again, the enemy disappear when they saw the A-10 appear in the AO.
> 
> Physically, A-10 have a larger payload, longer loitering time, but F-35 hold one distinct advantage over A-10, which is the radar system. A better ASEA suit can detect target or sometime jam target within a larger and longer spectrum, it will give you a better picture of the battlefield, and it helps you if you have more information on the table.
> 
> F-35 is a good platform, it wasn’t matured as of yet, but it will at the end of the cycle. And by then it will be probably one of the most potent platform in the world.
> 
> Most people do not understand F-35 is there not to be an air superiority fighter like F-15C or F-22, but as a multi-role fighter. They are to be used in conjunction to other platform, thus either act as force multiplier themselves or enjoy the boost from other platform.
> 
> Standalone, F-35 probably cannot goes toe to toe to other platform, they may not be as good a dogfighter or stealthier than F-22, or have more payload than an A-10, or the sensor is not as good as E-3, and ASEA radar may not be as powerful as Growler, but when you combine F-35 with other platform, you will basically get a super group that allow you to do and perform every single function in the battlefield, which is the main point of a fighter like F-35 exist.
> 
> F-22 is a test platform, it serves its purpose, rather linger on and make more F-22, the USAF should use those resources to devote to 6th Gen fighter to stay ahead. So I would say the US is right on terminating the F-22 production.
> 
> *11. Which gear/equipment/weapon do you think will be a break through for Soldiers in modern warfare? *
> Most people will say its firepower, other will say it’s protection equipment, for me, it’s COM.
> 
> I think it doesn’t matter if you are using the latest state of the arts M4 with ACOG with PEG-2 and Flashlight, or how ergonomically the grip can be, yes, it may make your life a bit easier, but in the end, you give me a Vietnam era M16 or XM-177, I am pretty sure it’s the same.
> 
> COM, on the other hand, make more impact on a battlefield then soldier usually credit it for, yes, you curse at your COM when it was on a frizz, but when it did real good, you probably never going to appreciated that. In fact, COM allows you to be connected to other people in the same field. COM allows you to understand not just what’s happening to you, but also what’s happening to other unit.
> 
> In War, we always going for the big picture, only you know what is happening everywhere in your Area of Operation, you can control the battlefield. And the only way to do that is by communication, simply because you cannot be in 2 places at once, and the only way you can do is by communicating with the person who was there in a different place.
> 
> So, for me, the next breakthrough of a modern battlefield is the field of communication. Like how to shorten the range of communication; increase its security (both way); how to communicate clearly between two places; and how to provide a better quality communication equipment.
> * During the duty/posting abroad while seeing locals around and families, how much did you miss your home? And how does it feel to return home from a tour?*
> 
> Jhungary: Probably everyone will say the same, when you are over there, you constantly thinking about home, but when you are at home, you constantly thinking about going back over there.
> 
> Over there, you constantly compare the local to your local street or city, you keep seeing kids play in the corner of the street, the image you got in your head is that it could have been you playing downtown at your home, you started to feel more at home when you try to get comfortable to the life over there, to a point by the end of a year of deployment, you would think your home is in Iraq or Afghanistan.
> 
> But then eventually, you do go home, and when you see local street kids playing ball in the local park, you started to think back your time in Iraq or Afghanistan. And you started to think you don’t belong there.
> *How does a soldier prefer to chill or relax during tensed times of war especially while posted abroad?*
> 
> Jhungary: Everyone have a different regime to chillax, I cannot be able to say for most, for example, one of my fellow officer relax by reading case file of his own homicide case (He was a reserve officer he is a police detective by day) I never understand how that can relax him, but I guess it is up to him.
> 
> For me, I relax by a combination of writing letter back home, sports, watching TV (Mostly Cartoon) and games, not really into the music and movie scene and I did not own an IPod/IPhone until 2008….
> 
> I guess whatever different than the day to day life in war (Which is quite repetitive and boring) will relax you.




@jhungary you told me you could speak Russian but failed to prove it when I asked you. Interesting Russian is not listed on your biography. So what is the real truth?








i know a lot of guys that served and they never really talk about it and they certainly don't brag about it.


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## jhungary

ptldM3 said:


> @jhungary you told me you could speak Russian but failed to prove it when I asked you. Interesting Russian is not listed on your biography. So what is the real truth?
> 
> View attachment 399291
> 
> 
> 
> i know a lot of guys that served and they never really talk about it and they certainly don't brag about it.



I speak Russian, to a certain degree (forgot most of them already, haven't used a long time.) Not native fluent or anything remotely close, Russian is taught in defence intelligence school the same way they teaches French in Foreign Legion. It's like you take Russian 101 and Russian 102 in local college (I would say around 80 hours learning time)

I can also speak and understand Portuguese (every Spanish Speaker can) and Danish (similar to Swedish), I did not put that up on that too, and some Tagalong too, so?? I don't write everything I know on the page, otherwise it would be too long to read. Things that did not come to my mind when I wrote that (again, I did not speak Russian for about 10 years) then I don't write it there, what's your point?

And I did answer your question. there are no way you can prove or disprove something on the internet, you are welcome to post a Russian Video here and ask me to "Prove it" but I can just as easy to find a few of my Russian Friend to translate it for me and you will be none the wiser. Or, post the task on air-tasker and find someone who can. It's very easy. Can you prove, definitely, that I spoke Russian, on the internet?

I don't talk about much, or "BRAG" like you said, on my military experience, In fact, if you ask the people here, except for a few stories I shared on here, nobody here actually know what I did in war, not in detail anyway.

I never ask anyone to believe who I said I was, you are free to not to believe anything any people say. Unless you met me in real life, you never know who I am. You always debate someone points, not where they come from.

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## gambit

There is a difference between being able to hold a conversation with a language's native speaker vs knowing the language just 'good enough' to get the important 'stuff'.

Take this sentence...

' We are going to have a great time at the Grand Canyon. '

Intel specialists who are also linguists stated that as much as %90 of what is spoken, or even written, are just 'filler' material.

So for the above sentence, I need to know just enough English to get the words ' We ' and ' Grand Canyon '. From that, I can tell where you are going. Since I am going to break into your house, I do not care if you have a ' great time ' or not at the Grand Canyon.


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## Green Arrow

@WAJsal Who is next now??

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## Nilgiri

Green Arrow said:


> @WAJsal Who is next now??


They always keep it secret lol.


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## NoOne'sBoy

@jhungary Can a foreigner join US Air Force or USMC?


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## Green Arrow

Nilgiri said:


> They always keep it secret lol.



Yes but we should have it for may one by now.

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## WAJsal

Green Arrow said:


> @WAJsal Who is next now??





Nilgiri said:


> They always keep it secret lol.


Busy, will work on it in a day or two...sorry guys.

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## jhungary

NoOne'sBoy said:


> @jhungary Can a foreigner join US Air Force or USMC?



Foreigner (with a foreign passport) can join USAF or USMC if he or she holds a Permanent Residence Card (Green Card), or was sponsored by the US Military (Very much like a H-1B visa process) but US Military only ever sponsor allies personnel (like in the UK or Australia) and usually have prior Military Experience..

However, since the person is a foreigner, jobs are limited to those do not need clearance, and cannot be a commission officer (all commission officer are US Citizens)


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## NoOne'sBoy

jhungary said:


> Foreigner (with a foreign passport) can join USAF or USMC if he or she holds a Permanent Residence Card (Green Card), or was sponsored by the US Military (Very much like a H-1B visa process) but US Military only ever sponsor allies personnel (like in the UK or Australia) and usually have prior Military Experience..
> 
> However, since the person is a foreigner, jobs are limited to those do not need clearance, and cannot be a commission officer (all commission officer are US Citizens)


I've heard lots of stories where people with student VISA join the military. Which branch is that? Army?


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## jhungary

NoOne'sBoy said:


> I've heard lots of stories where people with student VISA join the military. Which branch is that? Army?



Not aware of any program you can join with a Student visa.....

There are a thing called "Selective Service" which is in place for draft that would require anyone, I mean anyone, citizens, permanent resident, non-permanent resident or even illegal alien, to register. And if the draft was called, then you basically will be drafted to be a lowest level foot soldier.

I cannot imagine what kind of job in the military people can do without Permanent Residence, as all require a certain degree of clearance, even if you are allowed to join, you would most likely ended up as a cannon fodder...


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## NoOne'sBoy

jhungary said:


> Not aware of any program you can join with a Student visa.....
> 
> There are a thing called "Selective Service" which is in place for draft that would require anyone, I mean anyone, citizens, permanent resident, non-permanent resident or even illegal alien, to register. And if the draft was called, then you basically will be drafted to be a lowest level foot soldier.
> 
> I cannot imagine what kind of job in the military people can do without Permanent Residence, as all require a certain degree of clearance, even if you are allowed to join, you would most likely ended up as a cannon fodder...


You should have something like french foreign legion. More troops, better capabilities, more opportunities to spread democracy.


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## jhungary

NoOne'sBoy said:


> You should have something like french foreign legion. More troops, better capabilities, more opportunities to spread democracy.



Well, we used to have something like that in the past war, but since the Army gone professional, we don't do this anymore. Recruiting foreigner is more like a European thing when you get the British Army recruit non British commonwealth citizen into the army and the French have the French Foreign Legion. I think this is a bit more to Colonial Thing, when they allow foreigner into their rank.


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## NoOne'sBoy

jhungary said:


> Well, we used to have something like that in the past war, but since the Army gone professional, we don't do this anymore. Recruiting foreigner is more like a European thing when you get the British Army recruit non British commonwealth citizen into the army and the French have the French Foreign Legion. I think this is a bit more to Colonial Thing, when they allow foreigner into their rank.


I actually didn't know that there is a special condition for commonwealth citizens. Maybe just for Gurkhas? I did Royal Air For cadeting for a while and I gave up because I joined too late and because of that my opportunities were limited. I thought there was no point and back then I had no interest in military whatsoever and it was also a huge risk to give up studying in my situation. I regret that stupid decision now. Maybe I will give it a try again if I can join as a Sri Lankan citizen. Military seems like the mother of all adventures.


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## jhungary

NoOne'sBoy said:


> I actually didn't know that there is a special condition for commonwealth citizens. Maybe just for Gurkhas? I did Royal Air For cadeting for a while and I gave up because I joined too late and because of that my opportunities were limited. I thought there was no point and back then I had no interest in military whatsoever and it was also a huge risk to give up studying in my situation. I regret that stupid decision now. Maybe I will give it a try again if I can join as a Sri Lankan citizen. Military seems like the mother of all adventures.



I think commonwealth citizen can join all branch of British military, as I recall, there were an Australian from Sydney was killed serving the British Army. Not too sure if you can do it now because what I hear is that the British Army is downsizing now, many of the British went to French Foreign Legion....


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