Re: This FOSS Thang :-)

On Thu, 14 Mar 2024 22:56:21 -0500, Physfitfreak wrote:

But the commander _knew_ something about his troops when he ordered them
to walk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXnJVkEX8O4

The first step in basic training is to make sure the recruits are
thoroughly cowed. When they are sufficiently malleable they are trained to
follow any command no matter how ludicrous. Group cohesiveness is also
stressed. Most recruits are 18 years old and susceptible.

I may be many things, perhaps even a warrior, but I'm not a soldier and
the phenomenon is incomprehensible to me. I've visited quite a few of the
Civil war battlefields in this country. In many cases troops would advance
across open fields toward dug in artillery emplacements. Why they didn't
turn around and shoot the big fool is beyond me.

And about Germans and the Irish, those two people are just the ones that
are hard for an Iranian to study, because they've shared same enemy with
Iran for a long time (the Brits). So it's not clear what their inner
motives would have been if they didn't share an enemy with Iranians.

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_of_the_United_States

The two largest ethnic groups are the Germans and the Irish. A distinction
has to be made about the 'Scotch-Irish'. They were Ulster Presbyterians
that emigrated as early as the reign of Charles I. The term originated in
the 1840's to distinguish them from the Irish Catholics emigrating during
the famine. They're not counted as Irish in the demographic breakdown.

The fledgling US fought a was to secede from Britain in 1776 and then had
another go around in 1812. Britain half-heatedly supported the Confederacy
during the Civil War. Both the Germans and Irish have axes to grind with
the Brits. Still fools like Wilson and Roosevelt support Britain.

Studying Iranians in the US isn't easy either. I've only known one
personally. He ran a small Middle Eastern restaurant in Boston. According
to him he had been a successful film producer in Iran before the
Revolution and didn't like the new climate.