From 8,000 miles away... I would not judge a fellow soldier from a friendly nation and how they are employing their resources.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I've never been a soldier. In Denmark, at 18, as a male, you go in a draw, and if they pick you, you go and serve for a year. I didn't.
Any American who has spent time in Iraq or Afghanistan will tell you: the closer you get, the less certain you are of anything. If you are in Iraq, if you are in Afghanistan, everything is ambiguous. Everything is murky and gray and uncertain and possibly lethal.
As we've seen, deploying large armies abroad won't always be our best offense. Countries typically don't want foreign soldiers in their cities and towns.
One doesn't become a soldier in a week - it takes training, study and discipline. There is no question that the finest Army in the world is found in the United States.
As a reporter, I embedded for modest stints with American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. When I'm asked about those experiences, I always say - and mean - that we civilians don't deserve the soldiers we have.
I've grown up, luckily, with only a distant relationship to war and soldiering.
The American soldier is quick in adapting himself to a new mode of living. Outfits which have been here only three days have dug vast networks of ditches three feet deep in the bare brown earth. They have rigged up a light here and there with a storage battery.
While shooting 'The Unit', I went to the Middle East twice to see the troops. I met some great men and women.
When I meet someone from the army background, there is an instant connection. We live in the best five-star hotels of the world, but outside my home I will be equally comfortable in any army cantonment or army guest house. Telling my friends that my father was in the army was like telling them that he is the second-richest man in the world.
Soldiering is a very important profession, is it not?
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