Support Snipers in Iraq

[VERITAS]

American Snipers


Marquette University shut down this movement on its campus recently, and is a matter of some controversy amongst its student body.
Some say that the fundraising was in poor taste, is contrary to their religious beliefs, or is simply a silly attempt to get attention.

What do you think?

[mrbiggs]

It seems to me that they're supporting our troops (as cliche as that's become), so I don't see a problem with it. Is it a little weird? Yes. But whatever it takes to get our soldiers the equipment they need is okay by me.

[Soldier]

I don't see why it should be a problem - seems a good idea to me.

[lochinvar]

Marquette is a Roman Catholic university, and has somewhat of a history of social protest against war and violence. It is entirely consistent with their historic stance on war in general that they would shut down this particular fundraising effort.

I suspect that Oral Roberts and Bob Jones and several other religious universities would probably have the same problem.

In general, I see no problem with the cause. On the other hand, I see no problem with a religious institution declining to participate based on theological grounds.

[Inquartata]

One suspects that the closing down of "Operation Take One for the Country" was a greater cause for dismay amongst the troops than this was...sure would be to me!

[Soldier]

What are you talking about?

[Inquartata]

It was a brief organized program in which women who joined were encouraged to go to social gathering places frequented by soldiers with the aim of providing "aid and comfort", if you know what I mean...

Or else it was a hoax.

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/otoftc

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!


I must say that those doing this fundraising seem intent on going against the University ethos, or being downright sneaky. If one looks at the Marquette homepage, there is a link entitled "Our Jesuit Identity" and there are several religious flags sprinkled on their web site.

BTW: they also have a fencing club as a club sport:
http://mu.cfssda.org/


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[VERITAS]

It seems to me that the Catholic church does not necessarily mandate that all war is evil, or that supporting killing is evil.
I suppose the university has to decide for itself what its policies are, but it seems to be a political rather than a religious statement.

And MU's fencing club is excellent....I am a proud member myself!

-charley

[Soldier]

Religious, sure, and Jesuit. Why does that mean they can't support American troops? Where does it specifically say that's against their ethos?

[Soldier]

Originally Posted by VERITAS

It seems to me that the Catholic church does not necessarily mandate that all war is evil, or that supporting killing is evil.
I suppose the university has to decide for itself what its policies are, but it seems to be a political rather than a religious statement.

And MU's fencing club is excellent....I am a proud member myself!

-charley

Which branch?

[lochinvar]

Originally Posted by VERITAS

It seems to me that the Catholic church does not necessarily mandate that all war is evil, or that supporting killing is evil.
I suppose the university has to decide for itself what its policies are, but it seems to be a political rather than a religious statement.

Roman Catholicism covers a broad gamut of political/religious views, and you're right--the Church has never held a consistent anti-war or anti-killing position.

However, Marquette has always maintained a tradition of being anti-war in principle. Many on this board are too young to remember it, but there was a semi-famous (or notorious, depending on your viewpoint) protest group known as the Milwaukee Seven who burned draft records in the street during the Vietnam conflict and were tried, convicted, and did time behind bars for it. At least two of the seven were Jesuit priests from Marquette.

So it doesn't surprise me that Marquette would have a problem with fund-raising for snipers.

And MU's fencing club is excellent....I am a proud member myself!

-charley

Glad to see they're still around! I was a member myself back in the early 70's. It was a little dicey back then--we went to several "unofficial" duels with UW-Parkside, MSOE, and the then Waukesha Fencing Club (now Caliburn, I believe) and we could never muster more than 5-6 people, so everybody had of necessity to fence all three weapons.

That was where I first met/fenced the now-legendary Joe Biebel...as I remember, I got my butt handed to me...more than once...

[Mergs]

While I normally shy away from this forum, the thread title intrested me. After looking at the website that started this whole thing, I had to laugh. As an acquisition professional, I have run into this kind of thing in many places. It is basically the company's way of drumming up business outside of the normal acquisition process. And it ignores the logistics nightmare that it creates (hey! That's not their problem!).

When I was in Iraq one of the problems that I was there to help solve is what the folks there in country called 'drive-by fieldings' which were basically, someone shows up with a piece of equipment, hands it to the troops, shows them how to barely use it and then drives off. Now the troops have to learn on the fly how to really use the equipment, integrate into their operations, and oh by the way, figure out if it is REALLY safe to use! And then figure out how to get it fixed when it breaks! A lot of these 'fieldings' resulted in equipment being useless after 30 days because noone thought to provide adequate logistics support, or if there was any it was 'send it back to the vendor'. If any of you have followed my journal, you know what it is like to move around the area, let alone try to get equipment mailed back to the states. Let alone pay for the repairs! Who does that? The Army? If you buy a piece of equipment out of your own pocket, why should the Army pay to get it fixed? Let alone bear the cost of sending it back?

Another example of what happens when everyone who thinks that they know better than what the folks who are supposed to be equiping the force so is those who think that they are doing something good and going out and buying something to give a soldier without really knowing what it is that they are buying is safe. Back when there was a problem with supplying body armor to troops, some folks, police departments included, were sending body armor to troops in country. And raising hell with the Army for not carigng enough to go to the Internet to do the same thing! Nice gesture, except that the supposedly same armor that they were buying on the internet was in fact those plates that the Army didn't accept because it didn't meet standards! So now you have troops running around thinking that they had the same level of protection as their buddies, when in fact they didn't!

The same thing applied to the guys manufacturing their own vehicle armor. When the 'Mad Max' armor 'kits' started showing up, the Army Test and Evaluation Center began testing some of these concoctions to be able to tell soldiers what kind of protection they could expect and found that most of the 'armor' solutions were actually more dangerous to the crews than if they just had canvas sides on their vehicles!

I personally witnessed a 'test' in country of an armored door that a unit purchased with their own funds against the metal that the Army was supplying with the Add-on-Armor kits. M-16 green tip ammo was fired at 25 meters. Now this ammo is 'hotter' than the standard 7.62 ammo which is what the small arms protection level of the armor should be (we aren't going to discuss the IED protection level). Even so, the commercial armor solution didn't stop crap, while the Army supplied mateial barely dented.

So if you want to 'support the troops', pay your taxes. Or buy Treasury Bonds (seeing as how we don't have War Bonds. Yet.) or Savings Bonds. Don't take away valuable resources by doing 'feel good' gestures that in reality detract from the support we are trying to give these great Americans.