
If war is madness, then sometimes the best way to get through it is temporary insanity. Corporal Marco Martinez proved this one day on the edge of an Iraqi town where he was sure he was going to die.
What came next won him the Navy Cross. (You can find the rest of Martinez's story in the Hard Corps: From Gangster to Marine Hero.)
"I started sprinting back to a different palm tree some 25 yards away. My back was a bull's-eye. On the way back, I noticed an enemy RPG launcher on the ground. To this day, I can't fully explain what I did next: I snatched up the weapon, even though the motion slowed me down and gave the enemy more time to shoot me."
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Thursday 24 January
By Lancer4321
Interesting article, and I applaud Cpl Martinez's courage. But you have to wonder about the competence of the editor who posted this story about a US Marine with the photograph of two British soldiers. Maybe the editor should try doing just a little bit of research before putting their ignorance on display?
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Friday 25 January
By Becky
WOW! That was something else.
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Sunday 27 January
By Bill Arnold
To : Wakeup Imperialist , American soldiers do not go to other countries to die because they are selfish, but because they are selfless. They sacrifice their lives not to gain territory for an imperialistic country,but to protect the freedom of Americans and to bring freedom to millions of others around the world.
We never take their land or resourses. Instead we help them to have a free nation and throw tons of money at them in the process.
Thank you Cprl.Martinez for your service. And also thanks to all the American and British soldiers.
If you can't stand the truth, you probably don't speak it very often.
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Monday 28 January
By Alfred
Uurah! Semper Fidelis!
To "wake up imperialists":
You have no idea about what real "imperialism" is until you have experienced first hand the imperialism of radical Islam. I would invite you to visit the current centers of that imperialism to speak out against it as "courageously" as you speak out against your misguided notions of American military operations against those radical Islamic imperialists. Before visiting the middle east you might try a few trips to Southern Thailand, Somalia, Kenya, Southern Sudan, and a hundred other killing fields all over the globe where there is no American policy just radical Islamists killing anyone who doesn't agree with them or anyone who stands in their way of establishing a world wide Caliphate peopled only with folks that believe exactly like they do.
BTW Great Britain and the rest of the EU is well on the way to being included into that Caliphate so you had better break out your prayer rug chump or get fitted for a new collarless suit.
Otherwise you had better wake up to another sort of age old religious imperialism that is raising its very brutal and universal head once more.
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Monday 28 January
By psycho
Just try not to crap on yourself kid
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Thursday 31 January
By devynn
this is for the british idiot: you're just mad that GB isn't running the world anymore. the british are the ones who led the charge of imperialism in the west. but UNLIKE the british, we're not trying to colonize every single piece of land we step on. we just want freedom for the oppressed. it's easier for us and the world economy if we have more political freedom the world over. and we're the only ones still answering the call of the oppressed. we get in, we get the job done, we got and get on with our lives and the world is better for it. you might want to tell your Queen and Parliment to try it sometime!
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Wednesday 30 January
By BHD
to: "wake up imperialists"
listen you British dumb ass, were not trying to be a police force were just trying to make the world a better place for EVERYONE, and if u cant take that go back to your island or ill kick your ass out!
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Wednesday 06 February
By ROD
LISTEN YOU DAM SOB SISTERS WHO DON`T GIVE A DAM ABOUT THEIR COUNTRY, ALL YOU WANT TO DO IS COMPLAIN, SIMPLY
BECAUSE YOU DON`T HAVE ANY GUTS. AMERICA HELPED FRANCE TWICE AND SO DID THE BRITS,AND ALSO RUSS.
YOU CHICKEN SHIT PUNKS IF IT HADN`T BEEN US VETS FROM WW2 YOU WOULDN`T EVER HAVE BEEN BORN. IF YOU DON`T LIKE OUR COUNTRY GET THE HELL OUT CAUSE MAYBE THE GOVERMENT MIGHT PICK YOU ALL UP AND LOAD YOU ON BOATS
AND CALL YOU PEOPLE WITHOUT A COUNTRY AND NEVER LET YOU SET FOOT ON LAND. SCREW YOU AND ALL WHO THINK LIKE YOU.
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Thursday 07 February
By kevin powell
hell yes cpl. martinez you you shoot that rpg right up there U.S hating asses i want to meet you one day and play some shootem up games lol. and to the brit thatcommented against this go fuck yourself and drink your fuckin tea and if you come over here i show you where to goput that cup o' tea. UUURAH
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Friday 08 February
By rob combs
we didnt learn a DAMNED thing from Vietnam...they fed us the SAME B S "stop them here or stop them on the shores of america'
of course Bush; Limpbaugh; and cheney skippoed that war....I was there...and 60,000 of us died for nothing. Iraq is a shill for Oil; there was NO oil; we wouldnt BE there....
Obama in 08
Praying he can chang America
Vietnam Vet 1968-69
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Friday 08 February
By silky9102
This ridiculous kind of propaganda posing as news isn't helping anything or anyone. Maybe the American Marine was a hero, it's hard to tell when the news story has such obvious political twists to it. "Terrorists?" How are the enemy soliders terrorists? I'm not criticizing our troops for following orders that put them in harm's way, but there is no denying that we are the invasion and occupation forces, so the enemy soldiers are defending their home territory. They were "holed up in a safe house?" So they weren't even regular army, or professional soliders? They were hiding? So we're celebrating that we've slaughtered some Iraqis trying to defend themselves from the occupation forces, who aren't even professional soldiers? The differences between us, as a nation, and the actual forces of terrorism that attacked us on 9/11/01 are diminishing to a really frighteningly thin little line. Somewhere along the way, we became the Evil Empire from Star Wars, and I'm not sure how any American can still be proud of the horrifying mess we've made of a country that had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda until we stepped in and destroyed their ability to keep Al-Qaeda out. There are innocent Iraqi citizens caught in between our occupation forces and the irregular defense forces, how about a news story on them? We should be the nation that stands up for, and defends innocent civilian life around the world, and we've got to stop collectively kidding ourselves about what we're doing in Iraq. We're not fighting terrorism there, if anything, we're creating new terrorists out of people who had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda until we gave them a reason to hate us.
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Tuesday 12 February
By Richard Gillam
Hey silky9102,
I don’t think any American still believes there are (or ever were) any weapons of mass destruction (WMD’s) in Iraq or even that Al Qaeda was receiving any real support from the former Iraqi government. Furthermore, everyone knows we would have never gone into Iraq if it was not an oil-rich land.
However, the fact still remains that before we ‘invaded’ (to use the correct term), Iraq was a dictatorship – and today it is not.
There are lots of hot spots around the world that could ultimately benefit from our money, attention, and – yes – our invasion; however, these areas simply lack the resources for us to justify the cost of spreading liberty and freedom. For example, if the US invaded Sudan the moment we learned about the genocide taking place there, we could have saved millions of lives. Alas, the Sudan simply doesn’t have enough resources relevant to our interests. But aren’t Sudanese lives and political freedoms as important as Iraqi’s?
My point is that creating free elections and deposing dictators is always a good thing (eventually). America gave hundreds of thousands of lives in WW 2; yet we knew that our mainland was never going to be in jeopardy. This steep price was the cost of free elections and eliminating dictators.
Are the Iraqi people somehow worth less than the white Europeans we helped save in WW 2? Because if all life is equal (as I believe), then the reasons/justifications/lies that initially got us into Iraq were worth it as long as we leave Iraq with free elections and a dead dictator…
As with Hitler, there will always be more blood in the short run than had we simply left Saddam alone. But in the long run, Iraq will have free elections and no more dictators.
This is the price of freedom; and those men this Marine killed were obviously not ‘terrorists’ in the traditional sense, but they certainly stood against free elections, freedom of religion, and equal rights for women, gays, etc.
Anyone who is willing to oppress the ‘inalienable’ rights of others, must be willing to face the consequences of this behavior and this Marine simply represented the literal application of those inevitable consequences.
Moreover, the Fedayeen could have easily surrendered; remember, unlike them, we don’t execute our captured prisoners…nevertheless, they chose their path, and thus I am still unclear as to why you are defending their ‘right to tyranny’.
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Tuesday 19 February
By angryrat
Since when people fighting an occupying force are considered "terrorists"?? Look up the definition, for f@ck's sake!
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Wednesday 20 February
By StarsAndStripes2008
Wakeup Imperialists,
Islam was spread by the sword and by the sword it shall die.
And as far as the patriots who won American independence; they did not treat women like property, they were not killing women and children, they were not burning schools, orphanages, restaurants or taverns and finally they were not fighting because Brits and Tory's worshiped God in a different way but because they were being oppressed by the British.
Today...Marines and Soldiers, under the stars and stripes, carry on the noble tradition that began in 1775.
God Bless our fighting men and women.
P.S. When do you intend on ending the occupation of the Falklands and Northern Ireland?
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Thursday 21 February
By Francisco Juarez Jr.
i'm a former Marine served in Viet Nam. we used to learn all about the enemies weapons besides our own. maybe things have changed in training. but the courage is still there. if i was 40 years younger i would be in Iraq killing assholes. it is just too bad that the un-Americans who live in America under the protection of our military are so, brave when commenting in front of a monitor. if they hate America so bad. why not go to the other side and don on an insurgent bed sheet and fight alongside alquida and the taliban. every war America has fought in, there are cowards who have never served, will never serve and their kids will probably never serve. they will only criticize.
i think we should bring back the draft back. this way those cowards would squirmed their way back to canada and other cowardly sanctuaries. at least we would know where of most un-americans would be hiding.
i applaud and support all military personnel in all the branches of the service.
for good measure we should send nancy pelosi, barbara boxer, hillary clinton, barack obama, harry reid and all the other turn-coats in this country to iran and the other bones of contention.
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Thursday 13 December
By Daniel J Ryan
Way to go Crpl. Martinez. We need to let our soldiers do more of that kind of fighting. Maybe the enemy might start taking them more seriously instead of using them for target practice.
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Wednesday 19 December
By Stormer
They need to include familiarization with using common enemy weapons, such as the RPG and the AK-47, in basic training.
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Sunday 23 December
By Wakeup Imperialists!
Just why is it that a group of young men who are half trained and scared shitless fighting a massive invasion force of (american) foreign imperialists are considered 'terrorists'??? Weren't young american men half trained and scared shitless fighting the british imperialists called 'patriots' in the 18th century??? You yanks need to wise up and put down your sheriff badges, you are NOT the world's police force, you are just a bunch of dumbasses fighting for a corrupt government which is trying to secure the worlds remaining oil resources for itself. Oh well, I guess it beats being in a wetback gang in LA even if the pay sucks...
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Monday 31 December
By Mike DG
holy shit. pure halo skills right there.
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Monday 31 December
By Ed
You guys are hard workers wish you good luck
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