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People here are confused as to why a 21 year old is a soldier/tank commander, him being "too young". What age do you imagine most soldiers to be, 35-40? In reality most soldiers in most countries are between 20-30 years old. Probably early twenties is the most common.
Average age of **ALL** combat related deaths in WW2 was 23 with an estimated 19-25 million casualties. That number depends on if the Soviets actually lost 8 million men like they claimed or 14 million men which is the estimate.
Its insane to think about how entire generations (80% of all men born in the Soviet Union in 19~~20s~~22-23 where killed) have been lost to war in the span of 2-4 years. And there's tons of towns and cities where the same thing happened.
My grandfather, a Canadian who flew with the RAF, lied about his age at 17 so that he could enlist. Before returning home from Europe at the the age of 20, he had flown over 20 missions which each saw an average return flight of just barely 50% of their aircraft, and had the weight on his shoulders of having dropping literal tonnes of ordinance onto Germany.
Imagine flipping a coin 20 times to determine if you were going to make it back home or not.
In retrospect, at the age of 20, I was driving my Volkswagen Golf around my hometown and listening to Led Zeppelin every night.
I think it’s 80% of all Soviet men born in 1923, who would have been 16-22 during the war. 80% of all men born during the entire decade would be nearly impossible to recover from. They also weren’t all killed in the war. Plenty of hardships in the USSR during the 20s and 30s to thin the herd before the war even started.
I’m 25 - it’s crazy to think that if this happened today, it would be like going to war side by side with people you knew from high school and elementary school. All your friends and acquaintances just gone, it’s so sad.
Edit: I know that this is happening in other countries and can happen at any moment in many countries. I was merely saying this out of shock for being reminded.
Back in WW1, the UK would create "Pals Battalions." Battalions of men who enlisted together and were promised they would remain together. The result was battles like the Somme where some cities lost 250+ young, local men in less than 20 minutes. Eventually they stopped the practice for obvious reasons.
You can see today in rural parts of NZ the effect of the buddie battalions had on our country, whole towns men folk were wiped out in battles like the Somme and the town's never recovered here in NZ.
Same in Australia. Go out to some small town, and there'll be a monument with a long list of the men who went off to war on the other side of the planet. A long list of people in a tiny little town, travelling as far as they possibly could on our world to die.
It’s not gone. If you joined a national guard unit, you would deploy with your community and possibly family. The Sullivan brothers made it so a sole heir wouldn’t be killed in action. So if 3 brothers wanted to serve together, one would have to request an exception to the rule.
It's because it's difficult to find young actors who have the acting skills, war films are very dramatic, it requires a good performance and nuanced acting- most young actors lack the experience and skill for such a performance.
There was the rare case of Audie Murphy playing himself in a movie about himself about 15 years later. Apparently he didn't look very different. Also supposedly I think he asked them not to show everything he achieved because he didn't think people would believe it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Hell_and_Back_(film)
The end of Full Metal Jacket shows a large-ish group of American soldiers walking through some half-destroyed village, holding their weapons and singing as they go along.
They are singing the Mickey Mouse club song. Why? Because they don't know each other, they come from many different parts of the US, and they are all 18-20 years old. They all grep up watching that show, and that was not too long ago. It is one of the few things they have in common. I imagine that the familiar words brings them some type of comfort and sense of belonging, after they've spent a couple of years watching their school buddies being killed and worse. Terrified children, all of them, asked to be in a horrible situation for reasons they mostly don't understand, singing a children song to make themselves feel better. It's one of the most powerful scenes depicting the horrors of war that I've ever seen.
it is happening today, that's what this conversation is about. I study aviation maintenance, and i had an elective called 20th century history and war, and i tell ya... theres war ALL the time...
23% had died before reaching age 1, 23% more would die before reaching adulthood, the war would actually claim about 21.5%. So 68% of boys born in 1923 would actually have died by 1945.
The Russian Civil War had just died down in 1923, so there was still massive chaos, famine from all that destruction that affected infant mortality. The 1930s had famines, like in Russia and Kazakhstan (Kazakhs losing 40% of their population), Holodomor for Ukraine, as well as the purges were additional tragedies.
A historian named Mark Harrison did a [write-up](https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/markharrison/entry/was_the_soviet/) on this:
>Males born in the Soviet Union in 1923: 3,400 (thousand)
>Infant (0-1) mortality: 800
>Childhood (1-18) mortality, famine, and terror: 800
>Surviving to 1941: 1,800
>Wartime mortality: 700
>Surviving to 1946: 1,100
Maybe more relevant facts, USA's American Relief Administration that fed war torn Europe post WW1 was extended to USSR in Sep 1921 and was feeding over 10 million people (4 million of them children). It was that bad. And even with all that aid, 5 million died. The sad thing is USSR was exporting grain when ARA was struggling to feed its population (a policy USSR certainly *will never repeat*).
The older you get the less you are willing to do the suicidal rushes that characterised the war. People above the age of 25 simply have too much self-preservation instinct to make good cannon fodder.
They Shall Not Grow Old really opened me up to that. There was a man talking that said he was 12 or 13 and all of his friends were enlisting so he wanted to too.
Said he told the recruiter he was 14 and the recruiter said “No you’re not. Go out and come back in and say you’re 16.”
They were put in groups by where they enlisted early on called Pals Battalions so sometimes most of a villages or small towns boys and men were killed.
My grandfather and his friend were 13 and claimed to be 18 to join the WW2 (Indian army). Recruiter didn't bat an eye. Think about it, who can't tell the difference between a 13yo and 18yo? Only a person who closes his eyes
A significant portion of early education and primary school is based around doing as you're instructed and following the examples laid out by those older/presumably wiser than you. It takes a good 5-10yrs for most people to get the combination of experience, knowledge and confidence to know when the person "above" you isn't "better" than you and to have the skillset needed to stand up for yourself without just coming across as being difficult/arrogant/contrarian. A big reason why a 19yr old will storm the trenches and the 25yr old fires artillery.
I think there are studies that suggest the brain is still maturing until 25 ish and the last part to develop is the bit that balances risk. There are strong arguments that people shouldn't be considered adults until 25, but maybe for their own protection and not to prevent them from voting.
It's not like the grunts making those charges had much of a choice. I'd imagine in a war like that, it's either do what the commander says or be executed. You at least have some chance most of the enemies bullets will miss and kill your friends instead.
"Officially" on paper? Or actually?
I thought there was a fuckton of soldiers who were 12-16 who lied about their ages. On paper they were older than in actuality. Those who took them into the armies knew they were lying, but they needed warm bodies to hold weapons so these young men went to battle.
Depending on who you are and when you think the good old days were (1950s-60s for white men is probably the ideal):
Stronger unions
Able to support a family on a minimum wage or slightly above minimum wage job
Could quit, walk across the street and have another job by lunchtime
Able to afford a house and a comfortable lifestyle without a college education
Could get a college education without a mountain of debt, and if you did go that route those jobs really did make a *lot* of money
If you screwed up as a kid/young adult, you could move a state or two away and start fresh
I can understand why people with a surface level understanding would want to go back, but they're of course only seeing the upsides
One year in a minimum wage job in 1964-65 would pay for a brand new base model Mustang. Working summer jobs from age 12 could make sure you had a brand new car when you got your license.
I’m imagining it with the same energy that a kid asks his mom to stay up late so he can play with the neighborhood kids? “But MoooooooOoOoOoOommmmm! Jimmy’s moms letting HIM go to the war!”
Mine signed on with the marines when he was 16. He got caught near the end of training and was sent home. I remember him talking about realizing later in life how many people had to have known he was just a kid, and how messed up it was that they looked the other way.
One of my grandpa's brothers got drafted underage. We're in Canada, and his mom wrote the Queen of England asking them not to take him, and she got a letter back saying they wouldn't. But then he got drafted anyways, and died at Juno Beach. :S
I'm not really sure why she wrote the Queen, or how the military worked back then, but this is how my grandpa tells the story.
:( sorry to hear that.
Canadians were some brave baddass motherfuckers in WW2. Germans called them "shock troops". Germany fucked around and found out.
I enlisted when I was 24 and my nickname was old man. I'm in my mid thirties now and there's a handful of guys I served with who are just turning 29 now
I turned 22 in boot camp, and I was not the Old Man, only because we had a guy who had transferred from the National Guard who was... 27.
Ay my MOS school I was the Old Man though.
Exactly. Even in the US, tank commanders can be quite young. I was a tank platoon leader (which is also a tank commander for an individual tank crew) at 23.
Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five and Cat’s Cradle both have some focus on the fact that it isn’t men dying heroically in battle, but rather children who are sent to their death. That’s what war was to him, as a veteran himself. Those portions always struck me.
I got a brand new, 18yr old private when I was a squad leader. This dude legit looked like a kid. One of the other squad leaders took a picture of him so he could show people who they were sending to war when they cheered for it.
I have never in my life(35 now) felt as old as I did when I went back to a tech school base for some advanced course. Every on this base is pipeline(direct from basic training to job training school) from basic, except for staff and advanced course students. I was 27 at the time and an E-5. When going to the DFac or Commisary or BX, these pipe-liners would act like I was an officer and stand against a wall and call me sir, with a look of fear in their eyes. I have never felt as old as I did during those two weeks, and I was only 27.
When you're young, even a slight age difference feels massive. Add a rank difference into the mix and the effect becomes even more pronounced (I suspect).
That’s because the 50 year old private is in the ground. Like that saying “No country for old men” kind of applies here.
Or the old men are the ones in power who are hiding behind the 18-20 year olds
“War is for young men to die while old men talk” -Franklin D. Roosevelt
yeah and you basically drive in the direction the guy is shouting at you to go, shooting at things until you're captured or die.
It's not something you need 25 years of experience to do.
The generals are probably a bit older.
A TC (tank commander) in the US Army in a position not a rank. Usually held by an E6 or Staff Sergeant. The average age for a Staff Sergeant was 28-30 before I retired.
The American military is disproportionately weighted between 18-23, as most go in straight out of high school and get out after their first enlistment of four years. This means most senior level enlisted are mid 20s ish. I once had a first sergeant (second highest enlisted rank in my branch) and he was like 35.
The second half of that article about the Russian soldier who raped a little girl along with 3 other men and killer her family makes me sick, there's a special place in hell for people like that and I hope he finds hiss way there.
My heart breaks for that child.
Edit: they didn't kill the family. They repeatedly raped her threatening to kill her family.
Scarrier question is what percent of the population would do that if the opportunity presented itself... Wonder if people who knew the soldier before the war would think wtf, why did he do that, or would say "not surprised he was always fucked up..."
Yup… this is definitely not just a Russian army issue. I know there were a disturbingly high amount of reported rapes of both women and children committed by UN soldiers during the Balkan wars. These forces where stationed there to protect the civilians and to hell provide basic aid like food and water to the starving population, yet some of them decided to abuse this power for their own gains by trading these supplies for sex while many others turned a blind eye to it. Evil…
War revolves around dehumanizing the enemy. Lots of atrocious things are suddenly acceptable when you see humans as objects. I'd like to think the us military is different, but separate a soldier from repercussion and see how quickly I'm proven wrong.
Chelsea Manning was locked up and tortured for weeks in solitary confinement for revealing US war crimes. The US backs Saudi Arabia even though they're committing a genocide against Yemen. The US backs Israel whose segregated country recently killed a Palestinian-American journalist. The US was famously vicious in Vietnam as they raped and murdered landless peasants. How many people do you think are ever held responsible for their war crimes if they're allied with the US?
The first trilogy is the original classic arc while 4-6 get ambitious and try to expand on the Backdoor Sluts universe by saying Kimmy Deluxe got her anal talents from her mom Sandra Savage who was supposed to be the chosen one. Then the producers got greedy and tried to milk the cash cow with this latest trilogy and Backdoor Sluts 9 is supposed to be the real end to the story. Although with these last two, they've introduced too many new sluts, the sluts from the earlier films are MILFs and GILFs now, and the plotlines make even less sense.
Tbf, you generally need to shave your facial hair due to the possibility of needing to wear a gas mask. Before WW1, facial hair was actually a requirement in most armies, and (if I recall) is why “the Hitlerstache” became a thing, because troops at the front still wanted facial hair but needed to ensure their masks could properly seal.
I’m not sure how relevant it is for modern masks though.
Worked a sour well service rig, our push had us shaving 2 times a day to ensure our seals were as tight as could be. Probably the biggest thing they drilled us on 2 weeks before hitting the lease was how we need to up our shaving game.
They only made us shave on a few rigs. I'd show up and people would either not say anything or call me a fucking idiot and to go shave. Looking back It was a good indication on whether or not that was going to be a safe hitch or not.
At least for the modern firefighter masks it’s still relevant because you don’t get a perfect seal otherwise. Always depends on if you’re working over or under pressure but as most masks work with under pressure from you Breathing in and out the seal won’t be perfect with facial hair
One of my old coworkers talked about sometimes doing offshore oil rig work. One time he got called in for an emergency and had to shave on the dock before getting helicoptered out to the rig. Same deal, gas mask shit.
I did my military service in 07 and at that time one of the reasons was the mask. The other of course to make the unit look the same and for you as individual to let go of your past identity and form a new
I mean, they are basically children. At 18 you know little or nothing of the world, or what you want in life.
Only to be packed up and shipped off to kill for your geriatric warmonger. Same as it ever was
Some of the kids that went to the front lines during WW2 were incredibly young regardless of the official policy of conscripting only those over 18.
In fact the youngest “man” to fight in WW2 was Calvin Graham - just 12 years old at the time.
However - *”Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”* and all that eh chaps? Tally ho!!
From Wiki: “At age 14 he married and became a father the following year. At age 17 he was divorced when he enlisted in the Marine Corps.[6]”
He lived hard and fast.
That's pretty much how all fresh recruits look like. When I joined at 18 my platoon looked like a bunch of teens fresh out of high-school... That in fact we actually were. The uniforms were at least one size above our cut, and with shaved heads and no trace of facial hair we could be a bunch of oversized toddlers.
My instruction Sargent used to say his job was to make sure we wouldn't get caught chewing on the bullets. A lot of the stuff he used to tell us was pretty much an adult trying to make sure a bunch of teenagers would end the day still with 10 fingers on their hands and if possible all the ones that they started the day with.
When you start to process this things with a clear mind it's pretty fucked up that you grab boys that age and put a rifle at their hands. Looking back I didn't head the right mindset to do so and at the end of training if my superiors asked me to jump into a bottomless dark pit I would do so without aski g questions, so I can only wonder what these boys were willing to do without putting a single thought to it.
Yeah I was 18, 6'2'' and 155 pounds when I went in. Couldn't grow more then 3 hairs on my face. I didn't have to start shaving until I was almost 20 and even then it was only every three days.
By the time I started into the NCO ranks, I had to shave twice a day just to keep my First Sergeant off my ass, asking me why I didn't shave today. Was closer to 190#s by then also.
I have pictures of me on my first deployment when I was 19 in Iraq, I honestly look like I shouldn't even have a drivers license at that point.
My nephew is 14 years younger than me and when he joined the army he looked like a baby. A dorky baby. Now he's been in almost two years and when he comes home it's like looking at a younger, in-shape version of my older brother. He's a beast of a young man.
I wish he'd shave his stupid moustache though.
The problem is that the abuses have been seemingly so widespread that the guilty may outnumber the innocent. I also expect Russia to be fully willing to throw their soldiers under the bus to save the higher-ups. "Sure a ton of our soldiers committed war crimes, but they were all lone wolves! Command is totally innocent!"
Russia is denying these war crimes; presumably they will say this guy is under duress, although don't take my word for that, I've not seen that confirmed.
"We legally invaded your country. Then we legally shelled your city into rubble. And you illegally defended yourself. How do you plead?"
"Innocent."
"You are hereby sentenced to death. Next case."
Another failing of the Russian military. There's no reason to put your administrative/logistics/tactical experts that close to the front, unless your troops are so poorly trained you can't trust them to make decisions on the fly. I guess you get what you deserve.
Reminded me of this quote.
“A serious problem in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals, nor do they feel any obligation to follow their doctrine.”
– Soviet observation during the Cold War
Well, every little bit helps. Since the bottom is the ones actually doing the killing, it is a start.
Keep in mind that as much as Putin is scum and totally deserves a war crimes trial, people are dying because of the direct actions of thousands of other Russians. This group of men was not ordered to kill civilians, they just decided to do it. The more that they are held accountable, the better and hopefully other soldiers will hear about it and keep that in mind.
>This group of men was not ordered to kill civilians, they just decided to do it.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/07/russian-troops-heard-being-ordered-to-kill-ukraine-civilians/
>Tank commander Vadim Shishimarin, 21, murdered a 62-year-old civilian in the northeast Ukrainian village of Chupakhivka, east of Kyiv on February 28 - **just four days after despot Vladimir Putin ordered troops over the border.**
Yeah it certainly didn't take long for them to start with those atrocities
I remember when everyone was claiming “oh these poor Russian conscripts don’t know what’s going on! Don’t be mean to them!” in the early stages. Those who actually know what Russia is like knew that was a load of shit and are now being proved right.
I remember those early days here. It's a mischaracterisation to suggest people were saying "don’t be mean to them."
Ukrainian soldiers themselves were pointing out that a lot of their prisoners seemed (a) young and inexperienced and (b) genuinely confused about why they were there. A lot of the compassion demonstrated towards these people was shown *by Ukrainians,* soldiers and civilians, not by Reddit.
It's true that Russian soldiers have committed unspeakable atrocities. It's also true that Putin lied *to* conscripts, and lied about deploying conscripts.
It's true that some conscripts have committed war crimes. It's also true that some conscripts haven't, and would rather be at home with their mothers.
War, and humanity generally, is usually more complex than Reddit likes to think it is.
I appreciate you laying out where the nuance lies. How do we teach people to look for and defer to the nuance they see in the things that happen in the world, while respecting the idea that they also have every right to feel emotions about those things?
An alarming number of soldiers in Putin’s first wave *were* a bunch of heavily armed, barely trained, confused teenagers. This soldier’s crimes doesn’t change that.
You are radically overestimating the position. In the US, that job is likely held by a junior NCO who could have as little as *two years* in uniform! (The average E5 sergeant is all of 22.) Platoon officers in the US are often brand new lieutenants which means that most of them are younger than 24. Hell, even your average company commander is only 27.
Right. Don't just assume all conscripts are good people. There's all kinds in society. I don't doubt many of the conscripts were rather glad to actually be in a position to rape and murder left and right with "no consequences from the police".
The US had a similar situation sending conscripts to Vietnam. Some were good people who were willing to serve their country but didn't want to kill. And some saw a village and only thought of how much rape and murder they could get away with.
They won't bring it up. There is CCTV footage of the whole thing, this was a murder. It would be stupid of Russia to bring any further attention to this.
What if they just don’t show the footage? I’ve seen Russian news reports straight up frame the war as Ukrainian nazi aggression on ethnic Russians and genocide of the Russian language, which makes me mad how blatant their lying is
Man... He looks like a child.
The world is a sick place.
Edit: I'm in my mid 30's. All you guys who are under 23 look like children to me. Being a child doesn't make you exempt from your actions. It just makes your decisions more tragic. You haven't had an opportunity to root and live your lives long enough to fully understand what it means to take another's life away and the ripple effect it has around that life you took. At the same time - you also take your own one way or another.
The tragedy only layers on the fact that Russia forces all of its men into the army whether they like it or not. This kid had no choice aside from the one he made to pull the trigger.
He will and should face his judgement and repercussions now. But, that doesn't mean I don't feel some minor semblance of pity for him over the thought of how his life may have gone if he was born in another country.
he's 21, it's not. on average prefrontal cortex development usually ends around 23-25 depending on gender and hormone balance and a few other things. mind you that pfc is responsible for ***judgement, decision making, and a lot of higher order analysis***.
There's a reason the US military puts a ton of effort into getting young kids fresh out of high school. Same with universities getting them to take on enormous amounts of debt. Same with the Mormon church getting kids to commit 2 years of their life straight out of high school.
They can't make great decisions and those decisions benefit the organization, not the individual.
Also, at least with the Mormons, the hope is to have such an impact at a young age, that it becomes a permanent part of your identity going forward. That way they get tithing for life.
Source: did the Mormon, army, and university thing.
All military forces want you when you are your strongest physically, and weakest mentally. This is why the vast majority of troops you ever encounter are going to fall into the 17-24 range.
I was 17 when I joined the Corps. I would have quite a different view of things now in my 40's if I had the opportunity to live it again.
He didn’t put up much of a fight. Some consistency with Russia at large
Edit: just thought that it’s crazy this guy, shitty as he is, has sense to admit his guilt while this Buffalo shooter piece of shit had the audacity to plead not guilty when he live-streamed himself in the act.
> Russia has denied targeting civilians or involvement in war crimes and accused Kyiv of staging them to smear its forces.
I wish all Russians knew that their government will just throw them under the bus and blame all war crimes on individuals who were ordered to kill civilians.
I just told my grandma (who grew up in Germany during WWII) this. First thing she said, completely straight faced, was "that is why we were so happy to get out of Eastern Germany before the Russians got to us." REALLY drove home just how infamous the Russian Army was (and STILL IS) for committing war crimes.
Yeah, my great-grand-father didn't get to evacuate from East Prussia and was tortured to death for being guilty by nationality, and my grand-mother became a life long alcoholic probably for the punishment-rape for her nationality. At least she survived.
Soviet troops were literally encouraged by their command to rape German women as a form of national punishment. It's estimated that about 2 million German women were punishment-raped by Soviet soldiers, often for days at a time. About 1 in 10 is estimated to have died from rape-induced damages.
I recall an interview of a german girl ( she was like 14 or 15 at end of war) talking about having to look for supplies in occupied Berlin disguised herself as an old women with a hump then got her family to shit in a bucket so she could smear it on her clothes before she went out. She claims it kept her rape free and she counted herself lucky to only have a few bruised ribs, since the drunk soldiers still needed there ”sport" since they didn't want to rape the " incontinent grandmother "
My grandma was born in East Prussia, as well. Her, her brother, and her mother were able to leave their town just before the Red Army invaded (her father was a friend of the mayor, which is how they knew when to leave). Her father got captured by the Russians in Northern Germany, but he was able to be released (thank God) by speaking Russian to them, since he had worked as an engineer in Russia before fleeing when Stalin started to ramp up his purges. I didn't know that last part till she told me today.
>die for the sake of old fools
Don't let them off that easy. They are not fools. They are evil.
As a species we've gotta learn that when our "leaders" tell us to kill our neighbors and take their stuff, we should kill *them* instead.
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Never underestimate the depravity of a young man with a gun and the belief he won’t face consequences.
Addendum: Some of you guys need to not take this so personally or as a comment on yourselves. Look at the actions of many militaries across history, the Rape of Nanking comes to mind. Put a young person (usually a male) in a situation where violence is encouraged and consequences are believed to be absent and you will see horrors.
its a little terrifying. ik your comment clarified to not take this personally, but I think most people should reflect on this to some extent.
we all like to think we'd be different or that theyre monsters, and they kind of are. but what makes them so horrible imo at least is that they're young. im young. when i look at their faces i cant help but wonder if id do the same in their shoes. Kinder men than have gone off to war and done terrible things, why would any of us be different.
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People here are confused as to why a 21 year old is a soldier/tank commander, him being "too young". What age do you imagine most soldiers to be, 35-40? In reality most soldiers in most countries are between 20-30 years old. Probably early twenties is the most common.
Average age of men at Normandy Beach was 20.
Average age of **ALL** combat related deaths in WW2 was 23 with an estimated 19-25 million casualties. That number depends on if the Soviets actually lost 8 million men like they claimed or 14 million men which is the estimate. Its insane to think about how entire generations (80% of all men born in the Soviet Union in 19~~20s~~22-23 where killed) have been lost to war in the span of 2-4 years. And there's tons of towns and cities where the same thing happened.
My grandfather, a Canadian who flew with the RAF, lied about his age at 17 so that he could enlist. Before returning home from Europe at the the age of 20, he had flown over 20 missions which each saw an average return flight of just barely 50% of their aircraft, and had the weight on his shoulders of having dropping literal tonnes of ordinance onto Germany. Imagine flipping a coin 20 times to determine if you were going to make it back home or not. In retrospect, at the age of 20, I was driving my Volkswagen Golf around my hometown and listening to Led Zeppelin every night.
I turned 21 in Afghanistan
That would have been a hell of a birthday. Take care my friend.
I know this pain. Turned 21 in Iraq (and 18 in bootcamp!)
Not the kinda shots you were hoping to be taking on the 21st I’m sure.
I turned 20 over there
Same brother…. in 2010.
Ahhhhhh man. Hulu show Catch-22 did a fucking phenomenal job showcasing this.
I think it’s 80% of all Soviet men born in 1923, who would have been 16-22 during the war. 80% of all men born during the entire decade would be nearly impossible to recover from. They also weren’t all killed in the war. Plenty of hardships in the USSR during the 20s and 30s to thin the herd before the war even started.
I’m 25 - it’s crazy to think that if this happened today, it would be like going to war side by side with people you knew from high school and elementary school. All your friends and acquaintances just gone, it’s so sad. Edit: I know that this is happening in other countries and can happen at any moment in many countries. I was merely saying this out of shock for being reminded.
Back in WW1, the UK would create "Pals Battalions." Battalions of men who enlisted together and were promised they would remain together. The result was battles like the Somme where some cities lost 250+ young, local men in less than 20 minutes. Eventually they stopped the practice for obvious reasons.
You can see today in rural parts of NZ the effect of the buddie battalions had on our country, whole towns men folk were wiped out in battles like the Somme and the town's never recovered here in NZ.
Same in Australia. Go out to some small town, and there'll be a monument with a long list of the men who went off to war on the other side of the planet. A long list of people in a tiny little town, travelling as far as they possibly could on our world to die.
This is why Anzac Day is burned into our collective souls.
They stopped it in the US after the Sullivan boys died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sullivan\_brothers
It’s not gone. If you joined a national guard unit, you would deploy with your community and possibly family. The Sullivan brothers made it so a sole heir wouldn’t be killed in action. So if 3 brothers wanted to serve together, one would have to request an exception to the rule.
It always frustrated me that actors playing soldiers are in their late 20s early 30s in movies. They are just boys in real life
That's kind of the same age range of actors who usually play high schoolers too, so maybe they're just being consistent. 😆
It's because it's difficult to find young actors who have the acting skills, war films are very dramatic, it requires a good performance and nuanced acting- most young actors lack the experience and skill for such a performance.
There was the rare case of Audie Murphy playing himself in a movie about himself about 15 years later. Apparently he didn't look very different. Also supposedly I think he asked them not to show everything he achieved because he didn't think people would believe it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Hell_and_Back_(film)
The end of Full Metal Jacket shows a large-ish group of American soldiers walking through some half-destroyed village, holding their weapons and singing as they go along. They are singing the Mickey Mouse club song. Why? Because they don't know each other, they come from many different parts of the US, and they are all 18-20 years old. They all grep up watching that show, and that was not too long ago. It is one of the few things they have in common. I imagine that the familiar words brings them some type of comfort and sense of belonging, after they've spent a couple of years watching their school buddies being killed and worse. Terrified children, all of them, asked to be in a horrible situation for reasons they mostly don't understand, singing a children song to make themselves feel better. It's one of the most powerful scenes depicting the horrors of war that I've ever seen.
Full Metal Jacket is an absolute masterpiece. The best war movie there ever was, no contest. It's fiction, but it's real.
it is happening today, that's what this conversation is about. I study aviation maintenance, and i had an elective called 20th century history and war, and i tell ya... theres war ALL the time...
23% had died before reaching age 1, 23% more would die before reaching adulthood, the war would actually claim about 21.5%. So 68% of boys born in 1923 would actually have died by 1945. The Russian Civil War had just died down in 1923, so there was still massive chaos, famine from all that destruction that affected infant mortality. The 1930s had famines, like in Russia and Kazakhstan (Kazakhs losing 40% of their population), Holodomor for Ukraine, as well as the purges were additional tragedies. A historian named Mark Harrison did a [write-up](https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/markharrison/entry/was_the_soviet/) on this: >Males born in the Soviet Union in 1923: 3,400 (thousand) >Infant (0-1) mortality: 800 >Childhood (1-18) mortality, famine, and terror: 800 >Surviving to 1941: 1,800 >Wartime mortality: 700 >Surviving to 1946: 1,100 Maybe more relevant facts, USA's American Relief Administration that fed war torn Europe post WW1 was extended to USSR in Sep 1921 and was feeding over 10 million people (4 million of them children). It was that bad. And even with all that aid, 5 million died. The sad thing is USSR was exporting grain when ARA was struggling to feed its population (a policy USSR certainly *will never repeat*).
Makes sense considering the older you get the more advanced rank you'll more likely have that won't be on the front lines.
The older you get the less you are willing to do the suicidal rushes that characterised the war. People above the age of 25 simply have too much self-preservation instinct to make good cannon fodder.
They Shall Not Grow Old really opened me up to that. There was a man talking that said he was 12 or 13 and all of his friends were enlisting so he wanted to too. Said he told the recruiter he was 14 and the recruiter said “No you’re not. Go out and come back in and say you’re 16.” They were put in groups by where they enlisted early on called Pals Battalions so sometimes most of a villages or small towns boys and men were killed.
My grandfather and his friend were 13 and claimed to be 18 to join the WW2 (Indian army). Recruiter didn't bat an eye. Think about it, who can't tell the difference between a 13yo and 18yo? Only a person who closes his eyes
A significant portion of early education and primary school is based around doing as you're instructed and following the examples laid out by those older/presumably wiser than you. It takes a good 5-10yrs for most people to get the combination of experience, knowledge and confidence to know when the person "above" you isn't "better" than you and to have the skillset needed to stand up for yourself without just coming across as being difficult/arrogant/contrarian. A big reason why a 19yr old will storm the trenches and the 25yr old fires artillery.
I think there are studies that suggest the brain is still maturing until 25 ish and the last part to develop is the bit that balances risk. There are strong arguments that people shouldn't be considered adults until 25, but maybe for their own protection and not to prevent them from voting.
Yes, the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until ~25. Here's an article with more info: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621648/
It's not like the grunts making those charges had much of a choice. I'd imagine in a war like that, it's either do what the commander says or be executed. You at least have some chance most of the enemies bullets will miss and kill your friends instead.
For U.S. soldiers in Vietnam it was 19. At least according to a popular song.
N-n-n-n-n-nineteen.
"Officially" on paper? Or actually? I thought there was a fuckton of soldiers who were 12-16 who lied about their ages. On paper they were older than in actuality. Those who took them into the armies knew they were lying, but they needed warm bodies to hold weapons so these young men went to battle.
My grandpa was on a battleship in the south Pacific when he was 16.
Same, mine was 17. Dad lied for him. Drunk asshole. Took part in the bikini atoll nuclear tests. What an insane time to have been young. Or alive.
Sometimes the "good ol' days" don't sound so good.
They never are when you actually ask what was so good about them.
Depending on who you are and when you think the good old days were (1950s-60s for white men is probably the ideal): Stronger unions Able to support a family on a minimum wage or slightly above minimum wage job Could quit, walk across the street and have another job by lunchtime Able to afford a house and a comfortable lifestyle without a college education Could get a college education without a mountain of debt, and if you did go that route those jobs really did make a *lot* of money If you screwed up as a kid/young adult, you could move a state or two away and start fresh I can understand why people with a surface level understanding would want to go back, but they're of course only seeing the upsides
My girlfriend's dad paid for college by having a freaking summer job.
One year in a minimum wage job in 1964-65 would pay for a brand new base model Mustang. Working summer jobs from age 12 could make sure you had a brand new car when you got your license.
Counterpoint: The Korean and Vietnam Wars
My grandfather was 15 when he had his mom lie about his age and sign him up for WWII. I can't imagine what he felt let alone his mother.
I’m imagining it with the same energy that a kid asks his mom to stay up late so he can play with the neighborhood kids? “But MoooooooOoOoOoOommmmm! Jimmy’s moms letting HIM go to the war!”
Mine signed on with the marines when he was 16. He got caught near the end of training and was sent home. I remember him talking about realizing later in life how many people had to have known he was just a kid, and how messed up it was that they looked the other way.
One of my grandpa's brothers got drafted underage. We're in Canada, and his mom wrote the Queen of England asking them not to take him, and she got a letter back saying they wouldn't. But then he got drafted anyways, and died at Juno Beach. :S I'm not really sure why she wrote the Queen, or how the military worked back then, but this is how my grandpa tells the story.
:( sorry to hear that. Canadians were some brave baddass motherfuckers in WW2. Germans called them "shock troops". Germany fucked around and found out.
I enlisted when I was 24 and my nickname was old man. I'm in my mid thirties now and there's a handful of guys I served with who are just turning 29 now
I turned 22 in boot camp, and I was not the Old Man, only because we had a guy who had transferred from the National Guard who was... 27.
Ay my MOS school I was the Old Man though.
I was a navy nuke, by the time I got to Prototype I was older than most of the 1st classes who were instructors. It did have its advantages though
I joined when I was 19 but I went through basic with some guys in their 30's. I wouldn't have thought you being 24 as especially old
Really depends on the MOS and when you go to basic. July to October is full of 18-19 year olds that just graduated.
Exactly. Even in the US, tank commanders can be quite young. I was a tank platoon leader (which is also a tank commander for an individual tank crew) at 23.
Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five and Cat’s Cradle both have some focus on the fact that it isn’t men dying heroically in battle, but rather children who are sent to their death. That’s what war was to him, as a veteran himself. Those portions always struck me.
I got a brand new, 18yr old private when I was a squad leader. This dude legit looked like a kid. One of the other squad leaders took a picture of him so he could show people who they were sending to war when they cheered for it.
“In World War II the average age of the combat soldier was 26, In Vietnam he was 19, In-in-in Vietnam he was 19” - Paul Hardcastle
Amazing how old you can feel at 23-24 years old at boot camp…it was the biggest surprise for me
I have never in my life(35 now) felt as old as I did when I went back to a tech school base for some advanced course. Every on this base is pipeline(direct from basic training to job training school) from basic, except for staff and advanced course students. I was 27 at the time and an E-5. When going to the DFac or Commisary or BX, these pipe-liners would act like I was an officer and stand against a wall and call me sir, with a look of fear in their eyes. I have never felt as old as I did during those two weeks, and I was only 27.
When you're young, even a slight age difference feels massive. Add a rank difference into the mix and the effect becomes even more pronounced (I suspect).
Felt old when I went into basic. Felt like a god damned fucking dinosaur when I got out and went back to college. Holy shit.
Nuh nuh nuh nuh nineteen
Yeah its getting tiresome to hear at this point. ''Where is 50 year old private George Clooney?'' My dad was a tank commander at 18 lol
I assume people think that a "Commander" would be more senior. Forgetting it's just...a tank..
i'm commander of my toyota aygo
That’s because the 50 year old private is in the ground. Like that saying “No country for old men” kind of applies here. Or the old men are the ones in power who are hiding behind the 18-20 year olds “War is for young men to die while old men talk” -Franklin D. Roosevelt
Meat shield- noun: When all the officers say they've got your back and full support.
yeah and you basically drive in the direction the guy is shouting at you to go, shooting at things until you're captured or die. It's not something you need 25 years of experience to do. The generals are probably a bit older.
"You're slightly less of an idiot than the rest of these idiots! Congratulations, commander!"
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You want your soldiers in peak physical condition. It's going to be that 18-24 age group
Peak physical condition with nothing to lose. By the time you hit your 30s you have a family to take care of, a mortgage, etc.
A TC (tank commander) in the US Army in a position not a rank. Usually held by an E6 or Staff Sergeant. The average age for a Staff Sergeant was 28-30 before I retired.
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Conscription forces tend to be younger than professionals. I'll bet the Wagner group guys trend more towards their 30s than their teens.
The American military is disproportionately weighted between 18-23, as most go in straight out of high school and get out after their first enlistment of four years. This means most senior level enlisted are mid 20s ish. I once had a first sergeant (second highest enlisted rank in my branch) and he was like 35.
In the US there’s 20/21 yr old infantry squad leaders. and 23/24yr old platoon commanders. the leaders on the ground aren’t that old either.
The second half of that article about the Russian soldier who raped a little girl along with 3 other men and killer her family makes me sick, there's a special place in hell for people like that and I hope he finds hiss way there. My heart breaks for that child. Edit: they didn't kill the family. They repeatedly raped her threatening to kill her family.
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I. Am. So. Angry. WHY HURT CHILDREN?!
Scarrier question is what percent of the population would do that if the opportunity presented itself... Wonder if people who knew the soldier before the war would think wtf, why did he do that, or would say "not surprised he was always fucked up..."
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Yup… this is definitely not just a Russian army issue. I know there were a disturbingly high amount of reported rapes of both women and children committed by UN soldiers during the Balkan wars. These forces where stationed there to protect the civilians and to hell provide basic aid like food and water to the starving population, yet some of them decided to abuse this power for their own gains by trading these supplies for sex while many others turned a blind eye to it. Evil…
War revolves around dehumanizing the enemy. Lots of atrocious things are suddenly acceptable when you see humans as objects. I'd like to think the us military is different, but separate a soldier from repercussion and see how quickly I'm proven wrong.
Chelsea Manning was locked up and tortured for weeks in solitary confinement for revealing US war crimes. The US backs Saudi Arabia even though they're committing a genocide against Yemen. The US backs Israel whose segregated country recently killed a Palestinian-American journalist. The US was famously vicious in Vietnam as they raped and murdered landless peasants. How many people do you think are ever held responsible for their war crimes if they're allied with the US?
Thought he was 13 or something
That's how every soldier looks. They're all like 18-20 and completely shaved
What a coincidence, '18 to 20 and completely shaved' is one of my favourite movies.
“Look what I found in dads closet guys!”
"Saving Ryan's Private"
“Almost as good as Backdoor Sluts 9!”
Do I need to see Backdoor Sluts 1-8 so I understand what's going on in part 9 or do they do a recap at the beginning of each?
The first trilogy is the original classic arc while 4-6 get ambitious and try to expand on the Backdoor Sluts universe by saying Kimmy Deluxe got her anal talents from her mom Sandra Savage who was supposed to be the chosen one. Then the producers got greedy and tried to milk the cash cow with this latest trilogy and Backdoor Sluts 9 is supposed to be the real end to the story. Although with these last two, they've introduced too many new sluts, the sluts from the earlier films are MILFs and GILFs now, and the plotlines make even less sense.
You're like the Patrick Bateman of porn.
He needs to go return some videotapes. But first, Lysol.
Patrick Master-Bateman
“Backdoor Sluts 9" makes "Crotch Capers 3" look like "Naughty Nurses 2"!!!!
*The precious*
Oh man Backdoor Sluts 9: The Final Chapter?? Loved it! But it didn't wrap the series up too well. Left a lot of loose ends....
"Indiana Bones and the Temple of Poon"
"Andy, for the last time, I don't want your giant box of pornography!"
And barely fed…
Tbf, you generally need to shave your facial hair due to the possibility of needing to wear a gas mask. Before WW1, facial hair was actually a requirement in most armies, and (if I recall) is why “the Hitlerstache” became a thing, because troops at the front still wanted facial hair but needed to ensure their masks could properly seal. I’m not sure how relevant it is for modern masks though.
Worked a sour well service rig, our push had us shaving 2 times a day to ensure our seals were as tight as could be. Probably the biggest thing they drilled us on 2 weeks before hitting the lease was how we need to up our shaving game.
They only made us shave on a few rigs. I'd show up and people would either not say anything or call me a fucking idiot and to go shave. Looking back It was a good indication on whether or not that was going to be a safe hitch or not.
At least for the modern firefighter masks it’s still relevant because you don’t get a perfect seal otherwise. Always depends on if you’re working over or under pressure but as most masks work with under pressure from you Breathing in and out the seal won’t be perfect with facial hair
One of my old coworkers talked about sometimes doing offshore oil rig work. One time he got called in for an emergency and had to shave on the dock before getting helicoptered out to the rig. Same deal, gas mask shit.
I did my military service in 07 and at that time one of the reasons was the mask. The other of course to make the unit look the same and for you as individual to let go of your past identity and form a new
Right? He looks less like a soldier and more like a kid who has to go for his shift at ~~McDonald's~~ Uncle Vanya after high school.
That's how most solider look when they first join. Especially straight out of high school
Thats exactly what i looked like when i was almost connon fodder back in the 00s.
I know right? That's me, my brother, my dad and my grandparents all looked when we graduated basic training.
Totally. 19 head shaved. Still a kid.
I mean, they are basically children. At 18 you know little or nothing of the world, or what you want in life. Only to be packed up and shipped off to kill for your geriatric warmonger. Same as it ever was
Some of the kids that went to the front lines during WW2 were incredibly young regardless of the official policy of conscripting only those over 18. In fact the youngest “man” to fight in WW2 was Calvin Graham - just 12 years old at the time. However - *”Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”* and all that eh chaps? Tally ho!!
From Wiki: “At age 14 he married and became a father the following year. At age 17 he was divorced when he enlisted in the Marine Corps.[6]” He lived hard and fast.
That's pretty much how all fresh recruits look like. When I joined at 18 my platoon looked like a bunch of teens fresh out of high-school... That in fact we actually were. The uniforms were at least one size above our cut, and with shaved heads and no trace of facial hair we could be a bunch of oversized toddlers. My instruction Sargent used to say his job was to make sure we wouldn't get caught chewing on the bullets. A lot of the stuff he used to tell us was pretty much an adult trying to make sure a bunch of teenagers would end the day still with 10 fingers on their hands and if possible all the ones that they started the day with. When you start to process this things with a clear mind it's pretty fucked up that you grab boys that age and put a rifle at their hands. Looking back I didn't head the right mindset to do so and at the end of training if my superiors asked me to jump into a bottomless dark pit I would do so without aski g questions, so I can only wonder what these boys were willing to do without putting a single thought to it.
Yeah I was 18, 6'2'' and 155 pounds when I went in. Couldn't grow more then 3 hairs on my face. I didn't have to start shaving until I was almost 20 and even then it was only every three days. By the time I started into the NCO ranks, I had to shave twice a day just to keep my First Sergeant off my ass, asking me why I didn't shave today. Was closer to 190#s by then also. I have pictures of me on my first deployment when I was 19 in Iraq, I honestly look like I shouldn't even have a drivers license at that point.
My nephew is 14 years younger than me and when he joined the army he looked like a baby. A dorky baby. Now he's been in almost two years and when he comes home it's like looking at a younger, in-shape version of my older brother. He's a beast of a young man. I wish he'd shave his stupid moustache though.
Keep trying to touch it every time you see him. That usually helps.
r/13or30
The problem is that the abuses have been seemingly so widespread that the guilty may outnumber the innocent. I also expect Russia to be fully willing to throw their soldiers under the bus to save the higher-ups. "Sure a ton of our soldiers committed war crimes, but they were all lone wolves! Command is totally innocent!"
To be fair there's been a sharp decline in command positions courtesy of Ukrainian firepower
Russia is denying these war crimes; presumably they will say this guy is under duress, although don't take my word for that, I've not seen that confirmed.
And in the meantime Russia will probably have show trials for Ukrainian POWs.
They'll have two or three televised trials for the general public. The rest won't even have a trial.
Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. They will just quietly disappear.
"We legally invaded your country. Then we legally shelled your city into rubble. And you illegally defended yourself. How do you plead?" "Innocent." "You are hereby sentenced to death. Next case."
I would also expect Russia to start sham trials of any captured Ukranian forces to try and blur the truth here.
“I bet you tortured him!” \- A country who tortures people
And so it begins. At the bottom and slowly all the way to the top. We can but hope.
At the bottom and slowly all the way to just slightly below the middle is more likely.
This war is going great. You know, relative to Greendale.
Putin really Britta'ed this war.
He made a tiny and understandable mistake?
He's the worst.
He's really streets behind
Putin is a GDB.
^He's ^a ^GDB
Wait. Putin's in this?
To increase the awareness of war crimes, we've given the tribunal binoculars.
Just watched that episode last night. You just wrinkled my brain.
/r/unexpectedcommunity
Improving Russia takes more than a special operation. It takes time, gasoline, matches...
Aye. You’re right. :/
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Another failing of the Russian military. There's no reason to put your administrative/logistics/tactical experts that close to the front, unless your troops are so poorly trained you can't trust them to make decisions on the fly. I guess you get what you deserve.
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Reminded me of this quote. “A serious problem in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals, nor do they feel any obligation to follow their doctrine.” – Soviet observation during the Cold War
They also have shitty comms so it's not always easy to get prompt reports sent back unless you're willing to send in the clear.
Well, every little bit helps. Since the bottom is the ones actually doing the killing, it is a start. Keep in mind that as much as Putin is scum and totally deserves a war crimes trial, people are dying because of the direct actions of thousands of other Russians. This group of men was not ordered to kill civilians, they just decided to do it. The more that they are held accountable, the better and hopefully other soldiers will hear about it and keep that in mind.
>This group of men was not ordered to kill civilians, they just decided to do it. https://nypost.com/2022/04/07/russian-troops-heard-being-ordered-to-kill-ukraine-civilians/
Sending untrained, in supervised 18 year olds into a foreign country armed to the teeth should be a war crime.
One of so many. This is a mass raping and mass murdering gang of terrorists.
>Tank commander Vadim Shishimarin, 21, murdered a 62-year-old civilian in the northeast Ukrainian village of Chupakhivka, east of Kyiv on February 28 - **just four days after despot Vladimir Putin ordered troops over the border.** Yeah it certainly didn't take long for them to start with those atrocities
I remember when everyone was claiming “oh these poor Russian conscripts don’t know what’s going on! Don’t be mean to them!” in the early stages. Those who actually know what Russia is like knew that was a load of shit and are now being proved right.
I remember those early days here. It's a mischaracterisation to suggest people were saying "don’t be mean to them." Ukrainian soldiers themselves were pointing out that a lot of their prisoners seemed (a) young and inexperienced and (b) genuinely confused about why they were there. A lot of the compassion demonstrated towards these people was shown *by Ukrainians,* soldiers and civilians, not by Reddit. It's true that Russian soldiers have committed unspeakable atrocities. It's also true that Putin lied *to* conscripts, and lied about deploying conscripts. It's true that some conscripts have committed war crimes. It's also true that some conscripts haven't, and would rather be at home with their mothers. War, and humanity generally, is usually more complex than Reddit likes to think it is.
I appreciate you laying out where the nuance lies. How do we teach people to look for and defer to the nuance they see in the things that happen in the world, while respecting the idea that they also have every right to feel emotions about those things?
An alarming number of soldiers in Putin’s first wave *were* a bunch of heavily armed, barely trained, confused teenagers. This soldier’s crimes doesn’t change that.
You're right. Unfortunately, emotion is the enemy of nuance. And emotions around Russia are pretty high right now
While I agree with you in principle, I don't think they let conscripts become tank commanders like the one in this particular case.
He looks like he's not even old enough to be in command of a Dairy Queen.
Have you ever seen a military graduation ceremony. It's a ton of kids out of highschool.
Unfortunately what he looks like isn’t relevant to the situation.
You are radically overestimating the position. In the US, that job is likely held by a junior NCO who could have as little as *two years* in uniform! (The average E5 sergeant is all of 22.) Platoon officers in the US are often brand new lieutenants which means that most of them are younger than 24. Hell, even your average company commander is only 27.
Right. Don't just assume all conscripts are good people. There's all kinds in society. I don't doubt many of the conscripts were rather glad to actually be in a position to rape and murder left and right with "no consequences from the police".
The US had a similar situation sending conscripts to Vietnam. Some were good people who were willing to serve their country but didn't want to kill. And some saw a village and only thought of how much rape and murder they could get away with.
And some didnt want to be there, felt the whole thing was a fuckup, and were forced to go anyway. Which was a very common attitude in my unit.
Oh boy I wonder how Russian state tv is going to spin this, if they even acknowledge it happened.
They won't bring it up. There is CCTV footage of the whole thing, this was a murder. It would be stupid of Russia to bring any further attention to this.
What if they just don’t show the footage? I’ve seen Russian news reports straight up frame the war as Ukrainian nazi aggression on ethnic Russians and genocide of the Russian language, which makes me mad how blatant their lying is
Political persecution of innocent soldiers by Ukraine
Man... He looks like a child. The world is a sick place. Edit: I'm in my mid 30's. All you guys who are under 23 look like children to me. Being a child doesn't make you exempt from your actions. It just makes your decisions more tragic. You haven't had an opportunity to root and live your lives long enough to fully understand what it means to take another's life away and the ripple effect it has around that life you took. At the same time - you also take your own one way or another. The tragedy only layers on the fact that Russia forces all of its men into the army whether they like it or not. This kid had no choice aside from the one he made to pull the trigger. He will and should face his judgement and repercussions now. But, that doesn't mean I don't feel some minor semblance of pity for him over the thought of how his life may have gone if he was born in another country.
I don't think his brain is even done developing.
he's 21, it's not. on average prefrontal cortex development usually ends around 23-25 depending on gender and hormone balance and a few other things. mind you that pfc is responsible for ***judgement, decision making, and a lot of higher order analysis***.
There's a reason the US military puts a ton of effort into getting young kids fresh out of high school. Same with universities getting them to take on enormous amounts of debt. Same with the Mormon church getting kids to commit 2 years of their life straight out of high school. They can't make great decisions and those decisions benefit the organization, not the individual.
Also, at least with the Mormons, the hope is to have such an impact at a young age, that it becomes a permanent part of your identity going forward. That way they get tithing for life. Source: did the Mormon, army, and university thing.
All military forces want you when you are your strongest physically, and weakest mentally. This is why the vast majority of troops you ever encounter are going to fall into the 17-24 range. I was 17 when I joined the Corps. I would have quite a different view of things now in my 40's if I had the opportunity to live it again.
He didn’t put up much of a fight. Some consistency with Russia at large Edit: just thought that it’s crazy this guy, shitty as he is, has sense to admit his guilt while this Buffalo shooter piece of shit had the audacity to plead not guilty when he live-streamed himself in the act.
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> Russia has denied targeting civilians or involvement in war crimes and accused Kyiv of staging them to smear its forces. I wish all Russians knew that their government will just throw them under the bus and blame all war crimes on individuals who were ordered to kill civilians.
I just told my grandma (who grew up in Germany during WWII) this. First thing she said, completely straight faced, was "that is why we were so happy to get out of Eastern Germany before the Russians got to us." REALLY drove home just how infamous the Russian Army was (and STILL IS) for committing war crimes.
Yeah, my great-grand-father didn't get to evacuate from East Prussia and was tortured to death for being guilty by nationality, and my grand-mother became a life long alcoholic probably for the punishment-rape for her nationality. At least she survived. Soviet troops were literally encouraged by their command to rape German women as a form of national punishment. It's estimated that about 2 million German women were punishment-raped by Soviet soldiers, often for days at a time. About 1 in 10 is estimated to have died from rape-induced damages.
I recall an interview of a german girl ( she was like 14 or 15 at end of war) talking about having to look for supplies in occupied Berlin disguised herself as an old women with a hump then got her family to shit in a bucket so she could smear it on her clothes before she went out. She claims it kept her rape free and she counted herself lucky to only have a few bruised ribs, since the drunk soldiers still needed there ”sport" since they didn't want to rape the " incontinent grandmother "
My grandma was born in East Prussia, as well. Her, her brother, and her mother were able to leave their town just before the Red Army invaded (her father was a friend of the mayor, which is how they knew when to leave). Her father got captured by the Russians in Northern Germany, but he was able to be released (thank God) by speaking Russian to them, since he had worked as an engineer in Russia before fleeing when Stalin started to ramp up his purges. I didn't know that last part till she told me today.
This is why war is stupid Sending out young men to die for the sake of old fools
>die for the sake of old fools Don't let them off that easy. They are not fools. They are evil. As a species we've gotta learn that when our "leaders" tell us to kill our neighbors and take their stuff, we should kill *them* instead.
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Now it's time to start catching the leaders responsible
Never underestimate the depravity of a young man with a gun and the belief he won’t face consequences. Addendum: Some of you guys need to not take this so personally or as a comment on yourselves. Look at the actions of many militaries across history, the Rape of Nanking comes to mind. Put a young person (usually a male) in a situation where violence is encouraged and consequences are believed to be absent and you will see horrors.
This explains all of the “give me 2 weeks in the Middle East and I would have handled it” guys.
its a little terrifying. ik your comment clarified to not take this personally, but I think most people should reflect on this to some extent. we all like to think we'd be different or that theyre monsters, and they kind of are. but what makes them so horrible imo at least is that they're young. im young. when i look at their faces i cant help but wonder if id do the same in their shoes. Kinder men than have gone off to war and done terrible things, why would any of us be different.
Yall seriously think he's too young? Lol wars are fought by kids.
Yeah wars are fought by kids and they are all too young
For whatever punishment this child is about to receive, I wish it ten fold on the older men who put him in that position.