Oh great. A smiley face on a soldier's rifle scope in Mosul, Iraq?

[Lex]

World Photos - AP

A happy face smiles back from the scope of a U.S. Army sniper's rifle, during a mission searching for insurgents in Mosul, Iraq (news - web sites), Monday, Nov. 22, 2004. U.S. and Iraqi forces in Mosul have been working put down an uprising launched by guerrillas who seized police stations and other sites. (AP Photo/Jim MacMillan)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1756&e=5&u=/041122/481/mac10311221914

--------------------------

All this is just disgusting. I feel terrible for all these dead soldiers and all the dead Iraqis.

This smiley face thing just makes me want to :cry:

[malmapus]

1. I dunno..

I don't see anything wrong with it. I would do anything to boost my morale when I was deployed. Had my favorite quote from Beavis and Butthead around my kevlar strap (that small one that goes over the camo with the eyes in the back), course it was "heh fire FIRE heh heh".

[Lex]

4. I'm all for the soldiers trying to keep their sanity.

Some are soooo young, too.

So many dead people, both our soldiers and the Iraqis too.

[burrowowl]

2. Given it is on the end

of his scope, I guess he is looking for smilies to shoot ....
Although since smilie is yellow, shouldn't he be in China?

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. What the happy face brigade would never show anywhere?

Look to you this is disgustiing, this is actually a trooper trying to deal wiht the stress of combat. I guess I can't explain it to you... and I sincerely hope you NEVER understand it either

But trust me, this trooper has a sense of humor.

[malmapus]

5. My thoughts as well - N/T

...

[GetTheRightVote]

6. I just want to cry too

For the soldier to lift himself up and why he is doing it to deal with the war, but it is all really just sicken in the end.

[Lex]

7. Good. I hope he is just trying to keep himself sane.

It's not a video game (!) but I suppose de-personalizing it all is the way to keep yourself from going mad.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Bingo! That said

the nightmares later in life will be something to behold... the price they pay.

That said, thanks for understanding... even if alien to you... and I sincerely hope it remains this way

[Piperay]

12. I agree nt

[mastershake]

9. What!? bah..

Disgusting? Please... these are trained killers. It's what they do... not to mention in that situation they are trying to keep up their morale..

i'm all for pointing out the wack stuff our soldiers or any other soldiers do in combat.. but this is not a big deal at all....

[Bigmack]

10. DARK humor...

... just trying to make it thru the day. Ain't a lot to laugh about, so you find something "normal" and make it a dark, sick joke.

Vietnam... "How can you shoot women and children?" "Easy... ya just don't lead 'em so far."

They don't mean it.... well, mostly they don't.

[BOHICA06]

11. He's looking for job at WalMart!!!

and they better give him whatever job he wants.

[one_true_leroy]

13. Given what everyone has said,

I don't think this is 'disgusting.' He's a young man, and all that he has is all that he can carry. If a little personalization can get a chuckle, if a little trinket can remind him of this place 5,000 miles away that he calls home (and which he may not have seen in time measured in months), I'd be the last person to begrudge him. Definitly gallows humor, but no more than I would expect (or even hope... humor, even gallows humor, is elemental to human nature, and , I believe, one of our true saving graces) from any American boy put over there and told to shoot.

[jmowreader]

14. Soldiers have always done things like this

Think back to "Full Metal Jacket," where Private Joker wrote "Born to Kill" on his helmet and wore a peace button on his body armor.

In the anti-Dubya book "The Phony Fighter Pilot," the author writes of flying soldiers to Vietnam and back home again; he noticed that when they went home, all of them were reading comic books.

Also remember the "nose art" on World War II bombers. And the hull art on tanks.

Sending American men, who have been brought up to think killing someone is a bad thing, out to kill people is highly unnatural. They have to do something insane to counteract the insanity they've been sent into.

If a smiley face sticker on his scope cover makes this guy a little less insane, I'd say let him keep it. (And with that, I also think the command is checking soldiers' scopes now to make sure there are no smiley faces on them.)