The Hulkster enters the battlefield armed only with his bare hands and his mighty pythons, brother. He grapples with his enemies like the mythical champion Beowulf fighting Grendel in the Viking tales of ancient times. No one will question your heroism or manliness when you do battle in spandex shorts and a headband.

hmmm I should have suspected this regarding my too-quickly diminishing supply of caramelized pecans- snipers!

What a dumb thread. Why would snipers be more or less heroic than any other soldier (a far more interesting thread would ask: are military members ipso facto heros? which seems to be the default assumption in the US)? because they stand far away? That's a majorly dumb argument.

A quartermaster is more heroic than a sniper.

Where was the outrage for Fury? Those dudes hide behind metal like pussies and destroy so many peoples homes!

I have looked for, and failed to find, some quote from a Civil War solider about how the rank and file infantry hated sharpshooter units and were always glad to see them killed, whether Union or Confederate.

They were dumb then.

Civil war references totally still valid for the modern day battle field.

The more I think about it, the more seems just counterproductive for liberals to make the conversation about heroism/cowardice of being a sniper. It just plays into the bull**** romanticized vision of war as some exercise in manliness and heroism. Would this guy really feel any better if his grandfather had been killed bare-handed by the Germans instead of sniped?

Warfare is a way of achieving political goals through having young men kill lots of other young men. There's certainly a lot of bravery involved, but that's not the point, and usually liberals complain about how war movies trump up the John Wayne manly heroism aspect of it.

Than what movie? OP didn't mention a movie. If we're talking American Sniper I've seen it and Enemy at the Gates. Enjoyed them both.

In American Sniper, Kyle has a lot more assignments than being a sniper. To be honest, I don't understand the criticism of this movie from some on the left like Michael Moore, Howard Dean, etc. Personally I think the movie raises some very valid questions about the wisdom of the USA being involved there. I could certainly use what is portrayed in that movie as reasons not to be there IE it was a stupid neocon idea. Isn't that more or less the leftist view? Why not embrace the movie's content and make the argument based on that?

Sometimes

Simo Häyhä

^^^ Now there's a sniper worthy of Hollywood. A man, his iron sights, and the snow.

I was talking about Sniper 3 starring Tom Berenger.

Hernandez in my latest Xcom campaign was a hero for sure. Nobody could handle a plasma sniper quite like him.

Because that's not the "leftist view." The "leftist view" is that it was a fraudulent neocon idea. No one said they were stupid. Passing Iraq off as just a blunder lets the right wing in this country off the hook, to a certain extent. Acknowledging that it was an elaborate lie (buttressed by a bloodbath of turnover for dissenters at Langley) changes the discussion entirely.

No - they are indoctrinated nationalists who are supporting the interests of the elite.

Unless they're working for the underworld, shooting other villains from afar, which makes them pretty cool.

How far over to the right is the demarcation between left and right in 'your country'?

Im not sure but I dont think they had Facebook or Twitter back then.

I'm in this camp too. Anyone willing to put themselves in harm's way for someone they've never met is heroic, IMO. Mechanic, medic, sniper, whoever. I'm grateful they're willing to do it.

Cause for being there kinda matters tho.

And I doubt many of them do it to help strangers, and more for the sanctioned killing of some vaguely scary foreign ideologues. The psychopath at the "heart" of this thread being case in point.

Soldiers don't really get to choose which battles the participate in.

how many sand people does an american sniper need to shoot to be classified as a hero?

If you were in a war and a sniper saved your life you would consider him a hero. It all depends on who you ask

Interesting review by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone about how American Sniper is "Almost too Dumb to Criticize."

So a half a million Iraqis died from the invasion, possibly more but the military doesn't do body counts. Now we are going to watch films about how hard it was for the one American who killed the most, who himself lived, and then got someone else killed along with himself by trying to solve problems stemming from violence with more violence?