Silver Star

You probably don't want to be on the same server for Battlefield 2 with this guy.

From the Los Angeles Times:

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By Tony Perry, Times Staff Writer

<div class="body">

CAMP PENDLETON ? Boyish-looking and Midwestern to the core, John Ethan
Place loves football games in the fall and traipsing through the woods
hunting quail and deer with his dad, a retired school administrator.

Back home in Lake St. Louis, Mo., he's a regular at the nearby Baptist church.

He's also an expert at one of the most difficult
aspects of warfare. He's a sniper, able to kill an enemy at 1,000 yards
or more with a single shot.

On Friday, the 22-year-old sergeant received the Silver Star, the military's third-highest honor for bravery in combat.

In the battle for Fallouja, Iraq, in April 2004, Place had 32 confirmed
kills, from April 11 to April 24, of insurgents who were trying to
sneak into position to attack Marines from Echo Company of the 2nd
Battalion, 1st Regiment.

Many of the kills came after he
maneuvered amid the rubble of the Sunni Triangle city and then waited
for hours in a concealed position for just the right moment to pull the
trigger. It's likely none of the 32 knew Place had them in his rifle
sights.

Maj. Gen. Richard F. Natonski, commander of the 1st
Marine Division, said Place has earned a spot among the Marine Corps'
top heroes, including the legendary sniper from Vietnam, Gunnery Sgt.
Carlos Hathc**k.

To the public, the sniper may be seen as a
killer who strikes from ambush. But the troops of Echo Company are
certain there are Marines who made it home alive solely because of
Place.

"He didn't kill 32 people. He saved numerous lives by
protecting our perimeter," said Sgt. Maj. William Skiles. "That's how
the Marines look at it."

Natonski said the insurgents were so
afraid of Place and other snipers that they pleaded with the U.S. to
withdraw them while negotiations were underway. "It's hard to believe
that one individual could have had such an impact on our combat
operations," Natonski said.

The citation accompanying the
Silver Star does not mention the figure 32, and the sniper mission is
described in military-ese: "Place's keen observation skills ensured his
supported rifle company maintained a lethal, long-range response to
enemy attacks."

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Saville, the battalion
chaplain, told Marines and civilians gathered for the award ceremony
that although all life is precious "evil must be restrained sometimes
by force."

The sniper school here, where Place was an honor
student, has a motto taken from the Chinese: "Kill one man, terrorize a
thousand." That's the role of the sniper: Keep the enemy off-balance,
deny him the opportunity to rest and regroup, destroy his morale and
will to continue fighting.

Looking slightly overwhelmed at the
praise from Natonski and others, Place sought to deflect the
compliments to his instructors at sniper school. "I just had the right
training," he said.

At sniper school, Marines are put through a
10-week course in marksmanship, concealment and detection. The
attrition rate is high.

Snipers and their spotters work as
teams separated from the rest of the battalion. There is no time to ask
for orders from higher authority before taking a shot.

"They're
independent operators," Skiles said. "If they don't have the maturity,
it's suicide for them. That's why the course has to be so severe: so
that they can survive in combat."

During the assault on Baghdad in 2003, Place served as a radio operator.

Afterward he decided to attend sniper school. His mother, Lynn Place,
an elementary school principal, said the Sunday school at the Baptist
church in Wentzville, Mo., prayed for him to make the right decision.

During the Fallouja battle, she and her husband, Richard, heard only
sporadically from their son. Even when he contacted the family, he
offered few details.

"It's difficult," she said. "You send off your little boy and he comes back a man who has protected everyone."

Place is now a marksmanship instructor assigned to get Marines ready for sniper school.

Unlike other combat forces, snipers see their targets clearly through
high-powered scopes and can study them before, during and after firing
the fatal shot.

Place mentioned the names of Marines killed in Fallouja and said they were the true heroes.

And he said he would never forget the faces of the enemy he killed to protect his fellow Marines.

"You can make your peace with it," Place said.

"But you think about it every day."

</div>

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

wow... this guy is awsome. I've always had respect for the people in the military, and this guys attitude shows why.

Until Later...

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Dark_Kilauea
DVS Administration
http://www.dvstudio-production.com/

Thats great for him. i didn't know about this until now.

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http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/8521/windows981dk.jpg

Nickelplate is my dad

I stopped reading half-way through. It started to become about
how awesome Americans were. "sometimes force must be used against
evil" "kill one:terrorize a thousand" yadda yadda yadda shut up.

French Toast said:
It started to become about how awesome Americans were.

In some cases, disliking something can cause you to be blinded to the bigger picture.

Has it ever occurred to you guys in Canada that perhaps the reason you dislike America so much is because all, or most of our losers migrate up there?

Think about that a while.

If it makes you feel any better, we get just as tired of ninnies crying about America this, and America that. :rolleyes:

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Comes across a bit off to me. This guy was sniping and killing people before they attacked. Surely that technically is murder and not self-defence/preservation.

Go America! And praise the lord while you're at it... :wink:

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You Got To Get Through What You've Got To Go Through To Get What You Want But You Got To Know What You Want To Get Through What You Got To Go Through

Adam Hawkins said:
Comes across a bit off to me. This guy was sniping and killing people before they attacked. Surely that technically is murder and not self-defence/preservation.

Adam, I take it you've never served in the military or been trained in such have you?

I didn't read anything of the sort when I read that.
shrugs

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The best things in life, aren't things.

[size=13]

Has it ever occurred to you guys in Canada that perhaps the reason you
dislike America so much is because all, or most of our losers migrate
up there?

It's like I always say, the only people worse than the Americans and
the French are the Canadians. They're a combination of the two :biggrin: .

Disclaimer: This is of course
a joke based on racial/cultural stereotypes that are not necessarily
true. I have both American and Canadian friends, no French ones though
(cheese eating surrender monkey's :heee: ), and do not believe this to be
the case, nor do I support these stereotypes[/size]

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Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

Which reminds me, how come certain people from the states dislike the french? I know many french people and they're very nice. Or is this something like a "latin fraternity" thing (like some morons like to flatter themselves)?

when america won WWII, the french weren't grateful enough. and then when they invaded iraq, the french were against it.

there was also a point in time that the french were considered dips**ts because they couldn't end a war against the vietnamese, so america stepped in to do it right. that one seems to have waned a bit though.

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i eat paint

The thing that bugs me is how fragmented that whole story is. I
appreciate the need to break up big chunks of text into shorter
paragraphs, but that is just insane. Not every sentence needs a
paragraph of its own.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

As for the story, it is my humble opinion that snipers are the
battlefield's cowards. I will always have respect for a regular
grunt, for airforce pilots, naval officers and even for riot-troops,
but I will NEVER respect a sniper.

Do you know what snipers like to do? Here's a little story; it happened
in Yugoslavia -- The sniper sits back and shoots a guy in the legs.
The guy falls down in pain as blood sprays out of his wound and beggs
for the help of his comrades while rolling on the ground screaming. And
as his comrades run to his aid, they are shot one by one by the
sniper. The survivors retreat and the sniper stalks them,
ocasionally firing at the wounded screaming soldier's legs to make him
scream louder as to freak the others out .

Jesus Andrei, what is with your generalisations today?! Sure, that
sniper was an asshole, but more often than not a sniper is the person
on the battlefield most likely to cause clean, quick and painless
deaths. Don't condemn everybody in one job just due to one or two
people who misuse their postion.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

You can't really take sides when it comes to war. The whole idea is ludicrous, so when you try to justify things with the usual standard of logic and morality, things tend to fall apart.

The objective of a battle is to kill enemy combatants when they pose a direct threat to your comrades. It doesn't matter how you do it, as long as the job gets done.

Don't try to make sense of war, because there is no sense when it comes to this topic.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Jesus Andrei, what is with your generalisations today?! Sure, that
sniper was an asshole, but more often than not a sniper is the person
on the battlefield most likely to cause clean, quick and painless
deaths. Don't condemn everybody in one job just due to one or two
people who misuse their postion.

Then the fact that I grew up next door to that tortured soldier probably means nothing. :sad:

And he didn't exactly "misuese" his position; afterall, he did just
what he was supposed to do. AND it wasn't just this sniper, this
"tactic" seems to be a favorite tactic no matter under which flag you
fight. Disgusting.

Wait, you live next to a terrorist?

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http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/8521/windows981dk.jpg

Nickelplate is my dad

Why do you assume that guy was a terrorist?

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RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

Well the fact you grew up next door to him means its obviously become a
very personal issue, and thats more likely to give you a biased
viewpoint. Then again, being around the area of conflict also means you
are far more likely to hear of the stories like this than people like
myself - so while I might hear of one case of something like this, you
are likely to hear if it is becoming commonplace.

I'm sorry if I hit a sore point there, and I sincerely apologise if I
did. I guess I just don't like to hear of people hating a group of
people for something that only a minority of them are going to be
guilty of.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Andrei it sounds like the sniper was some kind of crazy asshole but I
can see how sometimes that tactic is used. The military does believe
that wounding people is more affective. If you wound someone then their
comrades must waste time and effort that could be used towards fighting
to help the injured commrade. Injured soldiers are a risk for the
group. But like Satchmo said you can't justify sides in a war. However
I don't think snipers are pussies. You could say the same about fighter
pilots or engineers. None of them are pussies. The real wuss is the guy
who moves off to Canada to avoid a draft.

The real wuss is those who start a war. They should burn.

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RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

War never solves any problem, as some leaders like to claim. It only generates more problem (and hatred).

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

I'm sorry if I hit a sore point there, and I sincerely apologise if I
did.

Ah, don't worry about it :smile: .

And I guess I was a little harsh but I was so outraged to hear that such a method is commonly being used in modern times...

As for the fighter-pilots, they're more easily detectable than snipers are and thus in more danger.

[rant]

Aint no fun, in the old days you wouldnt fire a rocket to a bogey from
2 kilometres, then you wou only fire under a little deflaction,
offcourse firing over 200m would be a waste of shots nowadays you got
sam site that can fire hughe distances etc. And they even gave it a
name! Modern Warfare!

[/rant]

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RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

fighter-pilots, they're more easily detectable

Unless they're flying a stealth bomber.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

when america won WWII, the french weren't grateful enough. and then when they invaded iraq, the french were against it.

Because Americans were the only people fighting in WWII, and of course
we should all be praising this war on iraq because it's just so damn
awesome.

<div class="quote"><div class="quotetitle">

</div><div class="quotetext">

when america won WWII, the french weren't grateful enough. and then when they invaded iraq, the french were against it.

</div></div>

What I don't understand is what "grateful enough" is supposed to mean.
What did the US expect them to do considering the fact that France
didn't exactly come out of the war very rich. :/

cant believe the uninformed, unmitigated bulls**t im reading....

/////me salutes sniper Place....hooyah!

/////walks away shaking head...

Doc B

Adam Hawkins said:
Comes across a bit off to me. This guy was sniping and killing people before they attacked. Surely that technically is murder and not self-defence/preservation.

Uh... it's a war?

Technically the Russians won WW2, eliminating about 2/3 of the German
army on the Eastern front, weakening them beyond the point of return.
The Americans primarily faced conscripts on the Western front. Of
course that didn't make it any easier, but they also had the help of
the British, French, Canadians, Australians, and probably others. It
wasn't a solely US victory in WW2.

I generally have tremendous respect for soldiers who fight wars,
particularly if they are on the "good" side. It takes a tremendous
amount of guts and sacrifice to put your life on the line for others,
and I salute them.

The problem is that nowadays war tends to be shown in glorious detail,
and more liberal citizens don't feel that war is appropriate anymore. I
feel extremely sorry for Vietnam veterans, who were young men, often
conscripted, and returned with many emotional and psychological
problems to country's that no longer supported war, and therefore
turned their backs on them.

WW2 was really the last clean war, in the sense that the enemy was
obviously evil, and that war was the only just and true option.

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Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

I'm probably wrong, but I heard the Rules of Engagement are "Don't fire unless fired upon"

Just some random stuff there for ya.

Don't fire unless fired upon

Yeah, and if the enemy is a good shot, you'll never get a chance to return fire. That doesn't make any sense.

If I were a soldier, I wouldn't wait to be shot at first.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

yes frenchie, yer wrong. the commanders are supposed to be schooled in the relative ethics of war, and are therefore qualified (knock on wood) to set the rules of engagement for a particular scenario. it is war after all, it aint pretty, but it IS sometimes necessary. and we always assume we are the good guys. always.

you couldnt do what YOU do, if they didnt do what they do.

......btw, zeppelin rocks...still.... :wink:

peace.

ps....sorry so vague, but im trying like hell not to get into this debate ...its old, and its useless.

Doc Brasso...

You probably don't want to be on the same server for Battlefield 2 with this guy.

Pfft...i alreadly got 2 silver stars in BF2.

Seriously though, that guy is amazing.

Knock knock...
Whos there?
The U.S.
The U.S. who?
The U.S. kicks ass

Knock knock...
Whos there?
War
War who?
War is f**king pointless, and yet, seemingly inevitable

satchmo said:
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quote:</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Don't fire unless fired upon

Yeah, and if the enemy is a good shot, you'll never get a chance to return fire. That doesn't make any sense.

If I were a soldier, I wouldn't wait to be shot at first.</div></div>
So you would quite happily shoot someone just cos they look a bit dodgy and might want to kill you?

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You Got To Get Through What You've Got To Go Through To Get What You Want But You Got To Know What You Want To Get Through What You Got To Go Through

<div class="quote"><div class="quotetitle">? quote:</div><div class="quotetext"><div class="quote"><div class="quotetitle">

</div><div class="quotetext">

<div class="quote">

</div></div></div>
So you would quite happily shoot someone just cos they look a bit dodgy and might want to kill you?

</div></div>

This is just what I was thinking of. And normal grunts can take POWs, but a sniper can't so, rather than
letting them go and allowing them to regroup, shooting them is considered a better option. And sometimes mistakes are made.

I hardly see how a sniper is a coward. Youre sitting there in a pile of rubble, the slightest move could give away your position. If you fire, it could give away your position. If they find out your position, they could come up behind you and kill you, or knock you unconscious and torture you. Wounding enemy soldiers to distract the rest could, and probably would in that situation, save your life.

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

Wow! Another one of those "US vs World" threads... This subject is inexhaustible. :smile:

Which reminds me; I hear the US are ready to restart plutonium
production claiming it will be used for "classified projects". Ok, so
Iran isn't allowed to have nuclear powerplants, neither is Korea and
yet, Bush affords to say that his country will produce plutionium for
"classified projects". Life is weird.

And according to his own policy on nuclear projects,
he should declare war on himself. :smile:

he should declare war on himself

Judging from how stupid he is, he probably had in the past. His security councils possibly stopped the order from getting too far and being carried out.

He probably still needs Condee to wipe his ass after he craps.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Crap, this conversation is going nowhere...

War is war, it happens and all you can do is deal with it.
Perhapes you might be able to avoid it, but face it, humans are stupid,
and as long as we live, there will always be fights, battles, death,
decay, hope, love, peace, and war. Just deal, and get on with
your lives.

Until Later...

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Dark_Kilauea
DVS Administration
http://www.dvstudio-production.com/