Comments by "afcgeo" (@afcgeo882) on "General Eric Shinseki : He who shall not be named" video.

@aussiviking604 No. No beef with the Rangers. He actually wore a tab himself. It’s quite the opposite. He admired the Rangers esprit de corps, professionalism and image. He wanted the entire army to have those things and the army lacked self-respect at that point. He wanted them to feel like they’re all elite, and try to act that way (yeah, a huge ask for a force of about 1 million). The Rangers didn’t have that long of a history. They were formed after the Vietnam War, out of LRRPs and they chose a black beret, which was a basic color not in use. When Shinseki switched the whole army to black, Rangers went to tan in honor of Roger’s Rangers’ buckskins worn during the French and Indian war (in reality the 100 years’ war between the British and French in the Americas).
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@x--. Had you met the Colonial soldiers of the first Colonial and US armies you’d have seen a very different attitude to flags. Blind loyalty to a flag is down right stupid. By the way, do you know that the US flag keeps changing?
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The Rangers are a complex machine with an even more complex history. They haven’t been around all that long either. Then the Ranger school convolutes it all even more. And the Tier 1 Ranger recon team flips it all again. Rangers are just a specialized, rapid deployment QRF for anything that demands intensity, but not special operations, but came out of Long Range Recon Patrol.
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@x--. So without the flag you wouldn’t know that people died in wars to defend our country? Seriously? I only did one tour in AFG (9 months) and not once did I think about the flag.
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@cm-pr2ys Why would they? They have very different missions and structures than the Ranger regiment and a completely different history too.
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Whether you want to believe it or not, the beret actually did have a major positive effect on the Army in the 2000s though. Once the controversy died down, people enjoyed looking sharp and having a positive image, especially since the Iraq and Afghanistan wars had just started and we were kicking their asses. The beret is still in use.
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@MarcosElMalo2 The Rangers weren’t dismayed. They just changed the beret.
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@imjustanotherguy2007 I didn’t say a thing about where flags are manufactured.
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@wavavoom Except the Rangers only existed for about 25 years at that point and berets weren’t a US tradition. They were stolen from European units during WW2 when GIs really liked them. There are actual IS Army traditions in uniforms out there. The beret wasn’t one of them. It was a symbol, but not a tradition.
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@marcbuisson2463 Simple… Americans saw the beret worn during WW2 by British and French forces and they were decorative, distinctive and comfortable.
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@dustinsemrok1162 The Maroon beret is an international symbol of parachute forces. It came from France and then the UK. The US Air Force pararescue jumpers wear the maroon beret.
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@thebigmon They are decorative, but certainly not distinctive. They’re actually very comfortable compared to the dress cap.
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@jefclark Not really. There were Rangers in the 1700s and Rangers during WW2, but they weren’t the same type of units as modern Rangers. There’s no continuous history there.
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@x--. No, not at all. The point of a flag is to identify, not remind. It’s literally a symbol of a group they present to another group for identification. We show others our flag/ensign so they know who we are. America stuffs its flag into its own people’s brains for brainwashing. Do you know that our “tradition” of flying flags EVERYWHERE started during McCarthyism? Do you know where we got the inspiration? Literally Nazi Germany. They flew the Third Reich flag everywhere to psychologically motivate their citizens. In 1949 Congress established Flag Day as an official holiday. At the start of the Cold War in the early 1950s the pledge of allegiance was added to the US Code (1954), introduced into schools as a mandate and “under god” was added. In the early 50’s flags were given out to new home owners for free, to have them hoisted and flown, and Veterans organizations were tasked with their proper disposals. Your flag pride is literally the product of the Cold War patriotism/anti-communism machine, not a historical reminder.
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@danielward5602 No, idiot, 1775 is where they’ll start. You could use some history lessons already!
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@wargey3431 No, that was Army Special Operations - the Green Berets. The modern Army Ranger battalion was formed in 1973 by the order of Gen Abrams. The second battalion was stood up in 1974 and the third in 1984 (with regimental HQ). The 75th Ranger Regiment was formed in 1986.
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@thebigmon Everyone’s entitled to an opinion. I’m providing facts.
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@wargey3431 Exactly. The units were only formed for the war and disbanded at the end. Their roles were also different in different wars. The earliest “Rangers” date back to the Colonial Army, but it’s not really at all what Rangers are today and there is no continuous history prior to 1971.
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