Why do American soldiers hand out candy?
The American Soldier (Marine, Sailor, AF) has always been a sucker when it comes to kids. Who can look at a kid living, or just barely surviving under the conditions of war and not feel a need to show the child a little bit of kindness.Many soldiers have children of their own, or young brothers and sisters. Perhaps, by association, they see their own children in the doleful eyes of a child, whose home is nothing but rubble, and who has nothing but rotting meat, or scraps of weed pulled from the ground to eat. Soldiers also shared food rations with children, even if candy stands out amongst the things American soldiers have done for children. No doubt, Brit soldiers also cared for children as well.Science studies aside, a soldier can also be a miserable existence. Sometimes giving a bit of comfort, or joy to another gives some sort of comfort to the giver. A soldier often sees children torn apart by the ravages, and these pictures burned into his memory leave nothing to compensate. So, during WWII, these individual acts of kindness were more a gesture of humanity given by a man who had seen much inhumanity. Certainly, on the larger scale, Army did truck relief and aid to villages having been liberated, or at least cleared of enemy.During the Vietnam conflict, there were PsyOps programs aimed at winning the hearts of children. Toys and other trinkets were distributed by some units. However, in spite of those movies which depicted American Soldiers as being mindless killers and rapists, the majority still had a desire to bring a bit of joy to a child, thus sharing rations, and giving candy, or chewing gum.During the Vietnam War, this practice was turned around by our enemy. Toys were boobie-trapped so that severe injury--if not death--would result to the child, for the purpose of psychologically teaching the child that the Americans wanted to kill them. On at least one occasion, a child was given a hand-grenade with the pin removed, and told to take it to a group of soldiers, and the soldiers would give him candy in exchange.Doing so, painted a mental picture of children being a threat to American soldiers.Even so, after receiving official warnings, the American Soldier continued to give kids candy, chewing gum and food, in Vietnam. But, acts of kindness by American Soldiers concerning Vietnam will never be a politically correct topic.
What are some differences between High school Musical and real high school?
umm there isnt like one beautiful "all about me" girl in the whole school...actually there are many of those..and she wouldnt be in drama club if there was only one.. same thing with the big basketball player.. actually the whole movie is pretty much way too cliche. things areny that much to the extreme in high school... oh. and if two people are girlfriend and boyfriend.. trust me.. they would not be afraid to kiss every once in a while.
What should I do if I think I'm an American Soldier who died in Vietnam reincarnated?
Before you start thinking about going "back" to vietnam, I would suggest you seek out someone who is familiar with past lives in that they have been able to get people in touch with them. This is not going to be an easy task, but I would suggest you start by contacting a few theraputic hypnotists to specialize in past life regression, as a hypnotist is probably going to be your best bet. Get some broader understanding of this urge/feeling/knowledge, and be armed with as much knowledge and insight as you can. Vietnam is still a dangerous place to be. I lost a brother, a boyfriend, and many other friends in Vietnam. I would just love it if someone like you were one of them, or knew of them, and I am sure many other people would also.
Why are some Europeans so obsessed with American politics and culture?
Hi, it's not true that we are more interested in the US politics than ours, but unluckily what America decides to do can't be ignored, especially when it is about foreign relationships, it's obvious that we have to keep ourselves informed about the last decisions of America since many times those decisions affect us too (e.g: the war in Iraq). The same goes for China: people can't ignore what's happening there, especially from an economic viewpoint and the same is for Russia... This is called world information, we live in a world which is globalised, some experts define it as the "global village", therefore we can't observe only what's happening at our home, we want to have a global view of the things that are occurring worldwide ... And everyone ought to do the same, because the fate of every nation depends on the global politics and economy... P.S: I've never read a US newspaper so far...
Why are some americans so uneducated!?!?
Alot of these answers are spot-on, the education system is largely to blame. I'm Australian and I used to work in a souvenir shop. Honestly, if I didn't know any better I would have assumed that all Americans are absolute idiots based on the American customers I used to serve. I've been asked if I ride kangaroos by an American. They were deadly serious and were genuinely interested to know what my kangaroo riding experiences were like. They couldn't quite get their head around the truth, as I tried to explain that kangaroos are not rideable nor would they be useful to humans besides for fur and meat. I watched a show where Americans on the street were asked to point out various places on a map. Most couldn't find Australia or Iraq and some even thought that Australia was Asia. I have an American pen pal and she's pretty honest about the fact that she's never left the state that she lives in. I think that's another playing factor...Alot of Americans wouldn't really venture out of their state or country and would be largely ignorant to the rest of the world. Another very lol example of stupidity is when this Australian TV/radio personality went over to film his show Race Relations. He had a make-up artist paint him 'black' and had a wig on and prosthetics, but he just did not look like a black man. Any Aussie would have known straight up that it was a white guy painted black, but he went and met with some militants in Chicago and they had absolutely no idea that he was a white guy. They went along with the whole thing and after the interview invited him to participate in a rap with them. They busted out all these quality lyrics and he messed it up so badly...he was rapping about trams and cordial and they still thought he was genuine. I know this doesn't answer your question, just wanted to share.
1 in 5 Americans can't find the U.S. on a map, is it true?
See quotes below about statistics. But first, In 2006, the National Geographic Society interviewed 510 young Americans -- people aged 18 to 24 -- about geography. Interviewers handed people a blank map of the world and asked them to identify various countries. "Nearly all (94 percent) young Americans can find the United States on the world map, and Canada (92 percent) and Mexico (88 percent) are nearly as familiar," the survey found. So most Americans, it turns out, can find America on the map. They can find Canada and Mexico and even the Gulf of Mexico. You have to ask what's done more damage to the nation's image: Upton's bad answer, or the pageant's flawed question, which has erroneously convinced millions across the globe that Americans don't know their own country? Granted, there are lots of things Americans don't know about the world. In the National Geographic survey, most respondents couldn't find the United Kingdom, Egypt, and Indonesia on a world map, and more than 60 percent couldn't find Iraq on a map of the Middle East. But, are these numbers so bad? Remember, people in the survey were trying to place countries on unlabeled maps. That is, they were the sort of maps nobody ever uses, maps that, indeed, run contrary to the very aim of cartography. A map is a reference object; we make maps precisely so that we don't have to memorize where things are, so that we can, instead, look up where things are. ***98% of all statistics are made up. ~Author Unknown ***There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up. ~Rex Stout, Death of a Doxy ***The average human has one breast and one testicle. ~Des McHale