r/america

We Are The Mighty profiles retired Sgt. Maj. Mike Vining through the smaller personal details behind a much larger military résumé: Vietnam EOD work, Delta Force, Operation Eagle Claw, and later life outside uniform. The article uses the “sardines he never ate” story to humanize someone usually presented as a meme or legend.

Vining served as an explosive ordnance disposal specialist in Vietnam, where he recalled multiple near-death moments, including being left behind at an abandoned Special Forces camp and helping destroy the massive “Rock Island East” enemy weapons cache in Cambodia.

The profile also connects Vining to Delta Force’s early history. A related We Are The Mighty piece says he joined Delta in 1978 as an EOD specialist under Col. Charlie Beckwith, making him one of the unit’s original members.

The article’s strategic value is not just biography. It shows how specialized technical skills, especially EOD, became central to elite special operations as missions grew more complex and politically sensitive.

Vining’s post-service life, including mountaineering, historical writing, veteran community work, and distance from his internet fame, adds a useful contrast to modern military celebrity culture. The profile suggests that some of the most consequential operators may be least interested in mythmaking.

Do stories like Vining’s help preserve serious military history, or do meme-driven portrayals risk flattening complex service into legend?

You have a president that was democratically elected that has repeatedly sworn that he will not respect the democratic election of anyone else but himself. Where do you find yourselves confused as to where the enemy of the state lies?

I am American and i have no clue…

I think the US military is a disgusting entity. I just feel like everything about it is is antithetical to life and the values our country was founded upon. When military recruiters come to schools and try to get kids, some as young as 14, to join their cause, it makes me want to throw up. In my mind, our military is like an instrument of death. It projects US hegemony over the entire world, keeping them too weak and disunited to ever stand a chance against us or the chokehold American corporations have over them. A million people died in Iraq because of our being there. We're funding a genocide in Gaza and gave equipment and training to Guatemalan troops that led a genocidal campaign against the Maya. And it was just a few months ago that we struck an Iranian school and killed nearly 120 schoolgirls. To me, those things are unforgivable, and the leaders of the US military should be tried in an international court and sentenced to life.

I also don't understand why Americans feel such a strong obligation to respect our military and our veterans. It's sad to say, but no, our veterans did not fight for our freedoms or the freedoms of any other people. They've robbed millions of their jobs, dignity, rights, and lives since WW2. I want veterans to receive benefits just like I want everyone in the US to, but I don't feel like they deserve anything special. It might sound cruel, but that's just really how I feel. And I feel like because I think that way I can never express it in public or people will just get extremely mad. Why don't we honor teachers, doctors, nurses, diplomats, humanitarians, or peacemakers? Those people represent my values infinitely more than a solider.

I hope some other people agree with me, but I'd like to see what you guys think. Is there ever a way we can have a productive conversation about the horrors of the US military-industrial complex? Or is it just always going to devolve into a shouting match.

Why do so many Americans accept living in what feels like a second-world country with a first-world ego?

No universal healthcare, weak worker protections, insane healthcare costs, huge inequality, crumbling infrastructure in many areas… yet people still act like it’s unquestionably the greatest country on Earth.

And on top of that, why does the political leadership constantly seem to fold under pressure internationally while selling patriotism domestically?

From an outsider perspective, I genuinely don’t understand the mindset. Is it nationalism, propaganda, lack of comparison with other developed countries, or something else?

Seriously

Debating on moving to america. Beautiful nation. But are the liberals as bad as they seem in their protests on a day to day basis? Scary terrorist like stuff ngl

Eh

• We Are The Mighty published a personal essay by Adam Gramegna, an Army infantry veteran, about military life as seen through his mother’s experience rather than his own.
• The piece argues that parents of service members, especially mothers, often carry a quieter version of military stress: fear, waiting, guilt, and helplessness without a uniform or official role.
• The essay uses moments from basic training, duty-station assignments, deployments, care packages, and brief phone calls to show how military moms experience service from the outside.
• Gramegna describes three deployments: Iraq in 2004–2005, Afghanistan in 2013, and Afghanistan again in 2015. The focus is less on combat itself and more on what it meant for a parent waiting at home.
• A major theme is that military moms build their own support systems, including online groups and communities such as BAMM, because the military-family conversation often centers more on spouses and children.
• The takeaway: military service affects more than the person wearing the uniform. Parents may not deploy, but they still live with the fear, uncertainty and emotional cost of war.

I feel that you should always put your country first unless you moved from that country. If you were born in American, speak the American style of English, have American culture. Why do people try to identify themselves and put that other country first. You would never hear me say im French Canadian American, I would say im an American. I get some of the ethnisity part. Like if asked my race I'd say i'm white, or i'm caucasian, or im cajun. So a person from African desent would say "im African" I get that. But like you should always put your country first. We are American, put your country first.

I’m not sure everybody realizes that there are more Americas than the U.S. version. Whenever I go to Canada, Central America and South America in particular I feel the need to clarify which America I’m from. As if saying “America” excludes the other Americas.

I think “north-central America” is more appropriate. Thoughts?

I've a doubt for Americans and British people. How they're so chill and they don't make any drama on pressure situation. I asked some people about it but they never said the way it should be. So thought i should ask here.

• How they don't react too fast?

• How they don't make any drama even sometimes their close someone died?

• How they always be chill and talk without any emotions?

• Don't they feel emotions?

• Did they learn it from their environment?

• How can others learn it?

To me, politics and masculinity are deeply connected. I feel like modern left-wing culture is always telling men — especially white straight men — to apologize, hold themselves back, and constantly feel ashamed of their identity. After a while, that can make some guys feel like they’re not even allowed to be traditionally masculine anymore, like showing strength, aggression, confidence, or dominance is somehow wrong. MAGA gives off the complete opposite vibe to me. It’s all about strength, confidence, competition, national pride, and being unapologetically masculine. Instead of treating masculinity like something toxic, it treats toughness and dominance as attractive and admirable traits again. For a lot of people, that energy just feels more raw, primal, and sexually appealing.

I think this even affects the way people fantasize about sex and power. In porn and pop culture, “strong men” are usually portrayed as dominant, aggressive, and sexually powerful, while weaker men are shown as passive, timid, or invisible. Because of that, a lot of people subconsciously associate hard-right men with power and conquest, while associating overly politically correct left-wing men with weakness and submissiveness. For example, in porn, we often see women cheating on their white husbands with black men, but we rarely see women cheating on their black husbands with white men. Because people tend to stereotype black men as being more sexually powerful. That’s why it’s easy for some people to imagine a MAGA-type guy aggressively dominating a woman who disagrees with him. But it’s harder for them to picture a soft, overly self-conscious left-wing guy giving off that same dominant energy. Deep down, a lot of people already connect toughness, masculinity, and even a sense of danger with right-wing masculine energy.

If a man constantly gives a woman everything she wants, she may start to see him as weak or incapable. But when a man doesn’t always cater to her demands, it can sometimes make her more attracted to him. Some people would say, “MAGA doesn’t even welcome you, so why would you support them?” But compared to gay people who support lslam, a gay person supporting MAGA really isn’t that strange.

I’ve noticed that some of the strongest criticism against new immigrants comes from immigrants who arrived earlier themselves. The only difference is that, with time, the “immigrant” became “citizen” and suddenly they don’t want others to do what they did themselves 😂