Quote:
Originally Posted by Drake
See, that's the whole thing right there. If someone's wearing rank/unit/skill and stuff out on the street, then they deserve whatever's coming to them. That crosses a line.
But if it's on the field? Then whatever "real soldier" is going to witness this horribly disrespectful and profane act is also a player (or really going out of his way to stir up shit). Now no one's forcing anyone to play, so knowing what the sport is about and knowing some people will dress the part, if the "real soldier" really can't cope with that then he needs to go find a different hobby, or stick to playing with a private group.
And I still stick by my hockey jersey analogy. Should professional players get pissed cuz fans are wearing the team jersey? They probably didn't spend their childhood and adolescent years getting up at 5 am for hockey practice before school, or busting their ass off in the juniors to try and make the NHL. But players know the fans do it not to mock or disrespect them, but because they're fans and they love them.
IMO there are "military fans" here, who think the world of Marines or Spetsnaz or PPCLI, or just servicemen/women in general... and they spend their money and put in the effort to put together that kit for the same reasons.
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I'm not saying they shouldn't dress up the part or anything, but to slap on shit like rank or "specialty" items (like airborne berets and jump badges) is a different story, I'm with 32 Service Battalion, if someone came out to a game wearing our epaulete and even a cap badge, that's fine, the capbadge may be pushing it to some, but he/she is just trying to play the part of a group they admire for the afternoon, it's when they start throwing on ranks and shit that I have a problem with it. There's many people with blank epauletes in the Army, they're easy to get, wear one. When doing an impression of a modern standing military, I know many people find it offencive/annoying to see people wearing ranks and badges/symbols they haven't earned. when it comes to teams, it's different, ranks are neccesary to keep things running smoothly, but they still d0on't need to wear shit like airborne berets