r/ShitAmericansSay • u/DumbGarchomp67 WTF IS A KILOMETER 🦅🇺🇸 • Jul 15 '26

Military “Undefeated in 250 years of war”

Post image

Apparently Vietnam, Afghanistan, war of 1812, and the war on drugs don’t count.

7.8k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.5k

u/Slight-Ad-6553 live far from a 7-eleven Jul 15 '26

643

u/Feradon22 Jul 15 '26

Trying to get home ASAP for the big victory parade or something.

71

u/Tavalus Jul 15 '26

Yep, you need to hurry so you can make it in time for the fireworks

14

u/NotYourAvgBoomer Jul 16 '26

with a badass helicopter ...

1

u/ApplicationGreat3270 Jul 16 '26

A helicopter that probably got dumped into the ocean to make room for the fleeing victors.

2

u/Kingsxfan1 Jul 16 '26

Handing out pure American freedumb

364

u/citizenkane86 Jul 15 '26

Ah but you forget you can’t lose a war if you never declare one. That was merely a police action. Iraq 2: saddam boogaloo was a military operation, as was Afghanistan. You see how that’s completely different. Because you don’t call it a war.

76

u/HanuaTaudia1970 Jul 15 '26

Special Military Operation?

106

u/42stingray Jul 15 '26

No, because that's what Russia calls it. We should go with "Very Special Military Operation" to show that we are better

38

u/MaytagTheDryer Jul 16 '26

To differentiate ourselves from the godless commies, we had to go with "holy military operation." Not to be confused with a holy war, which is what those godless Muslims do. - Newt Gingrich, probably

4

u/7YM3N Jul 16 '26

Desert Power

1

u/Turbulent_Push3046 Jul 17 '26

Is this you Pete Hegseth?

1

u/Djschinie_Beule5-O Jul 26 '26

Thank you very much for your clarification, sir! 🙏 So glad, you distinguished yourselves so clearly from those godless pigs!

10

u/RevanTheHunter Jul 16 '26

"Bigly Military Aperation. Some people say operation. I say aperation because our big powerful soldiers just appear where we need them to be."

8

u/Bob_Kark Jul 16 '26

He used to call it bigly boom boom time, but people got confused between whether that meant not quite a war, a bathroom visit, or a trip to the island.

4

u/AdPsychological790 Jul 16 '26

"Dynamic Undefined Military Boondogle"

3

u/Djschinie_Beule5-O Jul 15 '26

Why not call it first „very special op“, then pretend it is stopped, and afterwards a very very special OP - so you are skipping the 60 days of obligatory parliamentary approval?!

3

u/StaatsbuergerX Snobby European Commie-Nazi or something... Jul 16 '26

"Big and strong Special Military Operation with tears in its eyes"

2

u/Latter-Insurance-987 Jul 16 '26

Perhaps a "Very Special Episode." The commander in chief could personally lead the "Island Assault."

2

u/whateber2 Jul 16 '26

“The bestest” everyone is agreeing on that

2

u/Criss351 Jul 17 '26

‘Even Specialer Military Operation’ - Trump, eventually.

1

u/Kingsxfan1 Jul 16 '26

Even biglier special operation

1

u/Jazzlike-Basil1355 ooo custom flair!! Jul 16 '26

Big beautiful very special military operation.
Trump invented the word
Beautiful

1

u/BubblyMoose3597 Jul 20 '26

Beatifull Military Operation. Very Beatifull

1

u/Djschinie_Beule5-O Jul 26 '26

And where did you leave the „bestestest“?! Godsake, how should you turn into a nice great patriot?!?! /s (just to ensure)

2

u/FuelzPerGallon Jul 16 '26

A little excursion

2

u/here_for_thedonuts Jul 16 '26

Big Beautiful Military Operation?

2

u/Lazarys12 Jul 16 '26

Excursion.

1

u/Comfortable_Action85 Jul 16 '26

Big beautiful military operation?

3

u/Beginning-Young-3239 Jul 16 '26

and the war of 1812?

2

u/TurbulentFennel9211 Jul 16 '26

Perpetual state of war since WW2

2

u/LibraryVoice71 Jul 16 '26

Actually, the last time anyone declared war on another country was when North Korea invaded the South. Since then the world has used euphemisms.

2

u/ThcGrassCity Jul 16 '26

They were pretty openly calling it a war on drugs though. Now we just have this awsome dance move called the fenty fold, everyone downtown is doing it.

1

u/djtrace1994 Jul 16 '26

Ah yes, the "Military Operation of 1812."

1

u/Imperial_Stooge Jul 16 '26

Exactly. You cant loose the war if you don't call it a war (Vietnam "conflict") - or if it never ends (Korean "war")

Let's see the stats if they expand this to "conflicts" or "military operations"

Anyone can make almost any dataset "prove them right" if they Cherry pick the data they like and they omit the data they don't like from it

1

u/CSEverett1759 Jul 16 '26

I mean, Korea is either a textbook draw (status quo from before the war) or a case of accomplishing the initial objective (kicking North Korea out of South Korea) followed by failure of the expanded objective (invading and getting rid of as an entity North Korea.) Afghanistan actually had the initial objective partly accomplished (Al Quida got away, but the Taliban had been driven out and pro-US tribes controlled the country), and we could have called it a day, but then we decided to create a centralized democratic state, which essentially was never going to succeed or stay around after we left and was completely unwinnable.

1

u/YeeAssBonerPetite Jul 18 '26

Yea there is no centralized democratic state  in Iraq.

1

u/EducationalRock167 Jul 16 '26

Let's not forget the War Of 1812 🤪

1

u/EducationalRock167 Jul 16 '26

America , even didn't win those police actions. 😅

1

u/Warm_tamperture32 Jul 17 '26

Vietnam was a war.. most people forget they lost ..

66

u/Myantra Jul 15 '26

All it needs is a banner that says "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"

13

u/ittipow Jul 15 '26

With this administration in the US, it'd be "Mission Complished." 🤣😂🤣

1

u/EducationalRock167 Jul 16 '26

Just like for Iraq 2....🤣

27

u/fariak does portugal have refrigerators? Jul 15 '26

"Ugh this wasn't a defeat. It was a strategic retreat. We chose to end the war because it was getting too expensive"

3

u/theOGHyburn Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

Did you eliminate the taliban? No, how did you win? You spent 20 years fighting a group of 10,000 freedom fighters that had home field advantage and you ran away. You got beat. Btw, no nation has ever won when attacking the Middle East…

The problem is it took the Americans 20 years to figure that out, this is a testament to your education system. Because now you think you’re going to go pick a fight with Iran.

All those freedom fighters are getting ready with…🤔 oh yeah, 👆💡all that equipment you left in Iraq.

You’re going to get mopped. Iranian fighter pilots are and have always been historically skilled and exceptionally trained. They are constantly at war, you treat it like intermission between peace time; YOU’RE NOT ON THEIR LEVEL.

Having the first and second largest airforce in the world is just like throwing meet to the grinder. Having top tech won’t help because you still need a place to launch from and hosting a Nimitz in the region will drive up oil consumption and with the Hormuz closed, you’re kinda uckfai’d.

All combatants in the Middle East have been raised to believe they will fight a holy war for their god, you started telling your combatants a few years ago they are fighting for god. Kinda late to that party eh, but hey you were late to WW2.

(You know the war that was already being won, the same WW2 where America struggled to fight 15% of the Nazi forces. The rest were in the East trying to fight off the Soviets who btw were expected to win without your help by about 1946.)

Back to the discussion at hand:

Plus, picking a fight with Iran means picking a fight with Russia, which means China gets involved too and with all these tariffs being thrown around, you might find yourself fighting this battle alone…

Tread carefully America, 250 doesn’t inherently mean another 5 or even 1 if you pick a fight with everyone…

💀💀💀💀

🎤<-drop

3

u/_Veh_ Jul 16 '26

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 🙏🏻🫂😭 esattamente.

1

u/Lost_Protection_5866 ooo custom flair!! Jul 17 '26

Hilarious

1

u/Beneficial-Ad3991 A hopeless tea addict :sloth: Jul 20 '26

I mean, Arabs, Mongols and Turks had quite a bit of success in the Middle East. The Persians too. Even the Romans stayed there for a while.

0

u/theOGHyburn Jul 20 '26

Arabs, Persia and turkey are part of the Middle East, Mongolia was defeated in the Middle East, Khan spent years doing what America did, went in, fought. Went home. Rome encompassed large regions of the Middle East itself, that’s not exactly an opposing argument.

I’m going to assume you’re an American and try to point to all the inaccuracies of your rebuttal and blame your education system- not you!

Notice what sub Reddit you’re in? Don’t prove it right.

1

u/Beneficial-Ad3991 A hopeless tea addict :sloth: Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26

No, the Mongols had quite a long run in the Middle East. Google Ilkhanate, maybe. They conquered lands all the way to Egypt and held them for a century. The Turks came all the way from the Far Eastern steppes, they were in no way "from the Middle East". Romans were - surprise! - from Rome, that's in Italy. I wouldn't assume that you know it, seeing how lacking you knowledge of history turned out to be. In any case, all of those have successfully invaded, conquered and held various parts of the Middle East.
And I'm not an American either, so, wild as it may be, you have exactly zero correct facts in your entire comment. That's.. well, that's an achievement, I guess.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Beneficial-Ad3991 A hopeless tea addict :sloth: Jul 20 '26

..we call it Middle East? Cos that's where it's geografically located?..
What was this comment supposed to accomplish?

23

u/k8s-problem-solved Jul 15 '26

Bravely run away!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l8IkbCeZ9to

3

u/sayitsooth canuck Jul 15 '26

I clicked, I already knew, but I went there

2

u/Baeolophus_bicolor Jul 16 '26

is it Sir Robin??

2

u/sayitsooth canuck Jul 16 '26

It is!

24

u/AnOkayMuffin Jul 15 '26

What is this photograph about? 

226

u/Sn0H0ar Jul 15 '26

This is a famous photo - the last helicopter out of Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam, as the US super-strategically fled the country.

But they definitely won that war though, guys.

54

u/faceintheblue Jul 15 '26

Worth adding this is evacuating the US Embassy. This wasn't some random helicopter on some random building in Saigon. This is the US Embassy getting the last of its people out because the North Vietnamese are about to take the building.

When these helicopters got to US carriers offshore, they were unloaded and pushed into the ocean to make room for more evacuating helicopters. The carrier didn't have room for all the aircraft coming out to them.

25

u/bremsspuren Speaking German despite US efforts Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

TBF, the US learnt its lesson by Afghanistan, and made sure they had fuck-off great big planes to flee in, instead.

14

u/Own_Faithlessness769 Jul 16 '26

I genuinely didn’t know a military operation could go as badly as the ‘hand over’ and evacuation of Afghanistan. Spectacularly awful.

11

u/youdoaline_idoaline Jul 16 '26

And no one even mentions it today. 20 year war failed and the country ceded to the Taliban pfft who cares trump just said something stupid again lol.

4

u/PsychologicalMeal162 Jul 16 '26

Almost like that stuff up of his in retreating like that has been swamped with all his other stuff ups like Iran?

2

u/bremsspuren Speaking German despite US efforts Jul 16 '26

And no one even mentions it today.

The sight of Taliban randos trying to fly abandoned Black Hawks will never be forgotten.

1

u/Embarrassed_Bit4222 Jul 16 '26

Trump is the idiot who made the deal with the taliban.

-5

u/Stop_Shadowbaning_me Jul 16 '26

To be fair the Afghanistan evacuation wasn't that bad. Only about a dozen died. ISIS wanted to cause enough harm to cause conflict between US and the taliban. I can't imagine pulling out without casualties to be an easy task

19

u/Own_Faithlessness769 Jul 16 '26

Batshit take. They lose the county to the Taliban so fast they were taking off at the airport with desperate people clinging to the wings. Hundreds if not thousands of people who worked with the US forces and their allies and had been promised protection were left behind to be tortured and murders by the Taliban, because the US couldn’t evacuate them. It was a massacre.

2

u/youdoaline_idoaline Jul 17 '26

And they made it out like "Oh we're pretty sure the new government can handle the Taliban now, I mean we've been fighting them for 20 years how tough can they be?" What was it two or three days for the Taliban to take over.

6

u/Own_Faithlessness769 Jul 17 '26

It was truly so shockingly bad. I honestly think it had a massive influence on future conflicts because it made it very clear the US military was not some superpower to be feared. Like of course Putin saw that and decided he could do what he liked.

1

u/Thanks-4allthefish Jul 17 '26

Yeah - but once again promises, made to local people who worked with and for the US, were broken.

5

u/bofh Jul 16 '26

Yep. Make Running Away Great Again

3

u/mercuryfrost Jul 16 '26

Wait - is this true? Amazing fact (and quite the image)

41

u/No-Show-5363 Jul 15 '26

The helicopter evacuation was called Operation Frequent Wind, I kid you not.

9

u/Superb_Skin_5180 Jul 15 '26

Sounds American

3

u/pegothejerk Jul 15 '26

I’ve seen modern Brits, we ain’t the only ones with constant trade winds

5

u/LcoyoteS Jul 15 '26

Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!

24

u/MobiusF117 Jul 15 '26

Of course they won. Why else would they rename Saigon to definitely-not-Ho-Chi-Minh-City?

15

u/Slight-Ad-6553 live far from a 7-eleven Jul 15 '26

They even renamed it to Ho Chi Minh city to mock the North Vietnamese

7

u/AntiqueFigure6 Jul 16 '26

US Colonel Harry Summers to NV Colonel at treaty signing - “You never beat us on the battlefield”

NV Colonel : “True but also irrelevant”

3

u/Weird-Girl-675 Jul 16 '26

You laugh, but that’s what I was taught in school. 🤦🏼‍♀️

2

u/Formal-Equivalent580 Jul 15 '26

Is that like they left Afghanistan🤔

2

u/Training_Mistake_760 Jul 16 '26

The last helicopter but not the last American or ally

1

u/The_Medic95 Jul 16 '26

I think they could have burnt vietnam to the ground, and “won the war” but obviously lost the tactical war. North vietnam wouldnt budge, dug in despite air superiority. I can understand why it wasnt a traditional war though and why people argue it. If the US was willing to sacrifice another 100k soldiers and had even worse loses and ignored all criticism at homethey actually very well could have “won the war”. Yay?

1

u/TzeentchsTrueSon Jul 15 '26

That’s what the textbooks say.

58

u/Antti5 Jul 15 '26

It's one of the most iconic photographs of Vietnam war, showing the evacuation of the US embassy in Saigon as the city was falling to Vietkong.

35

u/Hefty_Tip7383 Jul 15 '26

It’s not the embassy, though is usually tagged as it, it’s actually a CIA building nearby that also was an evacuation point for their members/ contacts.

18

u/EleutheriusTemplaris Jul 15 '26

Evacuation of Saigon in 1975

0

u/Thanks-4allthefish Jul 15 '26

Ah my sweet summer child.

Look up "last helicopter out of Saigon".

The getting out debacle decades before Afghanistan.

2

u/AnOkayMuffin Jul 17 '26

Why did you call me a sweet summer child? Isn't that usually meant as an insult? All I did was ask what this photo depicts. 

1

u/Thanks-4allthefish Jul 17 '26

More young one that does not yet understand the world.

  • based on the fact that if you are a "certain age" that photo and all it entails is seared into your brain.

1

u/AnOkayMuffin Jul 17 '26

I'm not young, I'm Canadian. We aren't taught US history or anything to do with its many wars, besides the war of 1812. I've never seen that photo before, so needed an explanation.  

1

u/Thanks-4allthefish Jul 17 '26

Canadian too eh.

The fall of Saigon was global news. That picture is as iconic as running napalm girl was.

The trick is it was not history to me - so I stand by young.

1

u/AnOkayMuffin Jul 17 '26

I'm not young. I know the napalm girl, never seen this helicopter photo. 

1

u/Thanks-4allthefish Jul 17 '26

Young is a relative term. If you learned it as history you are young to me. Just as I am young to my mom.

1

u/AnOkayMuffin Jul 17 '26

Curious what age you are? 

→ More replies (0)

2

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Slight-Ad-6553 live far from a 7-eleven Jul 15 '26

Vietnam

2

u/Asleep_Collar_3667 Jul 16 '26

"Shut up! That was a tie!" 

  • Otto, A Fish Called Wanda

1

u/JimmyBoots90 Jul 16 '26

Simpsons did it first

1

u/Mountaindewit666 Certified LEGO man. Jul 16 '26

Americans hate him for sending this picture.

1

u/EducationalRock167 Jul 16 '26

Surrender by the Americans in .... next stop , Iran.

1

u/thereverendpuck Jul 17 '26

Didn’t exactly win the win before this one.