"You would all speak German right now if it wasn't for us"

I've heard similar about Spanish. Just more xenophobic attitudes.

We in Europe have a history spanning thousands of years, so we can be generous with it. We all have learned our lessons, and the point that keeping a grouch is pointless is one of them. The US has, in comparison, basically no history, so they kling to what they have.

I remember a couple of American tourists getting off a tourist ship in Cologne. Them, having no clue where they were, they asked "What is this building?", and we told them that this is the Cologne Cathedral, and it is 750 years old (yes, this was a few years ago). Their reply: "No building can be that old!"...

Part of it is americans cant cope with losing, because they are overwhelmingly little bitches.

Meanwhile it seems like the American consciousness think of the Vietnam War as almost a national scar akin to 9/11.

That's because it was the first widely televised war we had ever seen plus it was right in the middle of the Civil rights movement. So a war we lost during a major era of change that influenced American attitudes about warfare and civil rights. It left internal scars

Really shows you the differences in mindset. Americans hold on to the past like it's a lifeline while most other places we kinda just deal with shit and move on.

Well the majority of ppl who remember the Vietnam War are still alive. Considering veterans from Vietnam have health complications from agent orange no one is forgetting anytime soon. Western Europe hasn't had a major war in almost 80 years

If ww2 had happened to America the same way it happened to Europe, they would have made it they whole identity and pissed and moaned about it still. We would never hear the end of it.

This is just a long winded attempt to complain about Americans. Europeans are exactly the same as Americans. You both carry a smug sense of superiority. The only difference is Americans are louder about it. Just look at attitudes about the war in Ukraine or whenever there's a terrorist attack in western Europe compared to anywhere in the global south. Both act like they're the center of the world. Plus its kinda hard to gloat about 2 World Wars that you started in the first place. Only reason it was a world war in the first place is because Europeans felt so superior that they went around colonizing everyone because they were better than everyone else and forced them to get involved

Or Americans in general. When the rich wage war it's the poor who die.

Coming in last was better than coming in second 😔

That's what fucking pisses me off when people say this. I was born in 1991. As a child WE ALL KNEW PARTICIPATION TROPHIES WERE SILLY. Nobody was like "Oh fuck yeah, that's right, I won!" We'd all joke about them being participation trophies. When showing my room I'd say "but these are just participation trophies."

It was never about the kids, it was about the boomer parents that got jealous seeing other kids with trophies around other petty boomer parents

Trophies were forced upon us. I didn’t even like the idea of getting a trophy if I won. I won, neat, I don’t need a gold-colored plastic guy hitting a baseball to help me remember that 2-1 game against another collection of school children.

I certainly didn’t need a wood cutout of me posing on home plate. It was tee-ball, I stopped playing after six months.

It was the Boomers who "needed" and forced these trophies on their kids (in the same way they forced sports on some of us) because their fragile egos needed their kids to be "successful" in a useless and arbitrary way.

It felt worse. Getting a recognition certificate or a white ribbon for coming fourth was a total bummer to my care-factor for participating. Kick a kid while they're down and they're not likely to be motivated.

And yet they vote for a party and administration who would and will gleefully send people into the same situation again without hesitation.

I know at least one who was very proud of his war crimes, and I do mean very specific things he did and told to me as a child. I hope they never take away his antipsychotics.

And many came back with serious health and mental problems too! I know I was married 2 Vietnam vets. The fought and suffered for their government.

"Well it's not MY fault they shot some Vietnamese kid in the face and now have nightmares and a paralyzing fear of fireworks. Guess they should have thought about that before getting drafted."

/S

I mean Obama and Henry Kissenger got Nobel Peace Prizes.

They are wrong, for the premise is wrong. Being open about the trauma they suffered is no participation trophy. Being a veteran of a war is a burden and not an achievement.