panzersaurkrautwerfer

I'm not from battlefront, but if you look how long the CMSF game was drawn out in terms of modules, and the longevity of the other CMs, I think it'll be a few years before we see a CM: Pacific Rim.  Also I've seen the horror of when a company starts cranking out sequels without taking time to perfect the last release.  I'd rather see Black Sea done up with all them NATO and Russian modules to the max, and then maybe another release.
 
That said I'd love to see a Combat Mission: Korea and would pay Steel Beasts level prices for it.  Same deal with Combat Mission: Pacific for a World War Two setting (although only if it was both USMC and US Army forces, tired of WW2 Pacific stuff that assumes only the Marines showed up).

UNGRATEFUL LATVIA SWINE DO NOT LIKE COMRADE BEAR AIRSHOW.  GREAT DISGRACE.  INVADE TO TEACH LESSON.  
 
Estonia. we need to attack Latvia.  Our troops just need to pass through.  Please do not concern.  
 
Please note this was done tongue firmly lodged in cheek.

I'm not from battlefront, but if you look how long the CMSF game was drawn out in terms of modules, and the longevity of the other CMs, I think it'll be a few years before we see a CM: Pacific Rim.  Also I've seen the horror of when a company starts cranking out sequels without taking time to perfect the last release.  I'd rather see Black Sea done up with all them NATO and Russian modules to the max, and then maybe another release.
 
That said I'd love to see a Combat Mission: Korea and would pay Steel Beasts level prices for it.  Same deal with Combat Mission: Pacific for a World War Two setting (although only if it was both USMC and US Army forces, tired of WW2 Pacific stuff that assumes only the Marines showed up).

I'm not from battlefront, but if you look how long the CMSF game was drawn out in terms of modules, and the longevity of the other CMs, I think it'll be a few years before we see a CM: Pacific Rim.  Also I've seen the horror of when a company starts cranking out sequels without taking time to perfect the last release.  I'd rather see Black Sea done up with all them NATO and Russian modules to the max, and then maybe another release.
 
That said I'd love to see a Combat Mission: Korea and would pay Steel Beasts level prices for it.  Same deal with Combat Mission: Pacific for a World War Two setting (although only if it was both USMC and US Army forces, tired of WW2 Pacific stuff that assumes only the Marines showed up).

I'm not from battlefront, but if you look how long the CMSF game was drawn out in terms of modules, and the longevity of the other CMs, I think it'll be a few years before we see a CM: Pacific Rim.  Also I've seen the horror of when a company starts cranking out sequels without taking time to perfect the last release.  I'd rather see Black Sea done up with all them NATO and Russian modules to the max, and then maybe another release.
 
That said I'd love to see a Combat Mission: Korea and would pay Steel Beasts level prices for it.  Same deal with Combat Mission: Pacific for a World War Two setting (although only if it was both USMC and US Army forces, tired of WW2 Pacific stuff that assumes only the Marines showed up).

The conflict did start in Ukraine?
 
In 1989 Russia accepted the German reuinification. For that to happen they had to withdraw their troops and NATO promised not to expand torwards Russia. Interestingly the Russians withdrew their troops but US and UK occupation troops stayed in Germany. Also no peace treaty with Germany has been signed. Fact is, the Russians also disbanded the Warshaw Pact. NATO was not disbanded.
 
Afterwards NATO broke all promises it had given to Russia and has been expanding since. Isn't it strange, that NATO was not disbanded, too, since the reason for it's foundation, the Communist empire, had disappeared?
 
NATO expansion (in western media it is even called enlargement, not expansion) since 1989 torwards Russia:  
Poland
Hungary
Czech Republic
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Slovakia
Bulgaria
Slovenia
Rumania
Albania
Croatia
 
Further expansion planned torwards
Cyprus
Makedonia
Bosnia Herzegowina
Montenegro
 
Victoria Nuland is the wife of radical Zionist Robert Kagan, who founded the zionist lobby organization PNAC (Project for the New American Century), a leading force behind the Iraq war. For a few years now, Kagan's Zionist warmonger friends have been lobbying for another US wars: their new "Foreign Policy Initiative" has been lobbying for attacking Syria and Iran. His wife Victoria Nuland admitted that the USA had spent 5 BILLION dollars for the coup in Ukraine! That's also clearly a hostile act against a souvereign country (Ukraine) and a breach of international law!
 
A leaked telephone call between Catherine Ashton and a Baltic minister showed, that the EU knew, that in Ukraine on Maidan very strange things happened, and that certain forces were shooting at both sides to make them clash. Israeli soldiers even openly bragged for leading militant groups on Maidan.  
This video is extremely elightening to understand how blatantly Western mainstream media and politicians turned things upside down when they reported about the protests in Ukraine:  
www.youtube.com/watch?v=E18jWXbZY8U
 
 
Recently the US foreign minister John Kerry admitted, that the USA had to force and blackmail the EU to support the economic warfare against Russia.  
American politicians are openly admitting they want a regime change in Russia. Is that friendly? That's also against international law.  
Even after Putin's first term, the Russians under Medvedev were still naive enough to fall victim to this trick:  

 
 
And they allowed the aggression against and destruction of Lybia to happen.
 
Who is the betrayer and aggressor?  

 
 
And last but not least the shooting down of MH17 which was blamed on Russia by Western media and politicians without offering the slightest evidences. By looking closer to the downing of MH17 many strange facts are coming to light. I find it strange, that you, as interested and well informed about modern weaponry, did not notice, that a BUG system consists of three vehicles and needs months of training of specialists.  

 
This story was not only spread in Ukraine but hugely in the EU, too:
 
https://magazin.spiegel.de/EpubDelivery/image/title/SP/2014/31/300
 
 
 
 
I can not understand, how anyone who takes a closer look at the developments in Ukraine can believe in the mainstream media narrative.
 

 
That things in the area could become dangerous was not that hard to recognize with some basic knowledge about NATO aggression and the status of Sevastopol in the Black Sea.
 
ps: I am sorry, somehow I cannot make certain links to appear as the others

A Gavin is less a vehicle and more an avatar of spartanlike air warrior battlebox ideals. It is our only hope.

A Gavin is less a vehicle and more an avatar of spartanlike air warrior battlebox ideals. It is our only hope.

A Gavin is less a vehicle and more an avatar of spartanlike air warrior battlebox ideals. It is our only hope.

Not to rederail, but simply in passing, it is sort of a simplistic version of events you presented.  Iraqis blamed us for things that were in no way part of anything the US had ever done to Iraq.  What we did do to restore prosperity even at great cost in human lives and resources was always not enough.  If you helped the Shia it was not enough (because we should have built houses for everyone, and assigned a squad per family to serve as their personal servants) and the Sunni just become certain it's part of the American-Shia plot to sell all Sunnis to Iran as slaves.  You help the Sunni, and the Sunni are unhappy because you haven't restored the Ba'ath party, shot all the Shia for being insolent, and the Shia think you've actually secretly cloned Saddam and he's now calling the shots.
 
In terms of the absurdity, imagine yourself and all your coworkers (even the ones you really don't like) scooped up, put on a plane, and dropped in some other country.  Now your country may (or may have not) done some questionable stuff to the country you're in now that has created some instability.  However instability does not pick up a bomb vest and walk into a market because God thinks it is a great idea.  It does not scoop kids up on the way home from school, hold them for ransom, collect said ransom and then kill kids because they're the wrong sect anyway.  It does not pull people off of a bus, and decide who lives or dies based on a theological dilemma from centuries ago.  
 
So now you're sitting there, with your coworkers, and someone is holding you responsible for the inhumanity of man, and for being simply from a country that's contribution to this whole catastrophic mess in terms of causing it, was maybe building about 20 meters of the 100 KM highway to chaos.  The US may have opened pandora's box, but it didn't build it, fill it for a few hundred years, and for a long time it valiantly tried to stuff all those evils back into the box, again at the cost of thousands of American lives and billions of dollars (again, the US plan for Iraq was "Saddam is dead, high fives, maybe like 20,000 dudes stay behind to help clean stuff up for a year or two" not seven to eight years depending on your math of suck).  Even more the box existed, and was out in the open.  Someone was going to open that box, and someone was going to unleash hell on Iraq.  It might have been in the eventual "which of Saddam's Sons will rule next?" conflict of 2014.  It might have been the hypothetical Iranian invasion of 2016.  It could have been when the peace loving Alpha Centurians come to earth in 2021 to bring love and sharing to all men, but they accidentially fly too close to the Golden Mosque on approach and now it's all Allah Akbar because that shows a clear disrespect for Shia so the aliens must be secret Sunni.  
 
So again, sitting there with your coworkers, you are responsible for the sins of Iraq's fathers, grandfathers's and great grandfathers.  So as you stuggle, as you work, as you bleed, you will be eternally blamed for things you did not do, stuff that happened sometimes before your country even existed, and most damning of all, the people blaming you will simply sit there and contribute their part to the chaos (giving money to insurgents, not calling the police/tipline when they see someone planting a bomb etc etc) all while pointing the finger of blame at you.

I figured this would be a good place to hang impressions of some of the new for CMBS hardware for folks who are playing now (or like me, have stopped playing to eat/let fingers depart from mouse operating position).
 
 
1. Vehicle Air Burst is brutal.
 
Russia definitely has an advantage in the sheer proliferation of airbursting rounds.  It makes facing down BMP3s potentially messy with infantry, and tanks just as perilous.
 
On the other hand the US airburst capable platform is Odin level optics and sees all.  Seems well suited to killing ATGM teams and the like
 
2. ATGMs have been shaken up a bit.  
 
ERA is much more common, and APS makes what used to be a lot of sure-shot dead tank shots into total whiffs.  This seems to hurt RU/UKR more than the US.  Javelins are still something to hide under the bed from though.  
 
3. BMP3s are pretty much rolling JDAMs
 
Seriously.  They almost always wind up at the bottom of self generated craters if struck by large weapons.  It's rare to see one merely knocked out, the default hit is total vehicle, crew, and passenger loss.  From my experience so far the APS is the only protective package worth the effort.   On the other hand, the 100 MM is an awesome tool, and the ATGMs are as good as any of the other standard vehicle ATGMs in the game.  Might be better if you keep them back, feel forward with tanks and dismounted infantry, and then call them forward to deal with threats.
 
4. Precision fires is kind of cool
 
Haven't quite achieved the lethality I'd hoped for.  Mostly called for the US stuff, think part of it has just been a matter of how I employ fires.
 
5. Ukrainian tanks are a mixed bag.
 
They're both the bottom of the pecking order, and if you're playing as Russia, still capable of delivering very nasty surprises.  If I had to tier them against CMSF, they're comparable to the high end Syrian T-72s, with the Russian tank falling into the less capable NATO platform range.  The T-90 models especially are definitely superior, but it isn't the M1A2 SEP vs T-55 sort of superior.  
 
6. M1A2 SEP is still a monster.  
 
With the APS it certainly needs effort to KO.  On the other hand, I've had more than a few knocked out frontally from T-90s and the like, or badly damaged by 30 MM fire, or lesser tank rounds.  It's advantage is usually it gets the first shot in most engagements, hits in the 80-90% range (conservatively, I've certainly seen them miss at least!), and has almost universal lethality against what it hits.  Best I've seen a T-90 get off with was having surviving crewmen after it was knocked out.
 
7. ADA Is a pain.  Even MANPADs
 
Seriously.  If you're a CMSF NATO person used to having your way with airstrikes, prepare for sadface.  If you're expecting the Russian Air Force to nimbly pave your way to victory, again, expect some sadface.  
 
Best tool so far is if you know about where the enemy MANPADs are, dropping an artillery barrage to suppress them during your strike.  This requires some good optics, situation awareness, or really good guessing though.  

It's like the Stryker. The senior dude on the vehicle is the squad leader, he goes with the dismounts.  The gunner takes over the vehicle, but from my understanding of Russian doctrine, the BMP is supposed to operate similar to a large armored heavy weapons team in relation to the squad, so the squad leader is still "vehicle commander" he's just doing it from out and about.

I figured this would be a good place to hang impressions of some of the new for CMBS hardware for folks who are playing now (or like me, have stopped playing to eat/let fingers depart from mouse operating position).
 
 
1. Vehicle Air Burst is brutal.
 
Russia definitely has an advantage in the sheer proliferation of airbursting rounds.  It makes facing down BMP3s potentially messy with infantry, and tanks just as perilous.
 
On the other hand the US airburst capable platform is Odin level optics and sees all.  Seems well suited to killing ATGM teams and the like
 
2. ATGMs have been shaken up a bit.  
 
ERA is much more common, and APS makes what used to be a lot of sure-shot dead tank shots into total whiffs.  This seems to hurt RU/UKR more than the US.  Javelins are still something to hide under the bed from though.  
 
3. BMP3s are pretty much rolling JDAMs
 
Seriously.  They almost always wind up at the bottom of self generated craters if struck by large weapons.  It's rare to see one merely knocked out, the default hit is total vehicle, crew, and passenger loss.  From my experience so far the APS is the only protective package worth the effort.   On the other hand, the 100 MM is an awesome tool, and the ATGMs are as good as any of the other standard vehicle ATGMs in the game.  Might be better if you keep them back, feel forward with tanks and dismounted infantry, and then call them forward to deal with threats.
 
4. Precision fires is kind of cool
 
Haven't quite achieved the lethality I'd hoped for.  Mostly called for the US stuff, think part of it has just been a matter of how I employ fires.
 
5. Ukrainian tanks are a mixed bag.
 
They're both the bottom of the pecking order, and if you're playing as Russia, still capable of delivering very nasty surprises.  If I had to tier them against CMSF, they're comparable to the high end Syrian T-72s, with the Russian tank falling into the less capable NATO platform range.  The T-90 models especially are definitely superior, but it isn't the M1A2 SEP vs T-55 sort of superior.  
 
6. M1A2 SEP is still a monster.  
 
With the APS it certainly needs effort to KO.  On the other hand, I've had more than a few knocked out frontally from T-90s and the like, or badly damaged by 30 MM fire, or lesser tank rounds.  It's advantage is usually it gets the first shot in most engagements, hits in the 80-90% range (conservatively, I've certainly seen them miss at least!), and has almost universal lethality against what it hits.  Best I've seen a T-90 get off with was having surviving crewmen after it was knocked out.
 
7. ADA Is a pain.  Even MANPADs
 
Seriously.  If you're a CMSF NATO person used to having your way with airstrikes, prepare for sadface.  If you're expecting the Russian Air Force to nimbly pave your way to victory, again, expect some sadface.  
 
Best tool so far is if you know about where the enemy MANPADs are, dropping an artillery barrage to suppress them during your strike.  This requires some good optics, situation awareness, or really good guessing though.  

Re: Fear
 
It's like if you have to cross as series of potentially busy streets to get to work or do anything.  The anxiety builds from the "last time a bus almost ran me over crossing this one!" much more than the bus actually having almost run you over.  During the event you're too focused on the act of not being run over so not much fear there, and outside of circumstances that are a lot like the road you almost got run over on, there's not the context to expect that bus.
 
What can creeps up on you is when things start to align that look, smell and sound a lot like when the bus almost ran you over.  The human brain is awesome at detecting patterns so if stuff starts to really look like that road and that bus it can trigger a response.  Conversely that anxiety eventually goes away as it is readily apparent that the bus is no longer something to worry about.  
 
So in that regard there used to be stuff that I knew from Iraq to be bad signs (empty streets, piles of trash, guys filming stuff, loud noises etc) that would trigger low level anxiety back in the US (I wasn't flinching or hiding under tables, more like some corner of my brain stood to because something was up), but after a few July 4ths passed since I'd been to Iraq, fireworks and the like did not trigger any sort of response, and it has been a while since I had any sort of reaction.
 
I imagine someone with a much more traumatic trip overseas might take a long time to unlearn the really bad stuff.  But it's not like you live in eternal fear of all things, it's just much closer to anxiety.  
 
Re: Blood and gore
 
Only if you knew the person.  The smell of blood and generally body parts in general trigger some sort of "THIS IS BAD PLACE GO AWAY FROM BAD PLACE" response in the lizard corner of your brain.  Once you get over that part, if there's no danger to you (the attack is over), and you're not especially attached to the body parts source of origin it's just unpleasant.
 
I mean I carried a human hand from a suicide bomber around in my backpack (in a baggie).  I still use that backpack lots without any real feelings that the hand is HAUNTING MY ARMY BACKPACK OH DOG WAY.  The dead can't hurt you, blood carries infections pathogens, not bad juju so it's something best not to cover yourself in it, but it's not something to freak out about too much.
 
The much more unpleasant part is when you have wounded and you need to do "something" about it.  Because you're attached to the keeping someone alive and intact it's quite stressful when you're in a position where you cannot do anything for them (in my case just the practical reality that the medics were already working on them, and I had nothing to do with evacuating them).
 
Re: Propaganda and dogma
 
I received several times as much in the military, as I did in college.  The yay Army stuff was way less aggressive than GO TEAM GO during football season, and the "You are in Iraq to help people" was only mentioned in passing compared to the more realistic "You are in Iraq to help train and equip the blah blah blah partner units blah blah blah in conjunction with other agencies blah blah restore blah to blah."
 
Dissent was fairly freely expressed among peers.  There really just wasn't much of a sense of being indoctrinated.

I figured this would be a good place to hang impressions of some of the new for CMBS hardware for folks who are playing now (or like me, have stopped playing to eat/let fingers depart from mouse operating position).
 
 
1. Vehicle Air Burst is brutal.
 
Russia definitely has an advantage in the sheer proliferation of airbursting rounds.  It makes facing down BMP3s potentially messy with infantry, and tanks just as perilous.
 
On the other hand the US airburst capable platform is Odin level optics and sees all.  Seems well suited to killing ATGM teams and the like
 
2. ATGMs have been shaken up a bit.  
 
ERA is much more common, and APS makes what used to be a lot of sure-shot dead tank shots into total whiffs.  This seems to hurt RU/UKR more than the US.  Javelins are still something to hide under the bed from though.  
 
3. BMP3s are pretty much rolling JDAMs
 
Seriously.  They almost always wind up at the bottom of self generated craters if struck by large weapons.  It's rare to see one merely knocked out, the default hit is total vehicle, crew, and passenger loss.  From my experience so far the APS is the only protective package worth the effort.   On the other hand, the 100 MM is an awesome tool, and the ATGMs are as good as any of the other standard vehicle ATGMs in the game.  Might be better if you keep them back, feel forward with tanks and dismounted infantry, and then call them forward to deal with threats.
 
4. Precision fires is kind of cool
 
Haven't quite achieved the lethality I'd hoped for.  Mostly called for the US stuff, think part of it has just been a matter of how I employ fires.
 
5. Ukrainian tanks are a mixed bag.
 
They're both the bottom of the pecking order, and if you're playing as Russia, still capable of delivering very nasty surprises.  If I had to tier them against CMSF, they're comparable to the high end Syrian T-72s, with the Russian tank falling into the less capable NATO platform range.  The T-90 models especially are definitely superior, but it isn't the M1A2 SEP vs T-55 sort of superior.  
 
6. M1A2 SEP is still a monster.  
 
With the APS it certainly needs effort to KO.  On the other hand, I've had more than a few knocked out frontally from T-90s and the like, or badly damaged by 30 MM fire, or lesser tank rounds.  It's advantage is usually it gets the first shot in most engagements, hits in the 80-90% range (conservatively, I've certainly seen them miss at least!), and has almost universal lethality against what it hits.  Best I've seen a T-90 get off with was having surviving crewmen after it was knocked out.
 
7. ADA Is a pain.  Even MANPADs
 
Seriously.  If you're a CMSF NATO person used to having your way with airstrikes, prepare for sadface.  If you're expecting the Russian Air Force to nimbly pave your way to victory, again, expect some sadface.  
 
Best tool so far is if you know about where the enemy MANPADs are, dropping an artillery barrage to suppress them during your strike.  This requires some good optics, situation awareness, or really good guessing though.  

I figured this would be a good place to hang impressions of some of the new for CMBS hardware for folks who are playing now (or like me, have stopped playing to eat/let fingers depart from mouse operating position).
 
 
1. Vehicle Air Burst is brutal.
 
Russia definitely has an advantage in the sheer proliferation of airbursting rounds.  It makes facing down BMP3s potentially messy with infantry, and tanks just as perilous.
 
On the other hand the US airburst capable platform is Odin level optics and sees all.  Seems well suited to killing ATGM teams and the like
 
2. ATGMs have been shaken up a bit.  
 
ERA is much more common, and APS makes what used to be a lot of sure-shot dead tank shots into total whiffs.  This seems to hurt RU/UKR more than the US.  Javelins are still something to hide under the bed from though.  
 
3. BMP3s are pretty much rolling JDAMs
 
Seriously.  They almost always wind up at the bottom of self generated craters if struck by large weapons.  It's rare to see one merely knocked out, the default hit is total vehicle, crew, and passenger loss.  From my experience so far the APS is the only protective package worth the effort.   On the other hand, the 100 MM is an awesome tool, and the ATGMs are as good as any of the other standard vehicle ATGMs in the game.  Might be better if you keep them back, feel forward with tanks and dismounted infantry, and then call them forward to deal with threats.
 
4. Precision fires is kind of cool
 
Haven't quite achieved the lethality I'd hoped for.  Mostly called for the US stuff, think part of it has just been a matter of how I employ fires.
 
5. Ukrainian tanks are a mixed bag.
 
They're both the bottom of the pecking order, and if you're playing as Russia, still capable of delivering very nasty surprises.  If I had to tier them against CMSF, they're comparable to the high end Syrian T-72s, with the Russian tank falling into the less capable NATO platform range.  The T-90 models especially are definitely superior, but it isn't the M1A2 SEP vs T-55 sort of superior.  
 
6. M1A2 SEP is still a monster.  
 
With the APS it certainly needs effort to KO.  On the other hand, I've had more than a few knocked out frontally from T-90s and the like, or badly damaged by 30 MM fire, or lesser tank rounds.  It's advantage is usually it gets the first shot in most engagements, hits in the 80-90% range (conservatively, I've certainly seen them miss at least!), and has almost universal lethality against what it hits.  Best I've seen a T-90 get off with was having surviving crewmen after it was knocked out.
 
7. ADA Is a pain.  Even MANPADs
 
Seriously.  If you're a CMSF NATO person used to having your way with airstrikes, prepare for sadface.  If you're expecting the Russian Air Force to nimbly pave your way to victory, again, expect some sadface.  
 
Best tool so far is if you know about where the enemy MANPADs are, dropping an artillery barrage to suppress them during your strike.  This requires some good optics, situation awareness, or really good guessing though.  

]
 
Well.  Analog CMBS so far is pretty good.  Turns process slow, and the graphics are crap though.  Terrain is suspiciously flat.
 
(Sorry.  I'm cleaning up my hobby area.  Bad lighting/crap phone/odd sense of humor etc)

]
 
Well.  Analog CMBS so far is pretty good.  Turns process slow, and the graphics are crap though.  Terrain is suspiciously flat.
 
(Sorry.  I'm cleaning up my hobby area.  Bad lighting/crap phone/odd sense of humor etc)

]
 
Well.  Analog CMBS so far is pretty good.  Turns process slow, and the graphics are crap though.  Terrain is suspiciously flat.
 
(Sorry.  I'm cleaning up my hobby area.  Bad lighting/crap phone/odd sense of humor etc)

]
 
Well.  Analog CMBS so far is pretty good.  Turns process slow, and the graphics are crap though.  Terrain is suspiciously flat.
 
(Sorry.  I'm cleaning up my hobby area.  Bad lighting/crap phone/odd sense of humor etc)

]
 
Well.  Analog CMBS so far is pretty good.  Turns process slow, and the graphics are crap though.  Terrain is suspiciously flat.
 
(Sorry.  I'm cleaning up my hobby area.  Bad lighting/crap phone/odd sense of humor etc)

]
 
Well.  Analog CMBS so far is pretty good.  Turns process slow, and the graphics are crap though.  Terrain is suspiciously flat.
 
(Sorry.  I'm cleaning up my hobby area.  Bad lighting/crap phone/odd sense of humor etc)

Clarification:
 
To establish I'm not a ghoul or wasn't saving the hand "for later" I happened to be heading to a base that had a US run forensics lab on it, and they wanted to try to get fingerprints off of the hand (and it was better described as "hand, fragment" on the bag, it was missing the whole thumb assembly).  The backpack is just the standard issue "Assault Pack" I was issued, and I've never thought to get a new one (and I plan on keeping it once I separate because it is one of the few items I have had everywhere I went in the military).  
 
On Killing:
 
Never had to do it.  By the time I went to Iraq the direct fire shooting Iraqis sort of events were largely gone, the Iraqis had gotten their teeth kicked in and now only attacked via IED, mortars/rockets, and some limited shoot and scoot type attacks.*  The most damage we'd gather evidence from the attacks or other illegal activities (like fingerprints found on weapons in caches) and then go do a SWAT team style arrest.  They usually weren't expecting us to come for them in their house/did not understand our ability to find both them and what they had left at the attack scene so mostly it was dragging off confused terrorists into the night (we made a few bad busts largely thanks to informants being....special**, but the guys we tagged usually had left fignerprints on the bombs they planted, or we'd intercepted phone calls that amounted to "praise allah, I hope to kill many americans with this bomb I shall plant" and we found the bomb in their bathroom or something).
 
On the occasion were the ambushes went bad and we had a shot at people, it was an oddly remote thing, like a sports team you liked scored a point.  So you felt sort of good, but it was not elation, nor any sort of mixed emotions as the person killed was 100% bad guy trying to kill people you knew.  
 
The only "dead" person that bothered me especially deeply was we had a woman get dropped off at our JSS (Joint Security Station like a small FOB, but with Iraqi forces also working out of it).  She had "tried to commit suicide" by dousing herself with gasoline (her husband set her on fire was both the subtext, suspicion, and given what we knew the most likely scenario), and her other family had wrapped her up in a blanket to transport her to us with the expectations we'd be able to do something for her.  At that point we were no longer allowed to treat or evacuate Iraqis that had not been A. Injured by US forces, B. Were in a danger of death, losing eyesight, or a limb without immediate medical attention***.  The blanket had fused to her burned skin, but she was not close enough to death to mandate we treat or evacuate her.  So our only recourse was to have the Iraqis on our compound evacuate her to an Iraqi hospital.  The Iraqi police unit refused to have anything to do with it.  Like it just wasn't worth the attention, allah will sort it out, we're eating lunch/playing cards/almost time for prayer and simply cannot be bothered.
 
Eventually after much screaming they tossed her in the back of one of their pickups and went somewhere.  Maybe a hospital, maybe a ditch, maybe back to her husband, who knew.  It was a singularly depressing occasion at the end of it.
 
Re: Army of Volenteers
 
You still have a wide range of why people sign up.  The die hard I <3 America! type is not as common as you'd think.  Marginally more patriotic than average is how I would describe the average US serviceperson, but in the "I love America as a societal/cultural concept" vs "I love the American government and its policies without question" sense.  There were a lot of tattoos, flags, and pride in the country as a concept, but when all the junior enlisted were out, the senior enlisted, and officers talked a lot of "what the hell are we thinking" about what the country was up to at the moment.  
 
*The preferred method in our AO was using the old Russian RKG-3 Anti-Tank grenades.  They'd pitch a few of them from an alleyway or a crowd then run like hell.  Funny story about them sometime when I'm bored.
**Another amusing story for some othertime.
***It wasn't a cold "Iraqis are not worth American medical attention!" system, but it was the realization that US bases had become the defacto hospitals for the local communities.  At a time in which we were trying to build up the Iraqis enough to leave, it was deemed essential to only treat what we absolutely had to, to force people to start using Iraqi hospitals, so those hospitals would actually be ready when we left instead of just suddenly "poof" US forces leave and no one can handle anything more than a papercut.

Re: Fear
 
It's like if you have to cross as series of potentially busy streets to get to work or do anything.  The anxiety builds from the "last time a bus almost ran me over crossing this one!" much more than the bus actually having almost run you over.  During the event you're too focused on the act of not being run over so not much fear there, and outside of circumstances that are a lot like the road you almost got run over on, there's not the context to expect that bus.
 
What can creeps up on you is when things start to align that look, smell and sound a lot like when the bus almost ran you over.  The human brain is awesome at detecting patterns so if stuff starts to really look like that road and that bus it can trigger a response.  Conversely that anxiety eventually goes away as it is readily apparent that the bus is no longer something to worry about.  
 
So in that regard there used to be stuff that I knew from Iraq to be bad signs (empty streets, piles of trash, guys filming stuff, loud noises etc) that would trigger low level anxiety back in the US (I wasn't flinching or hiding under tables, more like some corner of my brain stood to because something was up), but after a few July 4ths passed since I'd been to Iraq, fireworks and the like did not trigger any sort of response, and it has been a while since I had any sort of reaction.
 
I imagine someone with a much more traumatic trip overseas might take a long time to unlearn the really bad stuff.  But it's not like you live in eternal fear of all things, it's just much closer to anxiety.  
 
Re: Blood and gore
 
Only if you knew the person.  The smell of blood and generally body parts in general trigger some sort of "THIS IS BAD PLACE GO AWAY FROM BAD PLACE" response in the lizard corner of your brain.  Once you get over that part, if there's no danger to you (the attack is over), and you're not especially attached to the body parts source of origin it's just unpleasant.
 
I mean I carried a human hand from a suicide bomber around in my backpack (in a baggie).  I still use that backpack lots without any real feelings that the hand is HAUNTING MY ARMY BACKPACK OH DOG WAY.  The dead can't hurt you, blood carries infections pathogens, not bad juju so it's something best not to cover yourself in it, but it's not something to freak out about too much.
 
The much more unpleasant part is when you have wounded and you need to do "something" about it.  Because you're attached to the keeping someone alive and intact it's quite stressful when you're in a position where you cannot do anything for them (in my case just the practical reality that the medics were already working on them, and I had nothing to do with evacuating them).
 
Re: Propaganda and dogma
 
I received several times as much in the military, as I did in college.  The yay Army stuff was way less aggressive than GO TEAM GO during football season, and the "You are in Iraq to help people" was only mentioned in passing compared to the more realistic "You are in Iraq to help train and equip the blah blah blah partner units blah blah blah in conjunction with other agencies blah blah restore blah to blah."
 
Dissent was fairly freely expressed among peers.  There really just wasn't much of a sense of being indoctrinated.

Re: Fear
 
It's like if you have to cross as series of potentially busy streets to get to work or do anything.  The anxiety builds from the "last time a bus almost ran me over crossing this one!" much more than the bus actually having almost run you over.  During the event you're too focused on the act of not being run over so not much fear there, and outside of circumstances that are a lot like the road you almost got run over on, there's not the context to expect that bus.
 
What can creeps up on you is when things start to align that look, smell and sound a lot like when the bus almost ran you over.  The human brain is awesome at detecting patterns so if stuff starts to really look like that road and that bus it can trigger a response.  Conversely that anxiety eventually goes away as it is readily apparent that the bus is no longer something to worry about.  
 
So in that regard there used to be stuff that I knew from Iraq to be bad signs (empty streets, piles of trash, guys filming stuff, loud noises etc) that would trigger low level anxiety back in the US (I wasn't flinching or hiding under tables, more like some corner of my brain stood to because something was up), but after a few July 4ths passed since I'd been to Iraq, fireworks and the like did not trigger any sort of response, and it has been a while since I had any sort of reaction.
 
I imagine someone with a much more traumatic trip overseas might take a long time to unlearn the really bad stuff.  But it's not like you live in eternal fear of all things, it's just much closer to anxiety.  
 
Re: Blood and gore
 
Only if you knew the person.  The smell of blood and generally body parts in general trigger some sort of "THIS IS BAD PLACE GO AWAY FROM BAD PLACE" response in the lizard corner of your brain.  Once you get over that part, if there's no danger to you (the attack is over), and you're not especially attached to the body parts source of origin it's just unpleasant.
 
I mean I carried a human hand from a suicide bomber around in my backpack (in a baggie).  I still use that backpack lots without any real feelings that the hand is HAUNTING MY ARMY BACKPACK OH DOG WAY.  The dead can't hurt you, blood carries infections pathogens, not bad juju so it's something best not to cover yourself in it, but it's not something to freak out about too much.
 
The much more unpleasant part is when you have wounded and you need to do "something" about it.  Because you're attached to the keeping someone alive and intact it's quite stressful when you're in a position where you cannot do anything for them (in my case just the practical reality that the medics were already working on them, and I had nothing to do with evacuating them).
 
Re: Propaganda and dogma
 
I received several times as much in the military, as I did in college.  The yay Army stuff was way less aggressive than GO TEAM GO during football season, and the "You are in Iraq to help people" was only mentioned in passing compared to the more realistic "You are in Iraq to help train and equip the blah blah blah partner units blah blah blah in conjunction with other agencies blah blah restore blah to blah."
 
Dissent was fairly freely expressed among peers.  There really just wasn't much of a sense of being indoctrinated.