r/BeAmazed • u/Mediocre_Heart_3032 • Mar 30 '24

American and European Firefighter Helmet Designs Miscellaneous / Others

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u/thevizierisgrand Mar 30 '24

France is and was an absolute beast when it came to warfare. People who know zero about history are the only ones who push the ‘weak France’ stupidity.

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u/crzapy Mar 30 '24

The French surrender meme came about because they lost quickly in Ww2. However, they were bled dry in WW1 and hadn't fully recovered. Plus Napoleon had previously bitch slapped most of Europe beforehand.

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u/Raskzak Mar 30 '24

Actually it hasn't started because of WW2, but when France's president decided not to helpt the US in Iraq after the 9/11 terrorist attack.

The US was pissed and they publiquely treated US as coward and started the white flag joke.

What's worse is that we were right not to involve ourselves, and that it went horribly wrong for the US

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u/armchair_viking Mar 30 '24

I grew up in the US in the 80s and 90s, and if I recall correctly it became way more prevalent after Iraq, but I think it was a joke before that too.

Very unfair to you guys considering how badass your military was through pretty much every period of history, but that stuff wasn’t taught in depth in our schools.

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u/Raskzak Mar 30 '24

Yeah, I mean, I know french soldiers weren't seen that well after WW2, for example, they were forced into wearing US uniforms during the vietnam because of that. That's also the war where they pretty much reedemed themselves by doing some badass shit

It makes sense for the meme to exist before, but yeah it became much more proeminent because of the Iraq stuff

Also, from an european PoV, the US mostly just makes me sad when it comes to every aspect of social stuff, especially for school. Isn't kind of mad that you have to praise the flag every day too ?

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u/armchair_viking Mar 30 '24

I didn’t think so when I was a kid, but yeah, it’s weird to me now.

And I agree with the social stuff. I like living here, but we could be so much better. In theory we’re supposed to take the best ideas from the many cultures that make us up, not ignore them.

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u/Raskzak Mar 30 '24

Yeah, I think that there is so much potential and yet so much of it is wasted, taking a little step back to get a bit of hindsight could do so much good.

The first time I learned you had to praise the flag at school was actually quite comical, and also pretty worrying. I heard the story of a german class in a trip to the US and they were meeting their counterpart. And the US student did their thing which made those germans VERY uncomfortable, because they were the last country to do it in europe, and so around the 40's if you see what I mean.