As "American" as apple pie and baseball?

It amuses me that some people still believe in this fairy tale of the late 50's Americana that never really existed on a grand scale.

Slavery was "American," as was the decimation of the Native American. The "Trail of Tears" was as American as a '57 Chevy and Elvis.

I would prefer another symbol that represents America than an army soldier with a name left over from WWII. Dictatorships and other oppressive regimes engage in idolatry of the military and worship generals.

This is America, not a military state, despite the Republicans best effort to turn it into one.

"Euro-weenies" this both facist and racist.

You may delete now.

On a serious note that just seems weird, I think most non-Americas associate GI Joe with America and would expect him to be an american soldier. It seems daft to change him from being an American marine to a 'member of an international ops team' oh well on a less serious note:

lol I hope they get someone who can do a decent Scottish accent, normally us poor Jocks end up with some kind of mangled irish accent or weird accent that goes through every region of Scotland, if you've ever seen the film Loch Ness or even Braveheart you'll understand. Hell they even made up their own history for Braveheart lol.

We make good baddies, very rarely do you see a nice Scot in a film. Misrepresentation by the English, thats what I blame :P might as well fufill the favoured stereotype of the moment us whingeing jocks, take english money and blame everything on the English!

Slavery was "American,"

Slavery was American all right, just as it was also Egyptian, Greek, Roman, British, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian, Arabian, African, Polynesian, Indian (as in the region of Asia), Ottoman, etc...

Ah the dreaded culture war. This internationalization of GI JOE is almost as bad as the War on Christmas. Mark are you trying to steal Bill O'Reilly's schtick?

lib troll,

No, we here at Blogs for Bush are very generous in providing a platform for liberal trolls to make themselves look foolish.

Gene,

Oh, puhleeese...they are taking "GI Joe" and turning it into something its not...because they are a bunch of gutless losers.

Mark-

That is kind of my point, this silly story about a company altering the nature of a fictious doll/icon is kind of Bill O's thing. Fake outrage at an incredibly trivial matter. I guess you are a big GI Joe Fan huh? COBRA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, why is this an issue? Whenever something such as a toy or a comic gets a silver screen adaptation, lots of things get changed to contemporize the story and make it more appealing to the masses. It's not about being anti-American, it's about making money globally.

First it was "Truth, Justice and all the other stuff."

Now this............

What will the libs think of next?

Change the National Anthem?

sleepygenie-weenie,

If you haven't seen the assault on Christmas during the last decade or so, then you're as stupid as I always thought you were. While it may be "trivial" to idiots such as yourself, there are many of us who cherish tradition.

Of course, with you, it's all about being an a**hole, isn't it?

All this outrage over some toy, probably made in China besides, while the corrupt Bush Administration foams at the mouth to send real "GI Joes" into another catastrophic war.

Iran.

"because they are a bunch of gutless losers."

Oh, puhleeese, Mark. Can you can the tired old crap of bashing Liberals. Where were your Christian values when you made this hateful statement?

I didn't see you crying out when they made Transformers into a movie that completely deviated from the cartoon - but then again, you couldn't find a way to bash Liberals in Transformers, could you?

Grow up, Mark, as I've said a million times before. This Liberal-hating agenda of yours gets REALLY tiresome.

By the way, the Superman quote of "Truth,justice and all the other stuff" was only a very small part in a very larger themed movie. You people always take it out of context. Even in this movie, Superman was portrayed as a VERY Christ-like character with wonderful morals and a hope to help all humankind. How can you not see that as good? Put that in your pipe and smoke it, all of you Christians who are not very good examples of Christianity (like Mark and Jeremiah and AAR with their constant bashing and hatred of alll things Liberal.)

From the story

Well, who cares. G.I. Joe is just a toy, right? He was never real. Right?

On Nov. 15, 2003, an 85-year-old retired Marine Corps colonel died of congestive heart failure at his home in La Quinta, Calif., southeast of Palm Springs. He was a combat veteran of World War II. His name was Mitchell Paige.

It's hard today to envision -- or, for the dwindling few, to remember -- what the world looked like on Oct. 25, 1942 -- 65 years ago.

The U.S. Navy was not the most powerful fighting force in the Pacific. Not by a long shot. So the Navy basically dumped a few thousand lonely American Marines on the beach at Guadalcanal and high-tailed it out of there.

(You old swabbies can hold the letters. I've written elsewhere about the way Bull Halsey rolled the dice on the night of Nov. 13, 1942, violating the stern War College edict against committing capital ships in restricted waters and instead dispatching into the Slot his last two remaining fast battleships, the South Dakota and the Washington, escorted by the only four destroyers with enough fuel in their bunkers to get them there and back. By 11 p.m., with the fire control systems on the South Dakota malfunctioning, with the crews of those American destroyers cheering her on as they treaded water in an inky sea full of flaming wreckage, "At that moment Washington was the entire U.S. Pacific Fleet," writes naval historian David Lippman. "If this one ship did not stop 14 Japanese ships right then and there, America might lose the war. ..." At midnight precisely, facing those impossible odds, the battleship Washington opened up with her 16-inch guns. If you're reading this in English, you should be able to figure out how she did.)

But the Washington's one-sided battle with the Kirishima was still weeks in the future. On Oct. 25, Mitchell Paige was back on the God-forsaken malarial jungle island of Guadalcanal.

On Guadalcanal, the Marines struggled to complete an airfield that could threaten the Japanese route to Australia. Admiral Yamamoto knew how dangerous that was. Before long, relentless Japanese counterattacks had driven the supporting U.S. Navy from inshore waters. The Marines were on their own.

As Platoon Sgt. Mitchell Paige and his 33 riflemen set about carefully emplacing their four water-cooled .30-caliber Brownings on that hillside, 65 years ago this week -- manning their section of the thin khaki line that was expected to defend Henderson Field against the assault of the night of Oct. 25, 1942 -- it's unlikely anyone thought they were about to provide the definitive answer to that most desperate of questions: How many able-bodied U.S. Marines does it take to hold a hill against 2,000 armed and motivated attackers?

But by the time the night was over, "The 29th (Japanese) Infantry Regiment has lost 553 killed or missing and 479 wounded among its 2,554 men," historian Lippman reports. "The 16th (Japanese) Regiment's losses are uncounted, but the 164th's burial parties handled 975 Japanese bodies. ... The American estimate of 2,200 Japanese dead is probably too low."

You've already figured out where the Japanese focused their attack, haven't you? Among the 90 American dead and seriously wounded that night were all the men in Mitchell Paige's platoon. Every one. As the night of endless attacks wore on, Paige moved up and down his line, pulling his dead and wounded comrades back into their foxholes and firing a few bursts from each of the four Brownings in turn, convincing the Japanese forces down the hill that the positions were still manned.

The citation for Paige's Medal of Honor picks up the tale: "When the enemy broke through the line directly in front of his position, P/Sgt. Paige, commanding a machine gun section with fearless determination, continued to direct the fire of his gunners until all his men were either killed or wounded. Alone, against the deadly hail of Japanese shells, he fought with his gun and when it was destroyed, took over another, moving from gun to gun, never ceasing his withering fire."

In the end, Sgt. Paige picked up the last of the 40-pound, belt-fed Brownings and did something for which the weapon was never designed. Sgt. Paige walked down the hill toward the place where he could hear the last Japanese survivors rallying to move around his flank, the belt-fed gun cradled under his arm, firing as he went.

Coming up at dawn, battalion executive officer Major Odell M. Conoley was the first to discover how many able-bodied United States Marines it takes to hold a hill against two regiments of motivated, combat-hardened infantrymen who have never known defeat.

On a hill where the bodies were piled like cordwood, Mitchell Paige alone sat upright behind his 30-caliber Browning, waiting to see what the dawn would bring.

The hill had held, because on the hill remained the minimum number of able-bodied United States Marines necessary to hold the position.

And that's where the unstoppable wave of Japanese conquest finally crested, broke, and began to recede. On an unnamed jungle ridge on an insignificant island no one ever heard of, called Guadalcanal.

When the Hasbro Toy Co. called some years back, asking permission to put the retired colonel's face on some kid's doll, Mitchell Paige thought they must be joking.

But they weren't. That's his mug, on the little Marine they call "G.I. Joe." At least, it has been up till now.

Mitchell Paige's only condition? That G.I. Joe must always remain a United States Marine.

But don't worry. Far more important for our new movies not to offend anyone in Cairo or Karachi or Paris or Palembang.

After all, it's only a toy. It doesn't mean anything.

I have been reading Vin's articles in Shotgun News and other magazines for years. The gun owners are very important part of the republican party. A endorsement from Vin would mean to me what the endorsement of the Rainbow Coalition/or Triangle Foundation might mean to a leftist. I'd rather see a candidate that would go to a place like the Knob Creek Kentucky Machine Gun Shoot and have a photo op of the Candidate making swiss cheese out of an old car with a G.E Minigun and take a pledge to fight the people that hate freedom here in America and at the U.N. Where Rebecca Peters and some of the worst of the worst leftists have already tricked people out of their freedom in England, Canada, Australia The NRA can fill you in on the details. Sudan and other places in the world need the NRA and freedom. What has the U.N really done that has improved lifes of people. It lets the world have a chance to speak about issues together. But beyond that their blue helmet military force has not been an effective fighting force. And they need to respect American Freedom and Our 2nd Amendment.