We've got bases all over the world. Can't remember the exact percentage, but aren't about half our forces overseas somewhere? I know well over half the combat units are.

Think about that for a minute. Most of our Army (and Navy, Air Force, etc.) isn't in our own country. Name one other country in which that is true. How many German Army bases are there in the U.S.? How many Cuban Navy bases? How man British Royal Air Force bases?

None. Not one.

Without going into all the specific ways that our concept of what the military is for differ from other people's concepts, I think it should be fairly obvious that no one else in the world grows up with the same idea of how to employ/deploy armed forces as people who grow up in the U.S. The question is, how often do those differences cause misunderstandings in international relations?

Well, this is the first I've ever heard of them. Not that I'm doubting you, I just never heard that. I can just imagine the debates in Texas, of all places, when someone suggested it.

Still, we've got major military presence in lots of places. It's not at all unusual for our sons or daughters (or our selves) to get sent to do a tour in Germany or England or Cuba or ... I still wonder how much of the world's antipathy for the U.S. stems from our assumption that it is "normal" for us to have military bases in their countries.