June 04, 2004

• *winces, removes cap, takes a moment* *then slaps whatever teachers are responsible for such ignorant schoolchildren*
• "I asked him how he knew material which we had not covered in school. He told me he had picked it up from a D-Day game he played on his computer." re: Primary school student scoring a 100% on the test.
• i've always found it interesting that movies, songs, books, etc. etc. etc., recount with intricate detail the various battles of assorted wars. i know, i know, we should remember lest we forget. that i agree with. but it seems to me that people -- OK, men specifically -- ENJOY this. enjoy reliving the memories. there's something sick about that, to me.
• To be completely honest, most of my understanding of WWII has come first from games (Close Combat was one) and film, and then from my own reading, encounters with veterans, and research. We covered the last 75 years of history in my junior year in about two months. In two months you can barely mention all of the things in the last 75 years, let alone teach them. Which is a shame, because recent history is just as interesting as ancient history. And just as important, from a "don't repeat it" standpoint.
• I'm not sure if I can call it sick, SideDish. I mean, let's face facts. The stories of warfare are fascinating, and it is a perfect subject for the examination of the human condition. A good portion of it is also hero worship of our elders, which people like myself or Stephen Ambrose are certainly guilty of from time to time. And to be able to live vicariously through the media of the events allows them to live the event without the fear of death, while picking up the other elements of why these things happened.
• but it's WAR, for chrissakes. hideous, awful, bloody, wasteful war. why as humans would we want to live that, even vicariously? i just cannot fathom why human beings are drawn to warfare, again and again. sigh.
• Normandy was an American victory... But this is enough for the British coxswains. They raise the cry: "We can't go in there. We can't see the landmarks. We must pull off." In the command boat, Captain Ettore V. Zappacosta pulls a Colt .45 and says: "By God, you'll take this boat straight in." FRIGHTENED coxswains in the other four craft take one quick look, instinctively draw back, and then veer right and left away from the Able Company shambles. So doing, they dodge their duty... Fifty yards out, Pingenot yells: "Drop the ramp!" The coxswain freezes on the rope, refusing to lower. Staff Sergeant Odell L. Padgett jumps him, throttles him, and bears him to the floor. Padgett's men lower the rope and jump for the water. Is this typical for The Atlantic?... Twisting a co-ordinated Allied victory (Americans, British, and Canadians took part) and making it look like the brave Americans single-handedly overcame not only the enemy, but the cowardly British, too? For me, it ruined an otherwise compelling and chilling account of the invasion.
• why are we practically alone among all other species in fighting wars?
• but it's WAR, for chrissakes. hideous, awful, bloody, wasteful war. why as humans would we want to live that, even vicariously? Because for some, right or wrong, war is more than the waste and violence. Some still hold onto the outdated belief of courage, sacrifice, and duty, and feel that serving is the only way to test that. For reference, see things like the St. Crispen's Day Speech or the poems of Walt Whitman. Yes, war is bad, worthless, and bloody. There are some, however, who still subscribe to the old philosophies on it.
• part of it is probably the real-life "drama" of it all (gunfire, big tanks, explosions). there are few (if any?) movies, etc., on intense negotiations that actually headed off wars. just people sitting around a table arguing, i guess. sigh.
• My Grandad fought with the Americans on D-Day, and almost his entire squadron were killed before they had even reached the shore. I don't think I've ever heard him speak about that day. He spent most of the rest of the war behind enemy lines, which is where he met my Nan, who was sheltering American and British soldiers and pilots, and helping to smuggle them to safety.
• Dish, a couple recent "avoid-the-war" movies that spring to mind are Crimson Tide and The Sum of All Fears... avoid the noid
• Yes, war is bad, worthless, and bloody The men who fought the Normandy invasion, and other battles in that war, saved our collective hides. I wouldn't call that worthless. For those in the "War is always bad" camp: What would be your alternative to participation in WWII? Was it wrong for the allied countries to enter the war? Was it wrong for the men and women of those counrties to fight or otherwise support the war effort? Are all wars unjustified?
• No, you're correct, rocket88. My comment should have read "War is often bad, worthless, and blood". Sometimes there just is no other choice or better options.
• Let me back up and apologize a bit here, shawnj...I just noticed your remarks in the Tenet thread that basically make my criticism of you way off-base. Sorry.
• SideDish raises an intersting question: why do men seem to look upon wars (especially those they don't participate in) with such seeming nostalgia? I think several reasons: one, men by and large are the only gender that seem to appreciate, on an aesthetic level, the dark beauty of destruction. Do you ever hear women talk gleefully about the things they blew up with firecrackers and pipe-bombs when they were adolescents? nope. Another point is that most men - men who, by and large, hold their careers as the ultimate judgement of their worth as men - live rather banal lives. How many of us will be able to say that, at the end of our lives, we have done something dramatic? That we've lived lives of dash and elan, that in the final accounting we (to paraphrase Hunter Thompson) stomped on the tarmac? Very very few. Yet in every man's heart, there exists a desire to do Something Great and Noble - even if we die in the attempt. There is something venomously attractive to the idea of going out in a blaze of glory, and making an indelible mark, however small, on history that says "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" the other side of that is that each man, in his heart, does not know for sure if he is or isn't a coward until he has been tested. No man knows until it happens what he will do when that test comes - if it EVER comes. Most men never face that test, and go to their graves wondering: was I a courageous man, which one might as well read: was I a man at all? We see the trials of the D-Day soldiers and, while aghast at the costs, we cannot help but wonder: would I have died? Would I have wept? Would I have been a hero? And we secretly envy those men who have gone through that test, for they know in their hearts, either way, what they truly are.
• SideDish, don't you think it a bit naive that we, as humans, can forego war when necessity calls for it? hideous, awful, bloody, wasteful war is one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is hopeful, liberating, freedom-spreading, moral war. And yes, I believe there is something to be said for fighting for a right cause.
• really good points, fes. in the same way, i guess, that some guys (who haven't been to war) keep reliving their one touchdown that won the high-school championship -- their one moment of "glory." also, i should clarify my remarks re war is worthless: i certainly realize that yes indeed the world war II vets did save the world and for that i'm eternally grateful. but all the lives that were lost were such a pity. if there had only been some logical way to avoid the bloodshed -- killing hitler, perhaps? that was tried, too bad it didn't work. (they still annually mark that day in germany, by the way, the failed assasination attempt on hitler's life.) killing people instead of some other way to solve the world's problem is what's a waste. just think of all the positive contributions all those dead GIs could have made.
• f8x, wouldn't it be far better to have hopeful, liberating, freedom-spreading, moral, um, discussions and negotiations? i know that's totally naive. what i'm saying is, i wonder WHY that's naive. i wonder why humans so quickly turn to violence.
• Is anything worth 50 million corpses?
• yeah, dng, that's my point.
• Yes. Survival of the species, stopping the oppression of a large chunk of the world's population, defending one's home country from occupation by unwanted occupiers. Although it's not like there's a way to cost/benefit these things.
• Sixty years ago men were lining up to volunteer for the war. Pacifism and opposition were almost non-existant (in fact, much of the opposition came from fascists sympathetic to the Nazi cause). Today, even career soldiers are reluctant to fight wars, while anti-war protests are common and well-attended. Have we (as a society, or as individuals) changed? Are we less courageous? Do we lack the sense of duty and sacrifice our grandparents had? Or have the wars changed? Is it because we're no longer fighting to preserve our way of life from foreign tyrants bent on world domination, but, in fact, fighting to impose our way of life on others? Would we, if necessary, be able to do what the "Greatest Generation" did?
• Well spoken, Fes - and thank you for such a thoughtful response. But aren't there positive, non-violent ways of accomplishing great things and proving your courageousness and manhood? I don't single you out for the question, but there must be another way if we want to avoid extinction.
• and why do we keep glorifying war in the arts?
• Is anything worth 50 million corpses? Is anything worth one? Is anything worth yours? or mine? Some things are, some things aren't, but in the end it is, as always, the payer who determines the worth of anything. But aren't there positive, non-violent ways of accomplishing great things and proving your courageousness and manhood? Certainly there are! There are some that take a great deal of pride and accomplishment in the simple fact that they lived good lives, were ethical men who saw to their families and neighbors, and left this world a better place, if only in some small way, than they entered it. Many devote their energies to their work, building whatever it is they build, and enjoying and sharing the fruits of that labor. Some devote themselves to athletics, to politics, to charity. But the Duality of Man isn't just a quip from Matthew Modine in Full Metal Jacket; we all have a Dionysis opposite the Appolo, a Vader who walks alongside our internal Skywalker, the bad Kirk without whom the good Kirk cannot function. It is he who drinks and revels in the barroom brawl; he who drives 100 in the right lane sans seatbelt; he who sees the tight-jeaned young woman and seethes in covetousness. War is that man's best gaming table, and the wager is always the ultimate one. Everything else either belongs to Apollo or serve only to temporary slake Dionysis.
• (monkeyfilter: seethes in covetousness)
• Is this typical for The Atlantic?... Not typically (I'm a longtime reader). Just note that the article is essentially one veteran's notes, written up in 1960. Although, to be honest, this isn't the first time that I heard an Omaha Beach vet complain about the British coxswains.
• Sixty years ago men were lining up to volunteer for the war. Both of my Grandads could have sat out the war - one too young, the other a miner, which was considered too important to allow them to join up - and both lied to enlist. Would I do the same - I really don't know. Its an unanswerable question. But then, if I had to sleep in the London underground every night, and get up every morning to my home town in ruins and on fire, I would think I would.
• i wonder why humans so quickly turn to violence. That's not completely true, Sidedish, Maybe there's still to much violence in this world but it has reduced quite dramaticaly from what it was. And the natural world is much more violent and fierce than our domesticated lives by a mile. It's our increasing intolerance to violence that makes us believe we are the worst of the worst. and why do we keep glorifying war in the arts? It's escapism. And maybe it contributes to make us more tranquil and peaceful don't you think? Me, I'm more positive than ever about the human race. It's precisely that outrage that you express, Sidedish, a good example of how our cultures are becoming more pacifists.
• What really sadens me is how, at the same time, our civilizations are becoming more and more pessimistic by the minute. It seem that humans can no longer celebrate that we are still here and we are improving. If we continue this trend we will stop fighting the good fight and do a collective suicide. Case in point.
• WAR: 1 a (1) : a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations. Politicians wage war, and they, IMO, rate just below lawyers on the human scale.
• That's what Clausewitz said, yeah. Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln (I:I, item 24)
• "Why do we keep glorifying war in the arts?'--SD From the Bible to the Sopranos, Love and Death, and their rougher step-children, Sex and Violence, often DEFINE us. For every "Delta Force" there is certainly a "Trojan Women".
• SideDish: Tired canard. Humans are not the only animals that indulge in warfare. Chimps, for example, engage in both intra- and inter-species warfare. Pretty much every predatory pack animal, from the small (mongeese and meerkats) to the large will cheerfully gang up on and exterminate others. War is be bad, but don't bring soft-headed, muddled naturalistic fallacies to the table, please. And as I get older, I'm increasingly amused to listen to people whine about "the youth of today" (I know it's supposed to be the other way around), and this is a great example why. Shock, horror, a kid today doesn't know the details of battles of World War II. Big deal; how many British kids in 1965 could have told you about key battles in the Boer War, an incredibly improtant (at the time) war for Britain and her Empire?
• SideDish: I know this is going to sound a little odd, given the prominent place war holds in the public psyche, but I often worry about the opposite thing. Why are we, as a society, trying to forget about war? For generations, the part of our society tasked with the systematic understanding of war and its effects have been the military historians. However, in recent years, the historical profession has turned its back on this subject. The arguments are very much those which you cite: war is bad, dirty, destructive, traumatic. People who show an interest in war must deluded or sick. Isn't it time we concentrate on something nicer and more empowering? The result of this has been an alarmingly rapid atrophication of jobs for military historians. This is particularly true in the United States, a country that has the greatest preponderance of military power the world has ever seen and which is currently engaged in several major military campaigns. But the American academic community doesn't want to know. Despite the ever more acute need for people who can talk knowlagably about war, despite having the largest academic comunity in the world, there was one civilian sector job opening for a military historian, in all of the US, last year. One. War is important. War effects us all. We need to understand war. We cannot continue to stick our collective fingers in our collective ears and sing happy tunes in the hopes that it will all just go away. Rather than wonder why people might be interested in these dramatic, terrifying, life overturning, globe changing events, I ask why should we be so keen to forget?
• It's a big deal because unlike the Boer War, it is important as a species that we don't forget the reasons and lessons of the 40s.
• shawnj: why should we forget the Anglo-Boer war? In many ways, that conflic is more pertinent today than WWII.
• dread: i hope you'll permit me to explore that issue in a story. that is certainly newsworthy, as you say, the "alarmingly rapid atrophication of jobs for military historians." that's fascinating. it's a very tricky issue: how to remember/commemorate war and how it fits into the human experience, without overtly "celebrating" it. i think all of us here can agree that war has shaped the world as we know it possibly more than nearly anything else. and i think we can all also agree that while it is indeed hellish, often it is sadly necessary. i wonder if we humans will ever get to the point where it is not? as i said, i'm going to look into the disappearing military historian angle for a story. i'll contact you. hope you don't mind me stealing your idea! :-)
• You misread my comment. I'm not suggesting that the Boer War get thrown down the memory hole. The concepts of over-confidence and stacking the cups too high are good ones. However, I'll make the point again, they are in no way as relevant as the concept that we must watch out for fascism, especially in this age of nuclear weapons. One is about the survival of one nation. The other lesson is about the survival of the entire world's population.
• as i said, i'm going to look into the disappearing military historian angle for a story. i'll contact you. hope you don't mind me stealing your idea! :-) Oh, by all means do a story! I'm not a reporter; I'm a military historian, and I want the world to know. : ) Please contact me.
• NPR's All Things Considered on D-Day
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