Burns captured horror, triumph of World War II
I was deeply moved by Ken Burns' epic series, "The War." Sadly, of the 16 million of us who served, only octogenarians survived to see it. Burns showed World War II the way it was, in all its unspeakable horror but ultimate triumph. Though that war was unavoidable, all wars are horrendous and obscene.
I saw many of his scenes during my trek across Europe, from landing on Omaha Beach after D-Day to the occupation of Berlin. As an artillery officer, I did not charge machine gun nests or fly in B-17s, but I had some harrowing experiences and earned four battle stars.
I cannot see firsthand the conditions of the present conflict, though I think that nothing there approaches the large-scale, sustained ferocity of Guadalcanal, Okinawa, the Normandy invasion or the Battle of the Bulge. But our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are fighting bravely and loyally, and we at home honor and support them.
Human beings seem willing to kill each other savagely after enough rhetoric and encouragement from monstrous or misguided leaders. Even America, which we regard as peace-loving, readily dispatches troops to places difficult to locate on a map. Sherman put it succinctly, "War is hell."
Dan W. Maddox
Greensboro
Comments (9)
To report abuse of the comment feature on this site, please use the feedback form at the bottom of any page.
Jeeze Don, with this I thought you were a Republican - "But our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are fighting bravely and loyally, and we at home honor and support them."
.. but then you had to display your true LIEbural (or is it Socialist) leanings with this - "Human beings seem willing to kill each other savagely after enough rhetoric and encouragement from monstrous or misguided leaders."
Hey let's play the Label Game!
Posted on October 24, 2007 5:25 AM
Dan,
Thank you for your service.
My father was a Navy corpsman serving with the Seabees in the Pacific. He rarely talked of his experiences.
I can only hope my generation (the "boomers") can prove to be deserving of a similar legacy.
Posted on October 24, 2007 6:30 AM
`
"Human beings seem willing to kill each other savagely after enough rhetoric and encouragement from monstrous or misguided leaders."
Yep! Dick Cheney and George Bush never saw war but have no problem using other people's children for their little chess game.
`
Posted on October 24, 2007 8:30 AM
Agreed Ellis .. perhaps our boomers generation can do something .. I find we're a little self-centered, but those following us are down-right narcistic.
fwiw - My father was in the Navy too, but he missed the Pacific war by a few months. He did use the G.I. Bill to get a masters in Electrical Engineering. His younger brother did the Navy as a career thing, and my grandfather served apparently without distinction in WWI. I was ready to fly jets for the navy in 1970, but they rejected me due to non-perfect eye sight. The Army offered me chopters, but with 'nam raging that didn't seem too smart. Besides, what 17 year old wants to loop around the jungles at 100 knots when there are afterburners to engage?
Posted on October 24, 2007 8:53 AM
One thing every combat veteran has in common with each other. And, it does not matter which war era you took part in. WW-II, Korea, Vietnam, the other combat times like Dominican Republic, Panama, Grenada, Somalia, and the current combat now taking place. The things that happened, your comrades that lost their lives, the smell of expended explosives, the sounds that tone deafened you, the literal horror that surrounded you...will never leave you.
You will remember everything just like it occurred a few minutes earlier. You can never turn it off, for the rest of your life. Of every event in your life no matter how old you get, the experience of combat will always remain in the forefront of your life. It will never go away as long as you live.
As a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, I tell people that I served, but I can not speak of the actual terror without getting emotional. I was a medical aidman, and for the rest of my life I stand judged in my own mind of myself, the buddies I lost. Even though, I knew that they were so grieviously wounded that no medical miracle could keep them alive, I still feel the failure and guilt.
Even today, I live in a private rage of my memories in my mind, that maybe something, anything, that I may have missed. That's why I was diagnosed with Post Truamatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) by the Veterans Administration several years ago.
Yeah, I know, it's only in my mind, but it's real as can be to me. Well, this is my morning rant, The Dogs outa here.
Crime Dog
Posted on October 24, 2007 9:41 AM
Roosevelt lied, people died.
Posted on October 24, 2007 10:10 AM
Dan, my dad served in the Navy in the Pacific. He fibbed about his age and got in the Army Air Corps, they figured it out after boot camp and gave him an honorable discharge, which he then took to the Navy and they enlisted him. He doesn't talk about it much either.
He's got a scrap book full of interesting stuff from China and Japan at the end of the war.
Posted on October 24, 2007 2:07 PM
Dog, thank-you for your sacrifice.
Posted on October 24, 2007 2:09 PM
Crime Dog, JDR et.al.,
I spent the first half of the 70's in the Navy, hoping to replicate whatever it was that made my father such a self-deprecating and endearing man. By the end of my first enlistment, I missed my wife and son on those three month deployments so much that I opted to come back to Greensboro. I never got over the feeling that I let someone down, although my father seemed proud of everything I did to grow here.
God bless those who give up so much- I try hard never to take my freedom for granted.
And especially, God bless you and keep you, Crime Dog.
Posted on October 25, 2007 6:57 AM