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pecuniumH/T to soldiergrrrl
Their War
It's simplistic, and shallow, but it raises some interesting points.
War is one of those things that, if you haven't been, you can't understand.
You can read about it. The Red Badge of Courage, Generals Die in Bed, The Old Breed, Dog Tags, The Soldier Prize will all give you a taste of what it was like.
You can add Birdy, and Catch-22, and Rumors of War, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Odd Shot in Anger, The Good Soldier and any number of history books.
It's a pale shadow of what it's like. Even someone like me who had a "quiet" personal war sees things, feels things knows things that are seen, at best, as through a glass darkly to those who have never been there. "Seeing the elephant" changes you.
I'll offer up this excerpt, from the article.
Col. David Close watches over the training of Marines such as Tuyishimire.
"When I think of patriotism," the colonel says, "I think of selfless service. I think of the people that are dying." Suddenly, his eyes redden. His mouth quivers. "I have a hard time with the families left behind." The words stop coming.
He's a tall, rangy man, hair bristling gray. He looks like a man who should be carrying a sword, not fighting tears. When he speaks again, his voice shakes. "The word patriotism rings hollow with that. There are no words for it. It can't be explained."
His voice steadies as he describes a scene that movies have made familiar: a recent death notification on the base, the official car driving through a neighborhood of enlisted family housing on a Saturday morning, the young women who were outside setting up a yard sale all going still, waiting to see where the car would stop.
"That's patriotism,"
soldiergrrrl Their War
It's simplistic, and shallow, but it raises some interesting points.
War is one of those things that, if you haven't been, you can't understand.
You can read about it. The Red Badge of Courage, Generals Die in Bed, The Old Breed, Dog Tags, The Soldier Prize will all give you a taste of what it was like.
You can add Birdy, and Catch-22, and Rumors of War, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Odd Shot in Anger, The Good Soldier and any number of history books.
It's a pale shadow of what it's like. Even someone like me who had a "quiet" personal war sees things, feels things knows things that are seen, at best, as through a glass darkly to those who have never been there. "Seeing the elephant" changes you.
I'll offer up this excerpt, from the article.
Col. David Close watches over the training of Marines such as Tuyishimire.
"When I think of patriotism," the colonel says, "I think of selfless service. I think of the people that are dying." Suddenly, his eyes redden. His mouth quivers. "I have a hard time with the families left behind." The words stop coming.
He's a tall, rangy man, hair bristling gray. He looks like a man who should be carrying a sword, not fighting tears. When he speaks again, his voice shakes. "The word patriotism rings hollow with that. There are no words for it. It can't be explained."
His voice steadies as he describes a scene that movies have made familiar: a recent death notification on the base, the official car driving through a neighborhood of enlisted family housing on a Saturday morning, the young women who were outside setting up a yard sale all going still, waiting to see where the car would stop.
"That's patriotism,"
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Can we as civilians, understand war?
Date: 2007-07-26 06:30 am (UTC)No.
It is like myself. I am a male, and no matter how a woman might try to explain the love, the bonding, the stretching of the uterus, the pain of childbirth, the unconditional love she feels for her offspring, I will never understand what to be a mother feels like.
I might try to rationalize the experience, put it into perspective, try to empathize, but after all that effort, I will come up very, very short of the actual knowledge and/or experience of motherhood.
And for me, patriotism means going to the fray again and again and again, not thinking about what could happen to my material being.
Patriotism for me, means being thankful for being born in this country of ours, and putting up the time and effort to say thanks to who and what we are, with our problems, our faults, our mistakes and our stupidity.
Patriotism means I have food on my plate, a non-leaking roof over my head, and the freedom to drive the 25 miles it takes me to go visit my mother whenever I please. It means I can look at an ignorant teenager wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt, not knowing what he really stood for, and tolerate.
Patriotism means, living in that gang infested neighborhood, and going back to it because you know you can make a difference, even if it is just to make the son of a gang member smile and learn that the world is not that pathetic ghetto, but a wonderful place that can be improved, if we all give half an effort.