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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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Re: Are we better than them?
Date: 2007-07-26 08:54 pm (UTC)It takes a different type of person, sort of.
Ukraine has conscripts. I divides them into groups. The RA conscripts, tend to belong, in general, to the box o' rocks sort of soldier.
Is this because they are? Or because they get treated that way?
Some are (I recall one, his Lt was doing his best, but he wasn't suited to the life. Nice enough kid, but not a soldier; and he was taking a long time to master the handling of a BTR).
The ones who were in "elite" units, they had as much esprit as we did, and were just as competent. Trained harder.
Across the board I see that. Putting up with the crap, and the looks down the nose, and the other stuff... it marks one. That sense of apartness is common to soldiers, everywhere.
I feel better for it. I know that I have done things they haven't. Things that some of them can't.
I also know that I felt that way when I was a working journalist. I'd been to fires, murder scenes, inside the tape for bomb-scares. I could make a phone call, and get to see people most folks couldn't.
Honestly, that's the problem in the Washington press corps right now. They see themselves as apart from the people they serve.
But yeah, I'm proud of the rest of the Army, and my comrades, and the whole miserable lot of us, from here, to there, and all the way back to the first time some sorry recruit had a Drill Sergeant tell him he wasn't fit to clean worm shit out of stables, much less be a member of "his" army.
"Here's to us, and them's like us."
"Damn'd few left."
TK