BS: I met a real war hero

Subject: BS: I met a real war hero
From: skipy
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 09:52 AM

Last weekend accompanied by 2 other male catters (no names, no pack drill) I did a 3 day visit to sword & juno beaches to mark the 62 anni. of D Day, on the boat we met a sprightly gentelmen of 84 years.
It was an honour & a priviledge to spend several hours with him.
He was awarded a medal on June 7th at the Merville battery. After the ceremony he gave us a guided tour, here is his story:-

Walter Johnson Pte
12 Platoon C company
9th Parachute Battalion
3rd Brigade, 6th Airborne Divison

Walter originally enlisted in the Worcester Regiment when he was sixteen and a half. When war was declared in 1939, he was too young to go to France with the BEF so he was posted to the Tyne Electrical Engineers who were stationed in Pegswood, near Morpeth. During the next three years, he was moved from post to post and did spells with a searchlight regiment and an AA regiment. He got so fed up that he applied to go on a Glider Pilot course at Padgate in Lancashire. He failed the course but was selected for Airborne Forces.

Although the standards were very demanding, Walter got his wings by doing he eight jumps from Ringway Airport and dropping at Tatton Park. He passed out with flying colours.

At Kiwi Barracks, Bulford, on Salisbury Plain, he joined the 9th Parachute Battalion, which was then being formed. Being very fit and a bit of an extrovert, he settled in very well, learning how to handle the various weapons: grenades, Gammon Bombs and the fighting knife. He was a popular soldier and got on well with the rest of his comrades.

After Christmas of 1943, they were sent on special training as his battalion, being the youngest, with age ranges of 18-28, was being trained for special operations. Walter recalls that the things they were expected to do were not normal tasks for good people.

After 30th May 1944, the battalion was confined to its transit camp at Broadwell in the Cotswolds. At 11.15 p.m. on the night of the 5th June 1944, the battalion took off from Broadwell in 35 Dakotas of 512 Squadron. They had been preceded by the pathfinders who were to land in advance of the main force, identifying the dropping zones and lay out the Eurekas for the pilots of the troop carrying aircraft to locate. Approaching the Normandy coast, things started to go wrong. Enemy anti-aircraft fire burst around the Dakota in which Walter was riding, but, although they were flying lower than expected, they all got out safely.

As he floated down at about 11.55 p.m., he could see lots of water and plenty of trees, and he landed 'right on the top of the biggest'. After swinging about for what seemed like 20 minutes he eventually managed to reach the ground and in the dark, immediately walked into a ditch of full of water.

Like many paratroopers that night he was lost, and with all his equipment soaking wet from his unwanted bath, he didn't know which way to go. Surrounded by mooing cows, he made his way down a track, eventually coming across other paratroopers and linking up with them. Time was now getting on and they were delayed even further by the need to hide from German patrols. They got to the RV at about 3.30 am 6th June and joined other men who had found their own way. They now numbered about 150 and they spent the next half-hour on tenterhooks wondering if they had been detected but they remained unseen. By this time they had reached their objective, the battery at Merville. There should have been 500 of them in the battalion!

It later transpired that the Drop Zone codenamed V where the battalion was to have dropped was like a bog with interesting ditches making assembly difficult. In addition most of the pathfinder equipment was lost or damaged and thus the gliders carrying the battalion's heavy equipment landed astray.

Machine guns opened up as the attack started and from there on it was 'bloody terrible, bullets and grenades everywhere'. This was no place to stay alive and after 5 minutes Walter had been wounded right outside casement number 2. Germans were everywhere, running and shooting. In some cases there was hand to hand fighting but Walter's hand was pinned to the butt of his weapon. A nearby explosion threw him to the ground and he felt as though he was on fire. Chaos reigned and he remembers the smell of ether everywhere. Men were being killed all around him and to this day, he does not know how he came to be spared. All he knows is that he finished up in a ditch with four or five German prisoners who 'looked terrible'. A NCO came by, stuck a Sten gun in his left hand and ordered him to watch the prisoners.

Eventually, he managed to reach a nearby chateau and took shelter with other wounded men, including Capt. Hudson and Lt. Jefferson. At about 8.00am on 6th June an Allied air-raid dropped bombs all aound the chateau. By now it was dark again, and they were, once again, surrounded by Germans, the battalion having moved on to Le Plein, their next objective. It wasn't until late in the morning that a party, led by the padre, Rev. Gwinter, arrived with a jeep and evacuated Walter and three other casualties. They were driven to the Le Mesnil advanced dressing station to have their wounds seen to. Walter suffered from a hole in his hand where he had lost a knuckle, a smashed elbow and some shrapnel in his forehead. After recuperation he returned to his battalion in September 1944.

Later on in the war, during the advance through Ardennes his company was informed of an atrocity. The retreating Germans had gathered 34 young men in a sawmill, shot them in the back of the head, thrown them into a pit and blown the roof in on them. Walter and his mates had the job of digging them out. It was the middle of winter and the victims had become frozen in the positions in which they had died; they had to be thawed out, and then straightened out before they could be buried in coffins brought by the RASC from Antwerp.

He feels that this country takes no account of what these men did. It took him 50 years to get his war pension. As late as 2000, he had to undergo surgery for the removal of shrapnel in his forehead, shrapnel that had been there almost 60 years!

All paratroopers were volunteers.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: alanabit
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 11:10 AM

Thanks for the story. I am glad that people like you are collecting them and retelling them before it is too late. There are thousands of these stories and we should preserve as many as we can.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 11:20 AM

I had the honour of meeting and knowing ex Para Tex Banwell, who died about 5 years ago.
Tex's obituary

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 11:45 AM

I've met several. My father, for example, may have been involved in the liberation of a Japanese POW camp in the Philipines -- I don't know for certain, since he died when I was five. My Uncle Gene helped to liberate Saipan -- one day, after the fighting was mostly done, he was sitting in a tent when a Warrant Officer walked up; it was his brother, Jack.

My father-in-law is currently in cardian intensive care, suffering from septicemia and a heart attack. He landed in NI in 1942, was moved to near Bath, and went into Normandy on D+21 as part of SHAEF Forward -- his job was to be a liason with the Underground. During the Battle of Bulge he earned two Bronze Stars.

These stories should not be lost; the Library of Congress is collecting them in the US.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 12:06 PM

Come to think of it, my old boss in the tombstone-making business was a Navy corpsman (medic to the Marines) who landed on Iwo Jima in the first wave. He didn't talk about it beyond that....

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: DougR
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 02:21 PM

Amazing. I never thought I would see the day when men who have gone to war are the subject of a thread on the Mudcat that recognizes and applauds their heroism.

Anybody want to take bets on when the tone will change in posts that follow? More likely the thread will not have a long life.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: number 6
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 02:26 PM

My father was ... served with the Canadian Armoured core North Africa, Italy, France, Holland, Germany.

He passed away suddenly in 1964. If he was alive today he would be appalled on seeing how the world has evolved. He believed he fought for the war to end of all wars.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: ard mhacha
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 02:36 PM

Doug I am definitely not gung-ho about war and its heroes, but I am interested in the US forces who were stationed in the north of Ireland during the second world war.

When visiting my cousin in West Virginia, Nitro to be exact, I met a couple of men from WV who recognised my accent and during the conversaion they told me they were frequent visitors to my town before they embarked for France.

The time has moved on when our local press would have featured a story on some old US veteran who would have been visiting his old haunts, Paton and Eisenhower visited the troops during there stay.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: DougR
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 02:36 PM

Those who fought WW!, number 6, thought the same thing.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: ard mhacha
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 02:38 PM

Sorry I should have added that my visit to West Virginia was in 1971.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: akenaton
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 02:57 PM

My Grandfather was a fine man, he fought in France in W W 1.
He and his four boyhood friends joined the Black Watch at the outbreak of war. He saw three of his friends killed beside him and the forth, his best pal, blinded and minus a leg.

My grandfather was very lucky and made it to the end of the war in one piece, but some of the horrors he witnessed changed him forever.

He saw men shot by their own officers, men too terrified to crawl over the top to certain death.
He heard men scream for hours as they lay wounded in a shell hole that was slowly filling with muddy water.
He came to realise that he and his friends...and all the other young men who had come to France on an "Exciting adventure" were less than nothing to the generals and politicians who were in charge.

Grandfather married on his return and he and grandmother had a family of eight children, four girls and four boys.
In the mid thirties he could see the war machine being primed up in Germany assisted by business interests in America and Britain....he knew it was only a matter of time and made sure that his boys were employed in what were to be reserved occupations.
Since my grandfathers experiences in France our family has been firmly anti-war...and more importantly the reasons why war is encouraged or allowed to happen.

Now thats a REAL war hero....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Peace
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 03:20 PM

Well said, Ake.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Peace
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 03:23 PM

My family has had many of its men (and a few of its women) go to war. Few of them ever wished to talk about it.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 03:35 PM

My family, according to tradition, left the Electorate of Hanover to avoid forced military service. We have since served in every war or fight the US has been involved in since the set-to with Blackhawk in 1832. Mexico, Civil War, Indian Wars, Spanish-American, Philipine Insurrection, Nicaragua several times, WW2, Korea, Lebanon (twice), Vietnam, Gulf 1, Iraq, Afghanistan, and times in between.... Heck, one ancestor rode with Pershing against Pancho Villa.

They served, they came back, and while the vets talked about it among themselves they didn't talk about it otherwise. Except to give advice to the youngsters who might be going in: Keep your head down, don't be hero, do your best, don't be a hero, don't volunteer, DON'T BE A F*****G HERO, GODDAMNIT!! No attempt to dissuade enlistment, but no encouragement either.

One of my Civil War ancestors was, among others, at Shiloh, Atlanta, and made the March To The Sea. We only found out about by checking on his unit during the time he was enlisted. He came back and continued being a welldigger.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: akenaton
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 03:38 PM

Thanks Bruce...   Grandfather wanted us all to know what happened to him and his companions....He always said "better to hear the truth from me than to find out for yourselves".

He lived to be eighty four and imparted lots of knowledge on many subjects.
I know you have had the same sort of experience and feel as I do..very fortunate.

If only some of the warriors here had been so lucky....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 03:51 PM

My father was in the war. He drove a tank from the Normandy beachhead until the fall of Germany, and was in a lot of combat. Although he did feel at the time that the Germans had to be defeated, and he was entirely willing to assist in accomplishing that, his general comment about war, based on what he saw and experienced was that it is the stupidest thing people can possibly engage in, and is a total waste of lives, material, and human brilliance. He hated it.

Heroes? Well, they were either all heroes or none of them were. That includes the young Germans who defended the beachhead and died there and the young Americans, Canadians, Britons, French, Poles, and others who assaulted the beachhead. All heroes. Politics be damned. They all had to face the same desperate circumstances as best they could, and live or die as fortune played itself out upon them.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: gnu
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 04:20 PM

Lest we forget. So sad.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 05:48 PM

I think that it was Ben Franklin who said that one man's patriot is another man's traitor, or words to that effect. Ben would have known, with his son and all.

...the old lie:
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Greg F.
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 06:44 PM

i sing of Olaf glad and big

whose warmest heart recoiled at war:

a conscientious object-or



his wellbeloved colonel(trig

westpointer most succinctly bred)

took erring Olaf soon in hand;

but--though an host of overjoyed

noncoms(first knocking on the head

him)do through icy waters roll

that helplessness which others stroke

with brushes recently employed

anent this muddy toiletbowl,

while kindred intellects evoke

allegiance per blunt instruments—

Olaf(being to all intents

a corpse and wanting any rag

upon what God unto him gave)

responds,without getting annoyed

"I will not kiss your fucking flag"



straightway the silver bird looked grave

(departing hurriedly to shave)



but--though all kinds of officers

(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)

their passive prey did kick and curse

until for wear their clarion

voices and boots were much the worse,

and egged the firstclassprivates on

his rectum wickedly to tease

by means of skilfully applied

bayonets roasted hot with heat—

Olaf(upon what were once knees)

does almost ceaselessly repeat

"there is some shit I will not eat"



our president,being of which

assertions duly notified

threw the yellowsonofabitch

into a dungeon,where he died



Christ(of His mercy infinite)

i pray to see;and Olaf, too



preponderatingly because

unless statistics lie he was

more brave than me:more blond than you.



               - e.e.cummings

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 07:12 PM

DougR:

The heros of war are those who bring it to a close, whether by physical conquest or by talking turkey.

The men who fight wars on the orders of others are heroic, indeed.

But the real villains of war are those who consider it a national option when it is not a dire and absolute necessity. People like your friend George, who are willing to bring death to people because it suits their agenda, not because they must. Because he had a choice, George has sent hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths, or ruined their lives. He's the Decider, remember?

A

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 07:42 PM

DougR, your memory must be failing. We've had threads before which were in honour of the men who have fought for our country. I remember posting about my maternal uncle who was on Guadacanal and I also posted a prayer my paternal grandfather wrote for him and others.

One of my dad's best friends, Floyd Coleman, reckons he will be the longest living WWII veteran in America. He says they tell him they are dying off, several thousand a day. He is 92, doesn't need glasses, takes no medications and his doc says, even if he has to start to someday, they can keep him alive for several years. His driver's license was just renewed through 2010 and he is restoring a very special old car.

His son has created an incredible website honouring his father, and eventually, others like him. You may view it by going to Warrior Saga.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: chazkratz
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 07:53 PM

Hear, hear, Amos. And Greg, thanks for posting "Olaf," one of my favorite cummings poems--when first published it had to be "your f.ing flag" and "some s. i will not eat."

I have always been troubled by the last half of the last line--"more blond than you"--for which I cannot imagine a non-racist meaning (coming after "threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon")

I also like this one among his many antiwar writings:

my sweet old etcetera
aunt lucy during the recent

war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting

for,
my sister

Isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds) of socks not to
mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers

etcetera wristers etcetera,my

mother hoped that

i would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my

self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et

cetera
(dreaming,
et
cetera, of
Your smile
Eyes knees and of your Etcetera

Charles

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 07:58 PM

I have many close friends who I consider hero's.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: gnu
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 09:28 PM

My old man was the second fellow in Moncton to join up for WW2 on the day war broke out. Part of his job was to pick up the morning paper for his boss... the lad who was first worked for the local paper. Dad enlisted, along with one brother (the only other brother was underage) and four sisters (the only other sister was married... her husband enlisted).

Each and every one of them echo(ed) the comments above... a terrible waste. Every one a hero to me.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 10:04 PM

Here's a war hero.

http://oldbluejacket.com/CarlosHathcock.htm

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Greg F.
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 10:16 PM

HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

       -Ambrose Bierce

[enlisted as private, 1861, served 4 years; Shiloh, Stone's River, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Kennesaw Moutain(wounded), etc; mustered out as Brevet Captain(for bravery), U.S. Army]

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 10:21 PM

The Germans in WWII had a few fellows just like Sgt Hathcock...expert snipers...professional killing machines. Like him, though, they were fighting in a lost cause. No one seems to refer to them as heroes now for some reason...I suppose it's because the government that employed them has been defunct ever since 1945.

The Russians had a very famous sniper at Stalingrad too, and he killed one of the most famous German snipers, along with hundreds of other Germans. A similar story.

What if, in the afterlife, you got to experience the personal pain and grief you caused to all the families and friends of all the people you gloriously popped off at long range with your sniper rifle? What then?

Would you still feel like a hero? Or would you feel like someone, just an ordinary guy, who got sold a great big bill of goods by a government that used you as its paid exterminator?

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 10:26 PM

War hero..

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 10:27 PM

Both of my parents were veterans of WWII. Dad in India and Burma area and Mom in various places stateside, then in Japan for 18 months after the end of the war. Both would have detested the current warlike posturing of the American government. Both (inadvertently!) died on holidays--Dad on Veteran's Day, Mom six months later on Memorial Day. Given their druthers, I think both would have elected to die on less significant days on the calendar.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 10:34 PM

I've seen and handled Bierce's notebooks from the Civil War.

Carlos Hathcock was one of the most unassuming men you would ever meet. Most true soldiers, of whatever army, are.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 10:40 PM

Yeah, that's my point. Most war heroes are ordinary men, but they're put into an extraordinary situation. And it's not a desirable situation in the least. They do the best they can, like the rest of us.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: number 6
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 10:45 PM

exactly LH. Exactly.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: jimmyt
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 11:12 PM

My Dad lied about his age and joined the Army Airforce. He was but 17 and flew 32 missions from Diss, Suffolk, over Germany. He was a ball turret gunner on a B 17 until the Army fattened him up a bit and with the good EastAnglia beer, he got a bit of weight forcing him to become a tail gunner for the rest of the war. He never talked much about it.

My uncle was shot down after dropping bombs on Bremerhaven in '43 and died in a crash in Denmark. I have been to the site his B 24 crashed with the man who was but a teen and found the wreck rescuing the 2 survivors from the Germans by hiding them in a hay stack until he could get them to the Danish resistance that night. War is a terrible thing.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 11:20 PM

Two poems:

DULCE ET DECORUM EST
         Wilfred Owen

       Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
       Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
       Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
       And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
       Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
       But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
       Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
       Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines6 that dropped behind.

       Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,
       Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
       But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
       And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
       Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
       As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
       In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
       He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

       If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
       Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
       And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
       His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
       If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
       Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
       Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
       Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
       My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
       To children ardent for some desperate glory,
       The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
       Pro patria mori.

NAMING OF PARTS
    Henry Reed

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
          And to-day we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
          Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
          Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
          They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
          For to-day we have naming of parts.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Jun 06 - 09:46 AM

War is a terrible thing. WWII killed my uncle - after suffering for many years with shrapnel near his heart and tortured by memories of what he did to others and had done to him, he put a bullet through his head.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 11 Jun 06 - 08:44 PM

Soldiers who want to be a hero

Are practically zero,

But those who wish they were civilians --

Jesus, they run into millions. -- Graffito, W.W. II

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: If you don't like the fortune, don't eat the cookie. :||

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jun 06 - 11:19 AM

Way up the Thread, good on you Ake, your grandfather was a wise man, I met too many returned soldiers who unlike your grandfather boasted of their time in the army, most of them were brain dead.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: DougR
Date: 12 Jun 06 - 05:24 PM

L. H.: by your definition, then, Osama bin Laden and Zarkawi are/were, heros. The Palestinian who straps bombs to his body and blows up innocent Israeli citizens, the suicide bomber who blows up innocent Iraqi citizens are heros. Not to my way of thinking.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Greg F.
Date: 12 Jun 06 - 06:16 PM

Lets review:

1. Douggie
2. Thinking (implying cognition)

Incompatible.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Peter T.
Date: 12 Jun 06 - 09:07 PM

I think that most people on the Mudcat -- certainly the ones I have met -- have a great reluctance to commit to war. That if it is to be carried out, it should be carried out against a true enemy and only as an absolute last resort and that it should be contributed to by all the members of a democratic society -- for, as someone once said, be careful about getting democracies into wars, they are terrible once aroused. Many people here (me included) had parents who fought in World War II and were taught very early on not to take wars lightly.

This sober assessment of how and when democratic societies should commit to wars bears no resemblance to the last four years; and is at the root of virtually all of the objections I have read here to the current conflicts.   


yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jun 06 - 10:22 PM

Beautifully and concisely put, professor.

Like murder and robbery, any one of us is capable of it in extremis, but declaring that kind of extremis is such a meretricious rationalization that one should haul back VERY hard before deciding it is the truth.

If it is, then kick ass until the matter is settled, quickly. But NEVER when it is not the truth, as in these last four or ten years.

A

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Barry Finn
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 03:07 AM

My father nearly died at Guadacanal. He came home a junkie from being over medicated from near fatal wounds he also came home with a bunch of useless medals that he never cared about. He also marched against the Viet Nam war & hated the same waste & killing. My brother came home from Viet Nam he was a seal on a sub & one of the wasted. He never got over loosing all his sub-school mates in the Scorpion. I go by the VA in Boston once & a while & nearly cry looking at the homeless Nam vets that hang around the area, never came home "right". This nation has a lot of vets that never came home right sleeping in parks, residing in homeless shelters, begging for spare change. Then there are those that are now long gone, the many that came home, the breathing dead waited to die, the drunks, the junkies & the ones that died in prisons. Most never even knew why, some no longer cared why, all for nothing. Were they all heros or was it a total loss? A generation of losses.

This will be our new Viet Nam the next sad generation of returning vets, this will be our future for the next 30 years. Is WHAT worth it? What do you call a hero when they've died for nothing, why hold a parade when there's no pride in what's not been gained.

There are no more parades!!

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Mr Fox
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 07:53 AM

Two more poems:

MCMXIV

Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;

And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;

And the countryside not caring
The place-names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheats' restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word--the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

Phillip Larkin

MESOPOTAMIA

They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,
The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:
But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,
Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?

They shall not return to us, the strong men coldly slain
In sight of help denied from day to day:
But the men who edged their agonies and chid them in their pain,
Are they too strong and wise to put away?

Our dead shall not return to us while Day and Night divide -
Never while the bars of sunset hold.
But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while they died,
Shall they thrust for high employments as of old?

Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour?
When the storm is ended shall we find
How softly but how swiftly they have sidled back to power
By the favour and contrivance of their kind?

Even while they soothe us, while they promise large amends,
Even while they make a show of fear,
Do they call upon their debtors, and take counsel with their friends,
To confirm and re-establish each career?

Their lives cannot repay us - their death could not undo -
The shame that they have laid upon our race.
But the slothfulness that wasted and the arrogance that slew,
Shall we leave it unabated in its place?

Kipling

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 09:17 AM

Thanks for the poems, Mr. Fox, esp. the Kipling.

Peter, as always, so well-put.

Barry, you, too. I agree. The asshole in the White House was raised to believe in Blood for Oil and is being quite blatant about it, as ever:

CAMP DAVID, MD. - President Bush said Monday that rejuvenating Iraq's battered oil industry would be key to reuniting the country and helping Iraqis gain full autonomy.

"My own view is that the (Iraqi) government ought to use the oil as a way to unite the country and ought to think about having, you know, a tangible fund for the people so the people have faith in the central government," said Bush, a former Texas oilman..

The irony and his lack of the knowledge of it, leaves me almost speechless.

I DID see a sign of hope, yesterday, in my GOP-dominated part of CO. Somebody, probably a college student, spray-painted a stop sign to read "Stop War." Took me back a few years and is a HUGE statement in our community.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 10:09 AM

Their lives cannot repay us - their death could not undo -
The shame that they have laid upon our race.
But the slothfulness that wasted and the arrogance that slew,
Shall we leave it unabated in its place?

Well? shall we?..........Ake

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 10:20 AM

"When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today"



Eptaph at Commonwealth war cemetry in Burma

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: GUEST,Skipy
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 12:56 PM

The Kohima 2nd Division Memorial is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission on behalf of the 2nd Infantry Division. The memorial remembers the Allied dead who repulsed the Japanese 15th Army, a force of 100,000 men, who had invaded India in March 1944 in Operation U-Go. Kohima, the capital of Nagaland was a vital to control of the area and in fierce fighting the Japanese finally withdrew from the area in June of that year.

The Memorial itself consists of a large monolith of Naga stone such as is used to mark the graves of dead Nagas. The stone is set upright on a dressed stone pedestal, the overall height being 15 feet. A small cross is carved at the top of the monolith and below this a bronze panel is inset. The panel bears the inscription


"When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today"


The words are attributed to John Maxwell Edmonds (1875 -1958), an English Classicist, who had put them together among a collection of 12 epitaphs for World War One, in 1916.

According to the Burma Star Association the words were used for the Kohima Memorial as a suggestion by Major John Etty-Leal, the GSO II of the 2nd Division, another classical scholar.

The verse is thought to have been inspired by the Greek lyric poet Simonides of Ceos (556-468 BC) who wrote after the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC:


"Go tell the Spartans, thou that passest by,
That faithful to their precepts here we lie."

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Peter T.
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 03:00 PM

? ????', ????????? ?????????????? ??? ????

(O xein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti t쳌de)

??????? ???? ?????? ?????? ¹?????????.

(keimetha tois keinon rhŽmasi peithomenoi.)

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: Peter T.
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 03:02 PM

Sorry, the greek wouldn't work.

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: skipy
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 04:39 PM

Ðçãáßíåôå ëÝåé ôï Spartans, åóý üôé to ðéü ðáóóåóôï êïíôÜ, áõôü ðéóôü óôá åíôÜëìáôÜ ôïõò åäþ ðïõ âñéóêüìáóôå.
Yes it will, Skipy. (well most of it)

Subject: RE: BS: I met a real war hero
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 04:11 AM

The sentiments are a wonderful balm to our collective conscience, but sadly in most cases they are completely meaningless.

Even WW2, one of the few wars which we can attempt to justify, didn't just happen, but was created....Ake