fiske isn’t trying to be graphic. there’s tons of “graphic” out there if anyone wants to look. what he is saying, i think, is that wwI affected and continues to affect the entire world. it reads like history in my opinion, perhaps more written for those who have some basic facts about wwI than for others.

Did anyone actually READ this article before TD posted it?  It makes no sense at all, going from NZ to Canada without any explanation.

It looks like 3 different WWI stories all lumped together arbitrarily.

It’s awful.  But it’s no more graphic or compelling than Erich Maria Remargue’s “All Quiet on The Western Front”, written by a “Hun”.  (BTW, Hitler HATED Remarque and he was forced to flee Germany)

“That means they were pre-teens on 9-11.”

and as palin demonstrated in her remarks to her son’s contingent, they are still sending them to iraq in the name 9-11. if not misunderstandings, then lies and power. human beings will only change if trained in nonviolence from a young age. now that would be character education i could really support.

Perhaps, Alan, history will repeat itself at America’s expense.

I am named for a man, my grandfather, who was born in Northern Lorraine province in Alsace-Lorraine and immigrated to America at age 4. He was a minor league pro baseball player who left the US in 1916 and enlisted in the French army, and caught tuberculosis during the horror of that trench hell and was sick the rest of his short life.
People like Chancellor Bush and his heir apparent Mc Palin think war is glorious. It is not and the recruiting poster gloss they put on it is a lie. War is and always will be mankind reverting to his worst impulse, that to massacre other human beings for territory. We are primates and have evolved, most of us, but these people have not; for them, evolution is an outlawed belief system anyway and they are still savage, territorial apes slaughtering others for land. We have made no progress in 2 million years.

Very good, Paul. I was just trying to make the opposite point—you understand my meaning. Thanks

No, I’m very fortunate my Bro came home whole and sound, KDelphi (they sent him home a month early because our father passed away). Anyway, please don’t think I was angry or anything—I just wanted to point out that this antiwar libertarian does not blame the troops. His way of supporting them is to insist on a swift end to the wars and total withdrawal of everybody.

Yours,
Paul Alexander

Once upon a time, it was the biggest, baddest individual at the front of the army who would be its king. 

Its been downhill all the way since then.

In Australia Gallipoli is a cult. The horrible truth is that at Gallipoli the Australians were used as cannon fodder by the British and it certainly wasn’t the only time. Young soldiers had to climb an almost sheer cliff face under unrelenting machine gun fire from the Turks- many of them were gunned down wading ashore after jumping off the boat and never even made it to the cliff. Those who survived dug in and endured a prolonged hell of privation and suffering you would think they would want no other generation ever to have to face. Ask six people and they’ll give you six different reasons for why World War I happened, most of them wrong. To celebrate a senseless disaster is insane but there’s method in their madness. They have all these young people going over to Gallipoli on package tours now as if there’s something to celebrate. What they’re celebrating is war as a form of human sacrifice but war is then able to stay respectable and is glorified so that another generation can be maimed, killed or driven crazy. If they told the truth about war they would never be able to have another one and so they lie. They lie to start them and they lie when they’re over and routinely cheat the soldiers out of health care and support. They did that after World War I too in spite of all their crocodile tears.

KDelphi - years ago I volunteered in soup kitchens and crises centers.  I saw, talked to, and basically struck-out as far as being able to move the Nam walking wounded from life on the streets to life as they had a right to be living but would never be able to live. 

War is short and ugly but the flotsam and jetsam, the aftermath who walk among us spend the rest of their lives in agony.

I re-read and saw wht perhaps you think I was implying

I’m sorry if it came off that way. I could hardly feel diferrent from that.

If it came off as “confrontive”, I only meant to imply that, alot of people (and I’ve seen it on other sites as well as TD—I think that it is a loser issue)  seem to be blaming the troops in Iraq for this war. I think that that is innappropriate. We failed to stop it.

If there should be war crimes charges (not that some grunts do not commit war crimes—I think many are ordered to do illegal things—some refuse—but, in this “war”, confusion reigns!)), they should be pressed on Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Powell, Rice, era al. Throw in Tony Blair, too.

The last thing I was trying to do was offend vets or their families. There’s a Vietnam vet sitting right here.

I looked and, I dont think you lost your brother. I’m glad. Corporal Stephen Cramer, USMC, says hey.

Paul-G—If i seemed to imply anything about you, I do apologize.

Actually I’ve never heard of your user name before.

I am very sorry for your loss, and all progressives should do everything that they can to see that these lives are no longer lost on the alter of capitalism.

To imagine a parent comforting a child at bedtime, in a war zone where the parent knows they may not survive the night, is the image evoked in this song:

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6086636

Thank you, Mr. Fisk, for a courageous, heartbreaking article.

KDelphi, let me assure you that I hold nothing against the people who implement policy at the sharp end (the grunts)—it’s the people who make policy, and those who implement policy at the highest level, whom I fault. My own eldest brother was in the ‘Nam (1st Air Cav, ‘67—‘68).

if you are interested in the images of world war I, see the art of otto dix who sketched death in the trenches.

and then, as our so-called defense dept approves the sale of 1000 bunker buster bombs to israel on sept 14, and congress, embroiled in this economic debacle, has 30 days to approve or deny the sale, while ships encircle iran (and don’t forget the british and the french), get ready for the next one. no, they have no idea. tragedy upon tragedy. when will it end?

I’m reminded of Operation Urgent Fury - (I’m not making it up) - our ‘timely’ invasion of Grenada.  It was on the advice of Britain’s Thatcher that Reagan launched the invasion in 1983.

Thatcher, in 1982 aware that her coming re-election was iffy launched her Falklands war.  It bolstered her standing in the British public and she was re-elected.

In ‘83 she met with Reagan, whose public support was on the wane at the time, and advised him to start a war, assuring him that a quick war did wonders for ones popularity at home.  He ordered an invasion of Grenada.

Never having to confront them, they launch them with a cavalierness that is unforgiveable.

I worked at a Vietnam vet Ctr. Boy, did it ever change my outlook on that war! I had known that, growing up “too young” to really participate in the debate on Nam, (although my sister did, enough to get an FBI File), that I had probably gotten a biased view of it. I had, but not exactly in the way that I had thought.

My respect for these “winter soldioers” (and, god help us, deja vu all over again, like CCR says—John Fogqarty)) became immense. It was a little difficult to talk to me, at first, but, eventually, I was the first female voted into a Viet Rap Group (against the Sgt. running the place’s wioshes)in the city

I heard unbelievable things. Sytories of great courage, some cowardice, but, mostly , stories of people trying to stay alive, thrust into a situation that was confusing, heartbreaking and deadly. There was not a night that I didnt go home and cry. But, it was good for me.

Being a bystander to a war simply doesnt do it. Even entering their world doesnt put you there. They can only let you so far in. Sometimes , it is just too horrifying. We will never understand, but we should try.

So, there I was, when it came time for the next “big” war (THIS Iraq—although I protested the “first one” to s leser extent), I was out on sidewalks with whoever showed up . We never had more than 5 , here in Dayton.(There was a big rally at Courthouse Square later)The saddest thing I saw was a little boy riding by in a car, giving the peace signal—and his father smacked him. Somebody said they were buying us beer ( it was cold!!) and then threw it as us. One guy got a bloody nose and black eye.

Out at WPAFB (Air Force Base), there was Prof. Larry Gara , of Wilmington College (my alma mater—who had mentored my sister a generation before- now he’s about 88 yrs old). I went to talk to him, and he said, “Dont stand here. That guy—and the cops are taking pictures” 

INinctiveely, I jumped away.Then, as I looked at this black booted guy holding the video, in our “free spech” zone (!!!) I thought “Fu*k him!” and put my arm around Gara—he said,. “Well, at least historically, you’ll be in good company”. Since Gara was now Maude’s age, I figured he had a right to say it.

Just be careful before ou judge, please. HOnestly, when it is a draft, or, even a matter of finanacial survivial, if we turn on the troops, we are turning om ourselves.

We the people must cease allowing ourselves to be bamboozled into interventionistic wars far away from home regardless of how they’re justified by the elites. If we can’t do that, then wasteful, stupid wars on foreign battlefields is all we can look forward to—at least, until this country’s economy collapses. (“The sinews of war are limitless money”, said Cicero about 2,000 years ago; it’s still true.)

Surprised the government let these words describing the horrors of war even be printed, when photos of flag covered coffins are off limits?

As a Vietnam Vet, when Bush pushed us into Iraq, I said here we go again, plus this time Bush made sure, the National Guard was sent in. Ironic.  Fearless leaders who use the blood of their people in offensive wars should be made examples of.  Of course lies cover the offensive part, so the wars are made in the peoples best interest. 

People who revel in war, slime like Bush and Chaney cowards of the worst order, imbeciles like McCain are an other story. 

In the comfort of our living rooms we are fed comfortable sound-bites enhancing the so important comfort zone,  death of war becomes part of the talking heads entertainment, even feels good, much like a junkie’s fix.

A very powerful piece; made even more poignant, because we (U.S.) now fight wars of choice using the uneducated, poor, and disadvantaged through the horror of an all volunteer army.  We have made death a way to drag oneself out of poverty and into an unknown hell.

Article quote: “All life had disappeared down there except for that of the rats and the lice ... The rats were coming to sniff the bodies ... They chose the young men without beards on the cheeks ... rolled up into a ball and began to eat the flesh between the nose and the mouth up to the edge of the lips ... from time to time they would wash their whiskers to stay clean. Then the eyes, they took them out with their claws, licked the eyelids, and would then bite into the eye as if it was a small egg ...”

I’ve read books about war which were much like this.  Outside of the pain and the suffering and the death, this is the other reality of war.  Writings of this nature should be required reading for students in the last two years of high school.

How many would “join up” then?  And what type of assurances would they bargain for if they were well aware of war’s truisms?  This would put a dent in imperialistic endeavors and itchy trigger fingers.  What will it take….or isn’t there anything?

I’ve never been a war zone, and it’s an experience I’m not anxious to have.  More people need to understand just what war entails.  How will we talk to our returning soldiers if we don’t have any graphic conception of war, AT ALL.  It certainly is a far cry from the John Wayne stuff isn’t it, or how ‘bout Top Gun..?  Fantasy…