" A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things that men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.... You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth; if you don't care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty."
- Tim O'Brien, (combat veteran) ...from - The Things They Carried
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3 comments:
no wonder i have
never liked war movies
i stopped for a minute while tv surfing on the history cahnnel and the story was this build up of teh assault on normandy in ww 2 and i was amazed and a littel sickened by the "operatic" build up the music the narration the old photography etc. and all folded into the projection of majesty and honor and great human virtue valour and sacrifice the whole platter of human rectitude
adn whle i guess we can say the american effot did accomplish something in europe it's a little unrealistic to say it was a glorious event
at the level of soldier survivals it seems alwasy a matter of "bringing the war home and living with it in the minds of those who fought in it"
it would seem that there are vietnman tales that appeal to the more realistic sense of hopelessness in war
anyway
tis a dreadful topic
jh
i guess i have to admit
that i was a little bit
suckered in by the production
of the HBO series Band of Brothers
with the dainty white parachutes
of the paratroopers floating down
like apple blossom petals
and the silhouette of a small group
of soldiers marching along the skyline
at sunset
perhaps you are right
that it is a sin
to make war look beautiful
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