Posted on 11/19/2023 7:50:53 AM PST by Rummyfan
The old versions of that male history have been discarded and the fewer new books of that sort of thing are never seen by the boys, they are written for a few older men with an interest in military matters and military history.
Boys grow up with no knowledge of men in history and how history is a tale of male actions and drive, and they are largely raised by women and live in a woman’s world of teachers, and single moms anyway.
I had a patient in 1998 who was admitted to my service overnight for left upper quadrant pain. CT scan showed a lesion in the spleen, possibly embolic.
At that stage of my life, I had an entourage of 8-12 interns, residents, fellows and nurses who followed me around.
I went in the room. An old man, hair cut high and tight, looked fit enough to put on the uniform he hung up in 1945. The nurses report was “no pain”, because a) he hadn’t rung for the nurse; and b) he hadn’t asked for pain medicine.
The first thing I noticed was he was bolt upright, sweating bullets, and obviously in pain.
My entourage was mystified. I had seen this before.
“Tell my colleagues here why you didn’t call the nurse or the resident for pain medicine”, I said.
The inevitable answer: “Infantrymen only talk to infantrymen”.
Here’s this man, had a whole life after he came back from Europe, got married, had kids, sold insurance, raised a family - but in a way, the life of the man who went to Europe ended on a freezeing cold patrol (”so cold the snow squeaked”) who shot dead a 13 year old who popped up out of a ditch, pointed a rifle at him, then threw the rifle down and put up his hands, and a new life began right then and there.
When I was a medical student, there was a VA hospital (in Massachusetts, if I remember right) with 3000 beds devoted to psychiatric casualties from Europe and the Pacific, men who never really got to come home.
It is, as you say, horrific.
Interesting stories and observations. Thanks.
I suspect that there is simply NO WAY that any electronics and loudspeaker system can physically recreate the actual noises made by bombs, shells, gunfire, grenades, etc. They can be a close approximation, but must always fall short.
Great story, Jim. Thanks for telling us that. Your close about the VA hospital and the many men who never really got to come home is very telling.
I started re-watching “The Best Years of Our Lives” last night and got through the scene of Homer’s arriving at home with his mom, dad, sister and next-door girlfriend to greet him. It is absolutely heartbreaking to watch.
I hope you were able to help him.
This is an uncharacteristically rambling Steyn article.
As a Boomer baby I grew up with World War 2 on the mainstream media’s front burner. My father and all my uncles had been in the war and my grandfathers had been in World War One.
I paid a lot of attention to it because the trend seemed to be that I would be called to serve, too, by the time I reached soldier-age. I learned marksmanship.
As it happened, I was not called to serve.
Kids from the last few generations have not grown up with the understanding that they might be required to face actual mortal combat.
Yes. His contemporaries would have been shocked if they had known that Harry Truman would be a far greater President.
The nook was reality. The movie was okay and I take exception to its description that it was first real combat movie. Wake Island stands alone with that honor.
“But after serving in combat in Vietnam ...”
I’d like to know what most soldiers that saw gruesome things think should be shown to the public. I hear that many soldiers don’t like to talk about what they did or saw.
Could grusome behavior be like sexual behavior in that they are personal experiences best kept personal?
Read Guadalcanal Diary about 55 years ago, and again a few years back. Gripping.
Well - I wonder how my little speakers in my IPad, playing videos of the Israeli artillery and bomb strikes in Gaza sound perfectly recognizable?
I see. Living through the real rigors of combat are just fine for men like me and my friends - but civilians who ask us to risk our lives going to war are too soft and sheltered to see what we went through?
Something wrong with that picture, isn’t it? If they can’t stomach an accurate movie, they don’t have to buy a ticket, right?
They are recognizable on you small device, of course. But (as you said) there is no way they can have the literal impact of a real explosion or gunfire.
The sonic capabilities of electronics are nowhere near what is required to render real explosions or gunfire. In sound, the defined term “attack” is how long it takes for the volume of the sound to go from silence to maximum level. Semiconductor response time, compression, gating, and other types of audio processing can degrade a sound’s attack, changing the character and quality of the audio.
Appreciate the tutorial on electronic approximation of sound - but that is not the main issue: either by custom or by laziness, or some other reason, movies always have artificial sound effects when it comes to war movies.
HE sounds like HE, not like a black powder bomb. Gunfire sounds like gunfire - not blanks.
On this age of new technologies, CGI, far better dubbing capabilities, why not do it right?
People, particularly those people who really want hear what war actually sounds like, deserve better.
Thanks for your first-hand observations.
I’ve noticed big differences in the rifle sound when fired in western movies. Some have the sharp crack, others a muffled thud, others sound like blanks. And these are back-to-back rifle shots, too.
If they reproduced the sound of an M79 and the sound of that 40mm exploding, most non veterans wouldn’t believe it. They want BOOM! not crump…
“The Battle of the Bulge” while very entertaining was a mile short in some areas. I mean Germans with .50 cal’s?
“It’s so sad, isn’t it? I remember reading so many great books in junior high and high school in the 60s, none of which are taught today.”
We had the Landmark history books, and the “you are there” historical fiction books for young adults.
Guys like him were usually easy to engage with once they grasped that I understood.
I was the first person to hear the story about the German kid.
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