parts of Wartime by Paul Fussell - week 6::
This last reading was also about WWII. Paul Fussell, the author, was also involved in WWII.The first paragraph of the chapter "The Real War Will Never Get in the Books" was really good:
"What was it about the war that moved the troops to constant verbal subversion and contempt? It was not just the danger and fear, the boredom and uncertainty and loneliness and deprivation. It was rather the conviction that optimistic publicity and euphemism had rendered their experience so falsely that it would never be readily communicable. They knew that in its representation to the laity what was happening to them was systematically sanitized and Norman Rockewellized, not to mention Disneyfied." (267)
The Marines knew their arms and equipment weren't as good as the Germans and everything... but the publicity didn't say that.
"The real war was tragic and ironic, beyond the power of any literary or philosophic analysis to suggest, but in unbombed America especially, the meaning of the war seemed inaccessible. As experience, thus, the suffereing was wasted." (268)
"In Shakespearse's Henry V, the solider Michael Williams assumes the traditional understanding when he observes,
But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp'd off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place'--some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their lives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their chidlren rawly left. (IV, i)" (269)
Pictures of WWII never showed what was really happening, all dead American bodies were all clothed and intact.
"In the face of such horror, the distinction between friend and enemy vanishes, and the violent dismemberment of any human being becomes equally traumatic. After the disastrous Canadian raid at Dieppe, one German solider observed: 'The dead on the beach--I've never seen such obscenities before'..." (271)
WAR MADE EVERYONE MAD
"In one way, of course, the whole war was mad and every participat insane from the start, but in a strictly literal sense the result of the years of the bombing of Berlin and its final destruction by the Russian army was, for much of the population, widespread madness." (273)
"As the U.S. Officer's Guide goes on to instruct its anxious tyros,
Physical courage is little more than the ability to control the physical fear which all normal men have, and cowardice dos not consist in being afraid but in giving away to fear. What, then, keeps the soldier from giving away to fear? The answer is simply--his desire to retain the good opinion of his friends and associates...his pride smothers his fear." (274)
men "pissed [their] pants" many times. "An occasional reaction to the terror of shelling like this was audible 'confession.' " (278)
then no one would mention the confession afterward, "...everyong understanding its stimulus and its meaning." (279)
"For every frontline soldier in the Second World War there was the 'slowly dawning and dreadful realization that there was no way out, that... it was only a matter of time before they got killed or maimed or broke down comopletely.' As one British officer put it, 'You go in, you come out, you go in again and you keep doing it until they break you or you are dead.' " (281)
"As medical observers have reported, 'There is no such thing as 'getting used to combat'..." (281)
"The problem is that this questioner [someone who just asked a very ironic question having to do with the war] has somehow been led to expect 'sense,' not to mention decency, in a war actually characterized by insensate savagery. This questioner seems innocent of such standard wartime materials as the British Handbook of Irregular Warfare (1942): 'Never give the enemy a chance' the days when you could practice the rules of sportsmanship are over. ... Every soldier must be a potential gangster... Remember you are out to kill.' " (284)
"As John Steinbeck finally confessed in 1958, 'We were all part of the war effort. We went along with it, and not only that, we abetted it... I don't mean that the correspondents were liars... It is in the things not mentioned that the untruth lies.' " By not mentioning a lot of things, a correspondent could give the audience at home the impression that there were no cowards in the service, no thieves or rapists and looters, no cruel or sutpid commanders. It is true, Steinbeck is aware, that most military operations are examples of 'disorganized insanity,' but the morale of the home front must not be jeopardized by an eye-witness saying so. And even if a correspondent had wanted to deliver the noisome truth, patriotism would join censorship in stopping his mouth." (286)
One reporter got the real story.. on page 286-287
"The postwar result for the Allies, at least, is suggested by one returning soldier, wounded three times in Normandy and Holland, who disembarked with his buddies to find on the quay nice, smiling Red Cross or Salvation Army girls. 'They gave us a little bag and it has a couple chocolate bars in it and a comic book... We had gone overseas not much more than children but we were coming back, sure, let's face it, as killers. And they were still treating us as children. Candy and comic books.' " (288)
"Because forbidden in all theaters of war lest their capture reveal secrets, clandestine diaries, seen and censored by no authority, offer one of the most promising accesses to actuality. The prohibition of diaries often meant increased devotion and care on the part of the writer." (291)
" 'We were expendable. It was difficult to accept. We come from a nation and culture that values life and the individual. To find oneself in a situation where your life seems of little values is the ultimate in loneliness. It is a humbling experience.' (100). " (293)
posted by Cassie @ 2:17 PM
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