The Cost

Bivouac après le combat du Bourget, 21 décembre 1870
Alphonse de Neuville (PD)

Alright, first things first - I'm not quite ready to climb back into the saddle (as in posting every day) just yet. Sloth is a bad habit to break, while I've not been completely idle, as far as writing goes, I have been completely idle. So it's going to take some time to break the not writing habit.

Another factor is that I am at a loss as to what to write about. War is my "thing" and I've told many a war-related story since the inception of this here blog. But I grow tired of it. War is a horrid thing, nothing to be celebrated and only to be engaged in as necessary.

People die, stuff gets destroyed, lives are changed forever and to what end? So some group of powerful assholes gets their say over something. Or they get to claim something which isn't theirs.

Sometimes war will start as one thing, then become something else. For instance, when, in 1789, the French dumped their king, and later executed him AND his queen, most European monarchies saw that as a very bad thing. Not because the Bourbons were necessarily wonderful rulers but hey, we don't want our own peasants and bourgeoisie getting the wrong ideas. As in, "Hey, we don't like how things are being done, so we're throwing you out and putting someone else in charge."

So they invaded France to put Louis back on the throne, and once he was dead, to put a different, though related, Louis, back on the throne. What all those European crowned heads didn't count on was the French people fighting back, en masse. Not with some uniformed properly trained professional army, but with common folks, semi-trained and armed, in large numbers.

In essence, in order to set back the clock, those royal armies seeking to do so would have to kill a lot of Frenchmen, and armies are expensive dontcha know. Keeping them fed and in the field for long periods of time drains treasuries. And a drained treasury is what the French Revolution was caused by (in part).

What was worse is that a very talented guy, Napoléon Bonaparte, took over the French armies in Italy, drove the Austrians out, then went back to France and essentially drove the French Revolutionary government out.

Now Napoléon was a big believer in a good offense is the best defense. Go to the enemy's home country and kick his ass there, rather than wait for him to come to your country. But one thing led to another and before you know it, the French were bleeding troops and cash in Spain and then Napoléon went into Russia and got his ass kicked by the Russian people and the Russian weather.

So it took a number of years to restore the Bourbons to the French throne. The French rather resented all that. Some years later, Napoléon's nephew made himself Emperor and went to war again. The cycle continued ...

Now as I read about the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, I read of destroyed villages, people uprooted from their homes and killed, if not as a direct effect of battle in their towns, then as a result of the disruption of everyday life.

I looked out my window one day after reading an account of a particularly nasty battle and imagined what my neighborhood would look like if a battle had been fought there. Well, for the most part it would be pretty much gone.

Buildings knocked down or in flames (or both), dead bodies everywhere. Not a pretty sight by any measure, and imagine the stench. Yes, dear readers, battlefields stink. Blood, voided bowels, the stench of expended explosives, the soil itself ripped and torn. Only an idiot would wish to see such a sight.

And there are people out there, people who have no clue as to what reality is, who clamor for just such a thing. Of course, they don't see themselves as actually having to participate. Someone else, the peasantry, the plebians, you know, the riffraff, will do the actual killing and dying. Not them, oh heavens no.

Those who desire war to seize property or to shove an ideology down someone's throat should be avoided. It would be nice to hand them a weapon and say, "You first." Though I don't see that happening anytime soon.

You can vote yourself into a socialist hell, but you can't really vote your way out. (Looking at you NYC.)

Think before you choose, remember, someone else might show up on your doorstep and shove a gun in your face to make you do something.

Anyhoo, war sucks and I tire of writing about it.

So yeah, I'm running out of stuff to write about.

We'll see how this goes ...

Ciao!

The Horrors of War

City of Life and Death
(Source)

I was planning on doing a piece about military music, one of the first things to come up in my searches was that scene above.

I've watched this film before, it is harrowing.

Set in 1937, when the Japanese Army seized Nanjing from the Chinese they lost all control. Insanity on a massive scale.

I had to watch the film again, doing so left me incapable of writing anything meaningful.

The horror ...

Incident Near Cuney, France - November 1918

Sunday Morning At Cunel
Harvey Thomas Dunn
(Source)

"Sarge, it's still bleeding!" the young soldier screamed again, the pain was intense.

"I told ya kid, ya gotta ..." the older soldier paused as he fired again. The enemy was advancing in short rushes, he was hurting them, but each rush brought them closer and closer. "... take your belt ..." racking his bolt he fired again, "... wrap it tight as you can above the wound and torque it with your bayonet, damn it kid, didn't you pay attention in training?"

The older man started to turn around when a big German suddenly jumped out at him, bayonet poised to skewer him. His mind racing, how did the bastard get this close? He raised his rifle and fired.

The German's head snapped back, he could see that he had shot the man in the head, the hole in the helmet was obvious. Yet the man just bellowed incoherently in rage and drove his bayonet at the older soldier's chest.

In desperation, he brought his rifle up to deflect the bayonet thrust. He was only partially successful, instead of the blade sinking into his chest, it pierced his left arm just under the bicep. Miraculously it missed the bone.

Now it was the older soldier's turn to bellow in rage, his arm felt like it was on fire. He swung his right fist into the German's face. He heard the man grunt as the blow landed. But his opponent simply shook his head and reached for the older soldier's throat.

The older soldier gasped as he tried to knock the German's hands away. Those hands were clamped down on his throat and squeezing hard. Was this it? The older soldier was near panic as he tried desperately to break the German's grip.

Everything seemed muted, as if his ears were stuffed with cotton, there was a roaring in his ears as he thrashed under the German, who suddenly gasped. The German stared down at the older soldier, his face a mix of amazement and shock. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped over his intended victim. The German was dead. Shot dead.

"Jesus, buddy, are you alright?"

The older soldier was coughing harshly, he was sure that the German had damaged his windpipe, his throat hurt badly. Shaking his head he sat up looking around in near panic for his rifle.

The soldiers who had come up on the position, counter-attacking and driving back the German assault had a medic with them. That man checked the older soldier and said, "You're gonna be okay buddy, take deep breaths now, if you can."

"My arm ..." he wheezed.

The medic saw the tear in his jacket and bandaged him up as best as he could, they needed to keep moving. "That'll hold you for now, flesh wound."

"Where is ..." coughing again , but slowly getting his wind back, the older soldier looked around the position. The kid was gone, where?

"The guy that was here? With the leg wound? Stretcher bearers took him back to the aid station, tourniquet probably saved his life."

The older soldier coughed again, then reached down for his helmet, which had come off in the struggle with the enemy soldier. He brushed the mud from the interior as best he could, then once again looked for his rifle. A voice spoke.

"Hey pal, we gotta move up. Head back to the aid station when you're ready."

The older solder looked up, it was a sergeant, "Sure Sarge, thanks."

As the others moved off, the old soldier stood up and saw his rifle, it was under the dead German. Sighing he rolled the corpse over and reached for the rifle. Then for the first time, he really noticed the man who had been trying to kill him. The man he had been trying to kill.

He wasn't that old, while there was a lot of blood on the man's face, his bullet had clipped the man's scalp, his youth was obvious. The older soldier knelt next to the body for a few long moments, then he patted the corpse on the shoulder and muttered, "Sorry pal, it was you or me."

As he moved back to the aid station he began to wonder, where had the man been from, what was he like? Did he leave a family behind? After he'd walked out of sight of where the struggle had been, the older soldier had another coughing fit and had to sit down.

Then, for what seemed like no reason whatsoever, the tears began to roll down his cheeks. He had killed before, in fact had killed three men just before the struggle with the big German, but never so close as to feel the man's last breath on his face. He had never been so close to dying himself. In that long moment between his own near death and the German's actual death, he had seen something, felt something. A glimpse of eternity perhaps?

Shaking his head, he got up, "God damn this f**king war."

War is Hell**

 This filling in for Sarge, while he's off loafing somewhere on the South East Coast, has been enlightening.  Finding ideas to post weekly has been challenging at times for me.  Other times happenings in my life demand reporting.  Writing a post daily is exponentially more difficult.  Sarge pulls it off well. But then again, he's got a book idea he's working on which helps.  I've thought about writing a WWII story myself. Tell me what you think.

There They were *...The Germans and Russians invaded Poland and won.  

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Then the Germans invade France and won.  

Pretty sure the guy in the middle is roasting somewhere very warm.

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Then they tried to invade Great Britain and couldn't.  But...It was a very close "couldn't".

We few, we happy few, we Band of Brothers

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Meanwhile, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and pissed off the USA, who declared war on Japan, Germany, and Italy along with some also ran allies of theirs.  

 

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Then the Germans back stabbed their erstwhile allies and invaded Russia,  which caused the Germans to eventually lose the war.  

 

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The Americans invaded Guadalcanal, learned a lot about logistics in the process and started island hopping towards the Japanese mainland which took a few years.  

 

Tarawa.  The US cleverly planned on invading at low tide (shown). Tide was so low the landing craft couldn't make it even to the beach.  The Marines had to wade almost a mile to shore.  The Japanese had machine gun emplacements all the way around the lagoon.  I knew a man that was in that invasion.  He wouldn't talk about it. Source

 

Meanwhile, back in Europe, the Allies invaded France and started towards Berlin as did the Russians from the East. 

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 In the Air, the skies were black with Allied aircraft reminding the Germans, Italians and Japanese that starting wars is a bad idea.  

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Finally, Hitler got the clue and shot himself.  Meanwhile, the Japanese needed a bigger reminder, so the Allies rescheduled sunrise on a couple of summer days.  

Hiroshima

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Nagasaki

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The clue bird landed at that point.  So much so that the Germans and Japanese became Allies and the Russians our enemy.

End of Story.

Now you see why I'm not a published author.  Although he clearly stole the idea from me, I like Sarge's version better.

 Part of the objective of the post was to find photos of the various aspects of the war I hadn't seen before.  To the best of my knowledge the only one I'd seen before was the one of the guy roasting in hell.

Lt Fuzz,  Excellent recommendation on the Photomyne App recommendation a couple of days ago.  That makes importing printed pictures SO much easier.

Not that I have that many to digitize.  No, Not at all! 

That program might just make it doable. Thanks !

*Non-Standard SJC

** Attributed to William Tecumseh Sherman.  I think this version attributed to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman is applicable also. The third sentence especially so.

“I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.”