October 2010 Blog Posts (20)

I can't sit still and not say something about the M-16 rifle since Mr. Junger has brought it up (I didn't think anyone cared!).

In the "Old Army" the enlisted man had control over nothing. He was reliant upon the wisdom of the Pentagon for his wellbeing. One would assume that officers who had risen to a rank and position that would put them in the Pentagon would have some real knowledge about weaponry and combat. So when troopers of the 173d Airborne in Vietnam were found dead beside…

Robert Service has always been my favorite poet. In fact he's vertually the only poet I read.

I like his stuff because it's about hardships and overcoming harsh places. It's about being loyal to your pardner.

You might remember The Cremation Of Sam McGee and The Shooting Of Dan McGrew.

He was an ambulance driver in the First World War and his brother was killed in that war so he knew about the sufferings of soldiers.

His poem, Flourette, is one of the most…

Last weekend, on October 23rd, an extraordinary photographer named Joao Silva was badly wounded while accompanying a foot patrol of US infantry in Arghandab

district, outside Kandahar. He stepped on a land mine that had apparently been

constructed out of materials that made it undetectable to mine-sweepers and

sniffer dogs. Three soldiers around him suffered concussions but were otherwise

unhurt.…

THE OLD GUARD

We are veterans of the Vietnam War.

Time is counting the cadence now as the years march us into

history. The battlefields where we screamed and cried and bled

and died settle like falling leaves onto its pages.

We make our daily pilgrimage to the seductive siren on the rocks-…

This guy's walking down the street when he falls into a hole.

The walls are steep he can't get out.

A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up: "Hey, you! Can you help me out?"

The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up: "Father, I'm down in this hole. Can you help me out?"

The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

Then a friend walks by: 'Hey…

In the heat of battle it ceases to be an idea for which we fight ...or a flag.

Rather, we fight for the man on our left and we fight for the man on our right.

And when armies have scattered and when empires fall away ...all that

remains is the memory of those precious moments we spent side by side.

-This can be found at the end of the movie The Four Feathers.

WICKED CARICATURES

My enemy; you and I, in our mind's eye, viewed each other as wicked caricatures doing monstrous things to that and those that we loved.

Those whom we trusted created those caricatures practicing and

perfecting the art of de-humanizing and vilifying us to each other.

Who were those skulking fiends? Where can they be found?

Why ...they were the pillars of our political and military institutions, and

they did it all just for…

For a painting that is apropos to the comradeship described in War, see the 1899 depiction of calvary in Charles Schreyvogel's, My Bunkie, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This link should take you there: http://www.metmuseum.org/special/americanstories/objectImages/TT.4.29.EL.jpg.

If not, google "my bunkie metropolitan museum" and that should do it.