[Heyworth]

Wow. There's a sweeping and entirely incorrect statement. Read Paul Fussell's WARTIME: UNDERSTANDING AND BEHAVIOR IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR. Talking about the language of the war, he recounts one little soldier song about a town in England that manages to use the F word 57 times in 40 lines. By the way, Fussell is a WW2 vet, so he knows of which he speaks. (And read his earlier book, THE GREAT WAR AND MODERN MEMORY, about how WW1 infused itself into the cultural consciousness of the world).

WW2 is generally credited as the place the word really came into its own, becoming a noun, an adjective, an adverb, and everything else beyond it's original verb form.

[eastforker]

BTTT

[The Westerner]

I watched the last 2/3 of Private Ryan tonight for the first time. Glad I missed the opening. I wept many times. My father fought in the Battle of the Bulge. This is the man who inspired him. I wondered why no one brought him up on this thread yet.

From George Patton's Speech on June 4, 1944 to the 3rd(?) Army:

"We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we've got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun cock suckers by the bushel-fucking-basket." "War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it's the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you'll know what to do!"

Personally, this passage tells me all I need to know about the reality of what my dad saw--and never talked about. If you want to read the whole speech, click on my screen name, it's in my bookmarks. Thanks to all you Vets who've continued to keep us free.