Posted on 12/14/2009 7:38:38 AM PST by MuttTheHoople
For 60 years Denis Avey remained too traumatised to talk about the horrors he had witnessed as a prisoner of war at Auschwitz. But when he finally felt able, he revealed an incredible tale of bravery and compassion.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
WW II vets are different. You have to get a crowbar to get them to open up to what happened with them.
*ping*
interesting. why do you suppose that is?
My dad, God rest his soul, was in Europe in WW II, he never said much either and now that he is gone it is too late to hear his stories.
(Also see, Kerry, John)
My dad is a Vietnam vet...Marine chopper pilot. He thought nothing of telling us all the funny stories, or the ones that were touching. However, I noticed he never went into detail about the horrific things. He might've been better adjusted in that he went to war in his 30's plus he was a professional career Marine officer. Many of the men who don't talk about it were teenagers or in their early 20's when it happened.
My father was like that.
The mechanization and industrialization of war, completely changed war. War as seen from WWI and especially WWII on are completely different beasts than anything that came before.
With the absolute industrialization of war, survival or death was far more luck than skill, no amount of skill is going to keep you alive storming the beach at Normandy, or in the trenches at Verdun.
I can’t imagine anyone who has walked into such battles and came out alive waiving their bloody shirt as testament to their bravery as anything more than a sociopath.
I have (had) an uncle that was at Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th. He would never talk about it, not even to his younger brother who was also in the navy, but about 10 years behind him. We later heard from other sailors he was jumping from a lifeboat into the burning oil to save wounded comrades, and was pulling half bodies into his boat. No wonder he never said anything.
I think all that changed after World War I, because that was such a traumatic war, with all the brutal inhumane killing. AFter WW I, much of the literature was anti-war and pictured the military as bloodthirsty, heartless fools (to paraphrase Stephen Ambrose). Then THAT changed after the National Socialists invaded the Soviet Union and the sneak-attack on Pearl harbor.
WW II was one of the few wars where there was little to no dissent, because Americans hated the Japs for being buck-toothed sneak-attackers, plus the Nazis invaded the left's hero-nation the Soviet Union so that Liberals and Democrats would do anything to save their favorite country.
I think WW II, Korean, and Vietnam vets were raised as pacifists and look at what they did as something absolutely necessary to do to stop evil, and that it was nothing to brag about.
I don't know what today's vets from iraq and Afghanistan will be like. With improved protection from body-armor, techology, and psychological services, maybe the 21st century warrior will be different.
WW II vets are different.
Now, though, soldiers are better protected by body-armor and technology that incorporates skill into warfighting again. I wonder if Iraq and Afghanistan vets will be a little more open about their service once they start running for office.
“My dad, God rest his soul, was in Europe in WW II.”
Mine, too, never said anything about it. The only thing he said was that he would never go to see fireworks displays. He said he saw enough fireworks on D-Day.
We know what he did though. It was written up in his citation for the Navy Cross, which he received from Pres. Truman. He detonated mines on Omaha Beach, and pulled floundering soldiers out of the water.
No hero will ever throw his medals over the White House fence, and then thirty years later stand on national television like a horse faced idiot and say, “Reporting for Duty.”
As a Viet Nam era vet, I found THAT traumatic.
ping
God bless him, what a brave and simple generation. We are losing these men daily and soon they will all be gone.
Kerry is much like his “war decorations” - entirely a product of false pretences. It is a matter of continued embarrassment to me that he “represents” my home state.
America was a very masculine society then, when a man spoke to the voters or a politician campaigned, it was a man, speaking only to men, about building and protecting a nation in a hostile and dangerous world.
They don’t grow balls that big any more.
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