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The Real War 1939-1945 (1989)

theatlantic.com

111–120 of 172 posts

Re: The Real War 1939-1945 (1989)

#111
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US was not in any significant danger of being directly invaded during WWII. It would have been an incredibly costly logistical nightmare for the would-be invaders, very unlikely to succeed. US worries were legitimate (atrocities perpetrated against civilians, future control of Europe/Asia, the international economic order and security of global trade networks, etc.) but “urgent” invasion wasn’t one of them.

Pearl Harbor was US. The Philippines was US. We were literally invaded. They also bombed the West Coast.

US Navy ships in the territory of Hawaii were bombed but the island was not “invaded”.

You are right that the Philippines was invaded, and was at the time a US territory. But it was at that point under a government intended to transition it to independence. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare–Hawes–Cutting_Act

From what I can tell (this was decades before my birth and I have not extensively studied it, so I probably have an oversimplified impression) for mainland Americans, the Philippines was not really considered to be part of the country in the same way as, say, Illinois or Texas, and Filipinos were not considered to be Americans in the same way. (e.g. after WWII the Congress voted to strip benefits from Filipino veterans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescission_Act_of_1946) I’m sure the US wanted to maintain some navy and trade presence there though.

The Japanese also occupied the Aleutian islands of Kiska and Attu (part of Alaska territory). But it’s hard to imagine that people 3000 miles away in, say, Oregon were worried that the Japanese would be imminently launching an amphibious assault from there.

Re: The Real War 1939-1945 (1989)

#112

A side comment. Paul Fussell mentioned the origin of the GI slang “FUBAR.” One thing I disliked early in my career were the many tutorials and demos that named the first object Foo and the next object Bar. I doubt any of these tutorial authors served in WW2 or in any war. It seemed to me similar to suburban raised children mimicking Gangster Rap. It feels fake and phony to me. War is horrific and evil. Writing a tuto…

Usage of foo/bar/baz as metasyntactic variables dates to the 60s. It appears that Foo predates bar, and was possibly more related to the usage of it as a nonsense word in pre-ww2 comics. It seems unlikely that "bar" was added after foo for any reason other than FUBAR though.

Re: The Real War 1939-1945 (1989)

#113
post #53

The author was a veteran of WW2. In 1989 he was 65. He died in 2012, aged 88.

A bit off on his age in 1989; he was actually 75. Otherwise he would have been pretty young to have served in WW2.

65 in 89 implies 18 in 1942; that doesn't seem too young to me?

Re: The Real War 1939-1945 (1989)

#114
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m frankly shocked you can’t comprehend that there could be a difference between my personal experience and overall opinion and perspective of the war. Yes it was an absolutely pointless monumental disaster with incredible suffering. No shit.

Look. I wouldn’t have said a thing about it if you didn’t laugh about being bored by the routine suffering of others. Maybe you have more to talk about than you think?

It was extremely boring. Boring, tedious, repetitive, much like this conversation.

Re: The Real War 1939-1945 (1989)

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think they should be preparing a for a huge postwar assistance, not just money for rebuilding, but psychological / therapy based on their experience to try to reduce the effects of wartime trauma on Ukraine. " We take lots of refugees. I would argue this is already a very effective way of preventing further traumatizing. But as far as I am aware, those who come do not easily get offered psychatric help, even if th…

The psychiatric sector should be quadrupled. More so in some countries. It’s flabbergasting to me that people don’t see it as - not just a moral imperative - but also an obvious economic one.

Who’s going to pay for it? Health insurers are still trying to avoid it.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/11/29/5672649...

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/07/7304045...

Re: The Real War 1939-1945 (1989)

#116
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look. I wouldn’t have said a thing about it if you didn’t laugh about being bored by the routine suffering of others. Maybe you have more to talk about than you think?

It was extremely boring. Boring, tedious, repetitive, much like this conversation.

No post body was provided.

Re: The Real War 1939-1945 (1989)

#117
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was extremely boring. Boring, tedious, repetitive, much like this conversation.

Quoted post unavailable.

My empathy for the many victims doesn't change the material facts of my experience. Some guy on an internet forum demanding contrition doesn't create justice.

Re: The Real War 1939-1945 (1989)

#118
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was extremely boring. Boring, tedious, repetitive, much like this conversation.

Quoted post unavailable.

Both perspectives could be valid at the same time. I bet even Nazis soldiers "keeping the peace" in countries they occupied were often bored.

Re: The Real War 1939-1945 (1989)

#119
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the war criminals were the pundits on TV Mila Štula comes to mind. I still remember watching the hysteria on Radio-Television Belgrade in disbelief that people would actually believe it. But they did. And the rest is history, as they say. Ugly, murderous, and utterly unnecessary history. I see some signs of this in the contemporary US media landscape, and I worry the consequences might be similar.

What event are you describing? A quick search doesn't reveal any English sources for Mila Štula.

I’m describing the breakup of Yugoslavia. TV pundits had a big role in demonizing everybody who might oppose the regime, be it the other political parties or the other republics/ethnicities. This paved the road to the war.

Imagine Alex Jones-level “journalism” directed by the government, blasting from the official and more-less the only widely available TV station in the country. Štula was one of the most notorious examples, but I’m not surprised she’s a relative unknown to the people who didn’t watch her with their own eyes.

The most disappointing aspect about the whole situation was that it was so transparent. It was obvious what they were doing, and yet the population at large somehow went along with it… the socialist apparatchik Milošević won elections at the time Eastern European countries were getting rid of their old communist/socialist power structures. Not that he was the only problem, far from it, but to this day I believe that reformists like Ante Marković would have had a fighting chance if not for Milošević.

And then, when there were no answers to economic problems, it was easy to put blame on others: your neighbors and far-away foreign powers alike. Do that in a powder keg that is the Balkans, where so much blood was spilled in the past and everybody remembers it, and the consequences are predictable.

I think that people who lived in democracies their whole lives underestimate how dangerous the malicious journalism and misinformation can be when enough people start believing it.

Re: The Real War 1939-1945 (1989)

#120

I think Fussel had a point in 1989, but after that there's been plenty of depictions of war that have been less sanitized. "The Pacific" comes to mind in TV, and "Fury" in movies, even if it's very formulaic. Memoirs can be raw too: - https://gerikson.com/blog/books/read/Helmet-For-My-Pillow.ht... - https://gerikson.com/blog/books/read/With-the-Old-Breed.html And even before 1989 novels like Waugh's "Sword of Honour"…

Saving Private Ryan seems very relevant (most relevant?) as well - it's about two decades older than the ones you mentioned. The beach attack sequence is incredibly brutal, like near everyone in some landing boats getting machinegunned or drowning in seconds. There are missing limbs and bodies cut in half as well.
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