5 ms·

Something I like to remind myself of is that all past wars, even ones thousands of years ago, took place in as vibrant colors and fluid detail as we experience

Something I like to remind myself of is that all past wars, even ones thousands of years ago, took place in as vibrant colors and fluid detail as we experience today, not in grainy black and white photos or paintings. Also, if your grandpa likes telling war stories, it's only because he survived.

mothballed 1y ago
A lot of war stories get embellished and no one is going to challenge it. There's the story about the guy who says he was the hardest working man in Vietnam, and then when pressed about what he did, he states he was a trucker to the great surprise of anyone listening. When asked why he thought that, he says "well I was the only one."
- RichardCA 1y ago
  If you're talking about the ones who drove supply trucks during the war years, the hardest working men were women. https://vietnamnews.vn/sunday/features/947180/female-drivers-and-glorious-tracks-on-truong-son-mountain.html https://vietnamnews.vn/sunday/features/947180/female-drivers...
  - mothballed 1y ago
    The story wasn't actually about the trucker being hard working (or not), though I'm sure he was. He wasn't actually trying to make people believe he literally was the hardest working. The joke is that everyone else he went to war with was claiming to be something else, so he must have delivered all the supplies himself. The response is interesting to me, because having fought in a war, though I am not a US veteran -- I instantly got it. And the place I heard it from was more veteran dominated, and everyone instantly understood/appreciated the joke.
    - SOLAR_FIELDS 1y ago
      I didn’t get it until you explained it. It makes a lot of sense - people who have actually gone to war know of stolen valor and embellishments - you can sniff them immediately. People who have never been and don’t hang around military types much have much less of this kind of context
yibg 1y ago
Probably more fluid details than today where someone can push a button and level a building 1000 miles away without seeing the faces of any of the people torn to shreds. Maybe there would be less appetite for war if people had to still physically hack up their enemies with a sword or axe.
- tga_d 1y ago
  "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it." - Robert E. Lee
  - dawatchusay 1y ago
    I think it was Call of Duty 2 (when the franchise was still WW2-based) when they would show, in my recollection, an anti-war message including this one every time your character died. I think this was absent from later incarnations of the franchise.
    - theoreticalmal 1y ago
      And the quotes showed up longer, like 5 seconds, so you could read them in full. Later games would display the quote for 1-2 seconds, which often wouldn’t be enough time to process the full text
    - xboxnolifes 1y ago
      Cod 4, World at War, and MW2(?) also did this to my memory. At least one of them did for sure. Not always necessarily anti-war, but historical quotes related to war.
      - dawatchusay 1y ago
        Thanks, I didn’t recall
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
  There was an idea that the key to the nuclear launch codes should be surgically implanted adjacent to the heart of the president’s assistant. If the president should desire to launch the nukes, they would have to personally cut down a man and pull the key from the man’s entrails. It was essentially not done because it would be too effective.
OhioMan2943 1y ago
When history becomes prehistory, we have to go through it again
vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
I was at Auschwitz in summer. It was beautiful weather, the birds were singing, flowers everywhere. Hard to connect this to the conditions in a concentration camp. It would have been much easier in winter.
- jaydeegee 1y ago
  Much much smaller scale but we did a 'Salem Witch Trails' tour and it was a grey dreary autumn day and I felt it complimented the story.
- technothrasher 1y ago
  I was at Dachau a couple summers ago in similar weather. I actually found it worse and hit harder because it was such a pleasant day as I watched people stroll around the grounds, taking selfies, kids running around playing. It made me feel like I couldn't even breath.
  - footy 1y ago
    I too was at Dachau on a day like that, over a decade ago. My partner recently asked me about it, and just thinking back to how I felt made my skin crawl. It's terrible to remember, and I hope I never forget.
- ForOldHack 1y ago
  It is so well preserved, because those who were liberated from it, were so horrified at what they witnesses, that they did not want anyone to forget. It was a herculean effort, many wanted to bury it,because of the pain, and many more wanted to bury it, like it never happened. A personal salute to all those who fought to preserve it. There is a great video on the Poles who worked to preserve it. A lot of it is ... Unspeakable.
- FridayoLeary 1y ago
  It might have reflected the experience of the guards. One of the most astonishing facts i heard was that the guards used to get prisoners to play music for them and would even be moved to tears! It reveals something deep about the human condition. Auchwitz was a perfectly lovely place for many of the employees as long as they disassociated themselves from all the suffering and evil around them.
throwawayoldie 1y ago
I suspect that for every grandpa who likes telling war stories, there are probably a hundred who get quiet and sullen when the war comes up and have to excuse themselves and go be alone for a while.
busyant 1y ago
> Also, if your grandpa likes telling war stories, it's only because he survived. As someone whose parents, grandparents, and entire family lived in Italy through WWII (and one grandfather who lost an eye in WWI), nobody liked talking about it. If they did talk about it, it was usually brief and imbued with a feeling of "thank God it's over. what a tragedy that we were all used as pawns by the political class for nothing more than selfish ambitions."
- non_aligned 1y ago
  Isn't that just a comforting fantasy, though? Germans also embraced the myth of Hitler as a guy who just somehow hoodwinked everyone and made good people do terrible things. There was a prominent component of political scheming to his rise to power, and it was a totalitarian state that murdered political opponents even before it got to genocide, but he was enthusiastically supported by a large portion of the German society.
  - olelele 1y ago
    Same in Sweden, the majority popular opinion started shifting away from supporting Germany late in the war as they were obviously losing.
    - nugator 1y ago
      Citation please.
  - vkou 1y ago
    > Isn't that just a comforting fantasy, though? Germans also embraced the myth of Hitler as a guy who just somehow hoodwinked everyone and made good people do terrible things. And there's no doubt about it - it was a myth. Most of Germany stood behind him, and were outraged by the failed July 20th coup... In 1944. Ivan and Uncle Sam were kicking down the door, extermination camps were working overtime, yet most people were still fully behind him. The hardest thing for people to admit is that they've been duped.

mothballed 1y ago

A lot of war stories get embellished and no one is going to challenge it. There's the story about the guy who says he was the hardest working man in Vietnam, and then when pressed about what he did, he states he was a trucker to the great surprise of anyone listening. When asked why he thought that, he says "well I was the only one."

RichardCA 1y ago
If you're talking about the ones who drove supply trucks during the war years, the hardest working men were women. https://vietnamnews.vn/sunday/features/947180/female-drivers-and-glorious-tracks-on-truong-son-mountain.html https://vietnamnews.vn/sunday/features/947180/female-drivers...
- mothballed 1y ago
  The story wasn't actually about the trucker being hard working (or not), though I'm sure he was. He wasn't actually trying to make people believe he literally was the hardest working. The joke is that everyone else he went to war with was claiming to be something else, so he must have delivered all the supplies himself. The response is interesting to me, because having fought in a war, though I am not a US veteran -- I instantly got it. And the place I heard it from was more veteran dominated, and everyone instantly understood/appreciated the joke.
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 1y ago
    I didn’t get it until you explained it. It makes a lot of sense - people who have actually gone to war know of stolen valor and embellishments - you can sniff them immediately. People who have never been and don’t hang around military types much have much less of this kind of context

yibg 1y ago

Probably more fluid details than today where someone can push a button and level a building 1000 miles away without seeing the faces of any of the people torn to shreds. Maybe there would be less appetite for war if people had to still physically hack up their enemies with a sword or axe.

tga_d 1y ago
"It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it." - Robert E. Lee
- dawatchusay 1y ago
  I think it was Call of Duty 2 (when the franchise was still WW2-based) when they would show, in my recollection, an anti-war message including this one every time your character died. I think this was absent from later incarnations of the franchise.
  - theoreticalmal 1y ago
    And the quotes showed up longer, like 5 seconds, so you could read them in full. Later games would display the quote for 1-2 seconds, which often wouldn’t be enough time to process the full text
  - xboxnolifes 1y ago
    Cod 4, World at War, and MW2(?) also did this to my memory. At least one of them did for sure. Not always necessarily anti-war, but historical quotes related to war.
    - dawatchusay 1y ago
      Thanks, I didn’t recall
0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
There was an idea that the key to the nuclear launch codes should be surgically implanted adjacent to the heart of the president’s assistant. If the president should desire to launch the nukes, they would have to personally cut down a man and pull the key from the man’s entrails. It was essentially not done because it would be too effective.

OhioMan2943 1y ago

When history becomes prehistory, we have to go through it again

vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago

I was at Auschwitz in summer. It was beautiful weather, the birds were singing, flowers everywhere. Hard to connect this to the conditions in a concentration camp. It would have been much easier in winter.

jaydeegee 1y ago
Much much smaller scale but we did a 'Salem Witch Trails' tour and it was a grey dreary autumn day and I felt it complimented the story.
technothrasher 1y ago
I was at Dachau a couple summers ago in similar weather. I actually found it worse and hit harder because it was such a pleasant day as I watched people stroll around the grounds, taking selfies, kids running around playing. It made me feel like I couldn't even breath.
- footy 1y ago
  I too was at Dachau on a day like that, over a decade ago. My partner recently asked me about it, and just thinking back to how I felt made my skin crawl. It's terrible to remember, and I hope I never forget.
ForOldHack 1y ago
It is so well preserved, because those who were liberated from it, were so horrified at what they witnesses, that they did not want anyone to forget. It was a herculean effort, many wanted to bury it,because of the pain, and many more wanted to bury it, like it never happened. A personal salute to all those who fought to preserve it. There is a great video on the Poles who worked to preserve it. A lot of it is ... Unspeakable.
FridayoLeary 1y ago
It might have reflected the experience of the guards. One of the most astonishing facts i heard was that the guards used to get prisoners to play music for them and would even be moved to tears! It reveals something deep about the human condition. Auchwitz was a perfectly lovely place for many of the employees as long as they disassociated themselves from all the suffering and evil around them.

throwawayoldie 1y ago

I suspect that for every grandpa who likes telling war stories, there are probably a hundred who get quiet and sullen when the war comes up and have to excuse themselves and go be alone for a while.

busyant 1y ago

> Also, if your grandpa likes telling war stories, it's only because he survived. As someone whose parents, grandparents, and entire family lived in Italy through WWII (and one grandfather who lost an eye in WWI), nobody liked talking about it. If they did talk about it, it was usually brief and imbued with a feeling of "thank God it's over. what a tragedy that we were all used as pawns by the political class for nothing more than selfish ambitions."

non_aligned 1y ago
Isn't that just a comforting fantasy, though? Germans also embraced the myth of Hitler as a guy who just somehow hoodwinked everyone and made good people do terrible things. There was a prominent component of political scheming to his rise to power, and it was a totalitarian state that murdered political opponents even before it got to genocide, but he was enthusiastically supported by a large portion of the German society.
- olelele 1y ago
  Same in Sweden, the majority popular opinion started shifting away from supporting Germany late in the war as they were obviously losing.
  - nugator 1y ago
    Citation please.
- vkou 1y ago
  > Isn't that just a comforting fantasy, though? Germans also embraced the myth of Hitler as a guy who just somehow hoodwinked everyone and made good people do terrible things. And there's no doubt about it - it was a myth. Most of Germany stood behind him, and were outraged by the failed July 20th coup... In 1944. Ivan and Uncle Sam were kicking down the door, extermination camps were working overtime, yet most people were still fully behind him. The hardest thing for people to admit is that they've been duped.