I have a dire headache -- ibuprofen has taken the worst of the edge but it remains, dull any awful -- and I'm not dealing at all well with the eye thing.
Here's a little thought for the morning, in the aftermath of Veteran's Day:
"War loses a great deal of its romance after a soldier has seen his first battle. I have a more vivid recollection of the first than of the last one I was in. It is a classical maxim that it is sweet and becoming to die for one's country; but whoever has seen the horrors of a battlefield feels that it is far sweeter to live for it."
Pop quiz: who said that? Some WW I soldier-poet, leaning to pacifism in the aftermath, perhaps? A WW II journalist, traveling with the troops? A Korean War novelist?
Nope. John S. Mosby, writing in 1887 and reflecting on his Civil War experience as the commander of "Mosby's Raiders," what today would be called an unconventional warfare force, operating with considerable impunity behind Union lines in West Virgina. At the time, the Union called them "guerrillas," with roughly the same connotation then as "terrorist" has today. Their exploits read more like imaginative fiction bordering on farce than reality, with reports of rousing officers in their beds, intercepting payroll wagons and so on. (H. Beam Piper told them most entertainingly in Rebel Raider.) Mosby's words stand as a sobering reminder that warfare is not a romp; the bill does come due, payable in blood and death.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
3 comments:
The film Glory touches on this.
There is no glory in war, only pain and death.
gfa
"It is a classical maxim that it is sweet and becoming to die for one's country; but whoever has seen the horrors of a battlefield feels that it is far sweeter to live for it."
Considering that state-of-the-art battlefield hospitals in that era meant they had Chloroform and some Opium but no knowledge of infection and the resulting sepsis meant recovery was a grim ordeal. And that's putting it nicely.
Over 600,000 dead in that conflict but roughly 2/3 died of disease that simple sanitation could have prevented.
I myself have never served in uniform (most of the males on both sides of the family have served) but I firmly believe only someone who has seen the horror of battle should be allowed to commit our nation's human treasure to war.
GFA- Glory, (1989 film of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry)was an *outstanding* movie, well worth seeing again...
"-- and I'm not dealing at all well with the eye thing."
I may know that feeling. I had a small retinal detachment in the left macula nearly twenty years ago. The treatment created a blind (grey) spot right where it focuses on words. (Still have 20/15 vision in that eye, just have to look below the line to see the word..)
The area of disturbed vision was a fair bit larger right after the laser surgery, and it was hard to get away from thinking about the what-ifs, and whether I would be able to continue writing software and doing electronics if it happened to the other eye, or this, or that...
It seems like sudden changes to our senses, vision in particular, are much more unnerving than our everyday medical issues. This stress will pass.
I hope this helps some.
Jim R
Post a Comment