Yeah, the kids never drink up the minimum anyway, and then I have to finish their drinks. When I get drunk I'm a real pain in the ass, and Mr. Jane gets annoyed with me, and then I don't get any for a few days. So the biker bars are out. ;)

Everyone I know who was in combat situations - both military and otherwise - do one curious thing. Not one has ever admitted to personally killing. Under the right conditions, they will talk about how close they came to dead and sometimes who with them did not make it. But they never admit to personally killing.

That's intriguing tw.

did you ever serve tw? that's not an insult.

the reason i ask is that most of the guys i know are fairly open about it. not in proud or gloating manner, but just in a factual, relating the facts sort of way. but now that i think about it, things like that never are discussed around civilians... maybe it's just a concern that civilians would never understand, so they don't want to open themselves to judgement.

i'll have to ponder that one.

One of the things about combat also is the context of the combat.

Shooting somebody, stabbing somebody, bombing somebody, and launcing a torpedo at somebody are all different and I think they require a different form of detachment.

Never served. Almost joined George Jr in the Reserves.

In those days of and after Vietnam, most who came back never did talk. But after the movie Apocolypse Now, suddenly many started talking. Apparently that movie was close enough to reality that some who did serve felt others would understand the conundrum that was Nam.

I have seen same with some WWII vets. Got enough information to know their units were probably fully involved. But they talk as if their service was entirely patrol and guard duty.

Well it's a funny time to bring this up, and I've just been in a recent fight, but I remember every incident in my life where harm has been inflicted. I've come to regret every act of violence in my life, and I could not imagine anything more than broken noses or hurt feelings. I cannot believe or pretend to understand the horrors that happen in war, and I know from personal experience that soldiers aren't exactly prepared for them either. This time, we should consider all the victims of a senseless war we let happen. Maybe this time we'll get the bastards who started it.

My dad was a medic with an armored division in Europe in WWII. When Saving Private Ryan came out he told me he wouldn't see it because he heard how realistic it was supposed to be.

My uncle is that way about movies about the Korean War.

I had a friend who was a Vietnam Vet who went to all those movies on purpose ... he found it a useful way of getting over/past some stuff, and he'd talk it out with my friend Howard and I afterwards.

His favorite was Full Metal Jacket. He said it was closest.

Saving Private Ryan was horribly realistic.....Except for the total lack of any European soldiers in France :P

Uh,..well,...I saw Germans. But you're right, no French. ;)

The thing that always gets me about it all is jsut the sheer fucking insanity of it all. I think that scene in SPR where they guy sits down for a smoke, brings down the wall and suddenly they're face to face with a squard of german troops, the bit where having made it to the shingle a bullet skims off the guy's hat and he takes it off for a second..and gets his brains blown out...just so fucking random.

The other thing that gets me is there was an age when kings and princes led armies into battle, swords first. We need to bring that back.

Certainly. Any war worth citizens dying over is important enough for leaders to fight in themselves. We'd be more selective and less likely to fly off half-cocked every time someone pisses us off, otherwise known around my house as "picking your battles".

I believe than anyone who has the authority to order us into battle and risk losing our lives has the obligation to be ready to do the same.

What division and when?

Its called nuclear war. Even then, Curtis LeMay was cock sure he could get us into that war. One must understand the "Missiles of October" or even better, see McNamara's "Fog of War" movie that was just recently released. Some who even have the most to loose will still strive to create war. And LeMay was no dummy. He was probably the most competent general in the Air Force in that generation.