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A WW2 Vets way of explaining war.

Posted on 3/10/17 at 7:34 pm
Posted by bott18240
Baton Rouge
Member since Jun 2009
564 posts
Posted on 3/10/17 at 7:34 pm
Bill Mauldin wrote this in his book "Up Front." I couldn't even imagine 2 hours of this. Its a long passage but I know you WW2 guys would find it interesting...

Dig a hole in your back yard when it is raining. Sit in the hole until the water climbs up around your ankles. Pour cold mud down your shirt collar. Sit there for 48 hours and, so, there is no danger of dozing off, imagine that a guy is sneaking around waiting for a chance to club you on the head or set your house on fire.

Get out of the hole, fill a suitcase with rocks, pick it up, put a shotgun in your other hand, and walk on the muddiest road you can find. Fall flat on your face every few minutes as you imagine big meteors streaking down at you.

After ten or twelve miles still carrying all that, start sneaking through the wet brush. Imagine that somebody has booby trapped your route with rattlesnakes which will bite you if you step on them. Give some friend a rifle and have him blast in your direction once in a while.

Snoop around until you find a bull. Try to figure out a way to sneak around him without letting him see you. When he does see you, run like hell all the way back to your hole in the back yard, drop the suitcase and shotgun, and get in.

Do this every three days for several months and you may begin to understand what a infantryman on the front went through in WW2.


This post was edited on 3/11/17 at 12:27 pm
Posted by Centinel
Idaho
Member since Sep 2016
43480 posts
Posted on 3/10/17 at 9:05 pm to
That's pretty much spot on
Posted by fr33manator
Baton Rouge
Member since Oct 2010
125008 posts
Posted on 3/10/17 at 9:08 pm to
And college kids these days think they have it hard because someone didn't immediately observe their made up pronouns.
Posted by schwartzy
New Orleans
Member since May 2014
9067 posts
Posted on 3/10/17 at 9:13 pm to
I'm just glad there are enough people willing to serve because I never could survive that. I'm a bitch idc
Posted by InfantryDawg
Valhalla
Member since Oct 2013
1777 posts
Posted on 3/10/17 at 9:49 pm to
Makes me feel bad for bitching about trivial stuff when I was deployed lol.
Posted by SundayFunday
Member since Sep 2011
9322 posts
Posted on 3/10/17 at 10:12 pm to
WWI soldiers had it worse. Just have the same story but put 100k dead bodies around him and have him stay in that hole for 6 months.
Posted by Kafka
I am the moral conscience of TD
Member since Jul 2007
143187 posts
Posted on 3/11/17 at 9:36 am to
"The only way to make a realistic war movie is to hide snipers behind the screen and have them shoot at the audience" -- Samuel Fuller





Posted by islandtiger
Baton Rouge
Member since Sep 2012
1787 posts
Posted on 3/11/17 at 12:07 pm to
That is exactly why my father-in-law chose to be a pilot (dive bomber) in the Pacific. "If I survived the mission, I got to sleep with clean sheets and eat a warm meal."
Posted by Crow Pie
Neuro ICU - Tulane Med Center
Member since Feb 2010
25467 posts
Posted on 3/11/17 at 12:07 pm to
I went to the WW2 museum over Mardi Gras and the effort and sacrifice that was given by that generation almost brought me to tears
Posted by Pelican fan99
Lafayette, Louisiana
Member since Jun 2013
35158 posts
Posted on 3/11/17 at 1:29 pm to
WW2 vets are a dying breed. We need to get all the knowledge out of them before its gone
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