Barrington Hills Observer posted: " By Michael Ledwith In "The Great War and Modern Memory," Paul Fussell, a combat veteran of WWII, reviewed the literature and art created by the experiences endured by those who fought during the first World War and wrote about how the shock of millions" The Barrington Hills Observer
In "The Great War and Modern Memory," Paul Fussell, a combat veteran of WWII, reviewed the literature and art created by the experiences endured by those who fought during the first World War and wrote about how the shock of millions being killed by high explosives and machine gun bullets affected how we think about the world even today.
In another book, War, he did the same for WWII.
A more personal and poignant examination of the literature: he was wounded during the war, serving as a twenty-year old lieutenant in the 103rd Infantry Division in France, By then the lyricism of "Flanders Fields" and the ironies found in comparing nature to the moonscape of trench warfare that were replaced in novels and poetry by descriptions of being a very small part of a gigantic, remorseless, efficient machine that cared not for which way the poppies blew, but concentrated on the efficiencies of killing and processing death on an industrial scale.
As in the poem, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, below.
Our recent wars are more personal. Squads fighting against squads. The very specific, murderous violence of an IED. Small outposts in the middle of nowhere, with soldiers living medieval lives for weeks at a time.
The Ukraine War a seeming return to the Ypres Salient.
Artillery, not IEDs, the primary killer. Drones carrying small anti-personnel bombs targeting individual soldiers revolutionizing modern warfare between modern states.
Echoing the primitive bombing by WWI aviators from biplanes leaning over their cockpits and dropping grenades into trenches.
On this Memorial Day there are thousands of young men and women walking amongst us who have gone through it all. For whom the day is not symbolic, but a time to remember people they knew who were killed in action.
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