Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for August 17, 2013

I remember, one time I blew this dudes head off….Oh sorry, no icky stuff.

An old friend of mine, a WWII combat veteran, said that wars are fought by 18-year-olds because at that age you just can’t believe that you are the one who will be killed or maimed. He was a medic and he saw how often soldiers were surprised (!) when they were hit. Another vet told me that, no matter how often and emphatically he was told in training that people would be shooting at him, he just didn’t “get” it until he was lying in a foxhole at Anzio. This is not just inexperience. Physiologists now know that the brain, especially those parts that deal with risk assessment, is not fully developed until about the age 25. A teenager’s brain literally does not operate the same way an adult’s does, no matter how “smart” he is.

and, he also wants to you to not mention the sexual assaults in the military, spousal abuse, the rampant alcohol abuse, how everyone is on skoal or cope or kodiak, and if you are stationed in san diego, to steer clear of the mayor of san diego. also, don’t mention the many divorces, and that your spouse is a dependosaurus.

@ Omnius;

Spoken like a true FAC pilot.

The average age of the combat vet during WW II was 26. During Vietnam it was 19.

It’s possible that your dad went to see my grandfather about the malaria. He was a USN MD who enlisted when he was about 44. He too came home from Guadalcanal with malaria.

She’s a mechanic so I’d figure a mechanic would talk about that.

That’s like talking to a Realtor and saying they can’t talk about money…

during and after the civil war the condition we now call ptsd was refered to as “soldier’s heart”.

“We’ll make them Army strong right up until the sht hts the fan.”

And yet, there are those amongst us who preach “peace and brotherhood” to people coming over the hill with clubs, spears, swords, arrows, trebuchets, blunderbusses, cavalry, explosives, aeroplanes, bombs, and other instruments of war over the ages, and what did it get us?

A whole BUNCH of property changes, ‘unintended pregnancies’, impressed religions and some damfool trying to tell me that I shouldn’t arm myself to defend what I’ve got. Nay, I say. Fight on with whatever resource. I’m no longer a peasant and sure as hell don’t want to be a Moslem by force.

aaaaaaaaaaaaand, of course, a PopUp destroyed everything I had to say about the Muslim invasion of Spain by Tariq whatzisname in 600 or thereabouts while my forebears were wondering why the Norsemen were trying ot ‘do’ my daughters, etc. and why my Scottish antecedentswere having a wonderful time fighting over …… well, you get the idea… Property, religion, and power. Always a driving force from biblical times right up to Wall Street and beyond. Well, seein’s I’m here, the sissies must have bent over. (knelt)

Combat telephone line work took real nerve. Jean Shepard did that and spoke eloquently of hearing “Hit the dirt!” when he was 20 feet up a pole.

Nooo … look, I’m a total liberal, but jeez, we do need a strong military. And I know there are people who are really born for this life. BD, for example. He drifted around but his heart was really not just in the military, but at war. He seems to be getting over that, though.

What about the water skiing and the travel?