Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for July 12, 2024

What about B-theists?

There were atheists so that said, but I wonder what went through their mind when we had LP duty (listening post, a fox hole in front listening for infiltrators, it got scary!)

At least Phil is caught up with all the military cliches.

Just going to throw this out here for those who think there are not atheists in the military (or foxholes) www (dot) MilitaryAtheists (dot) org which is the organization of Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers

Like god didn’t get a believer into the foxhole in the first place?

I’m a believer , because I would rather be in the grace of God than not be : ) I guess I will need to wait to see if it is true or not ?

Jean Jacques Galabru started to tell me about times in The French Resistance but his kids found it boring and interrupted. I really wanted to hear.

War doesn’t determine who’s right, only who’s left.

War separates the men from the boys. Boys romanticize war; men know it is hell and seek to avoid it.

If you read any of the autobiographies from the members of “Band of Brothers” they come out differently some a like you grand-pa telling stories, others are personal growth etc. the one by Webster-the translator- was a flop when it came out in the 50’s because he was caustic and sarcastic about the military and service.

Had he lived into the 60’s it might have been a major hit with men who were in vietnam discovering they had things in common with ‘the greatest generation’ after all

Most of the children of World War II vets I know say their fathers never talked about the war.

It wasn’t respectable to have PTSD back then (it was thought of as being weak and cowardly), the war was popular and supposedly glorious, and people back home wanted to hear about how great it was, not how horrible it was.

Foxholes were WWI. I think WW2 was trenches.

If he wanted to do something useful, he could clear some rubble somewhere

I do not believe in religion, but I have faith in God.

It’s a funny thing that often when people get passionate they’ll start talking in cliches.

I wish every solder in WWII would have written their book of their service.

War is not a Rambo movie nor a D-Day movie. War is a chaotic, essentially personal and unshareable experience. Most soldiers do not see combat. They are the ones who are willing to talk about it.

The books are written…Read Them!Start with “The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich”. Wm. Schirer. And apply it to today!

Well, that about sums things up.

There are no foxes in athiest holes

Mark’s dad wouldn’t have lasted long with Sgt.Rock and Easy Company

Some of these comments remind me of Yuri Gagarin going to space and saying he didn’t see God up there. (Later attributed to a Khrushchev speech.) In my conversation with many vets and non-vets, whether you find God depends on whether you’re looking for Him, where you’re looking and why you’re looking. He’s under no obligation to show Himself on demand.However, if you’re interested in reading some thoughts written by a couple of soldiers who went through the horrors of trench warfare in WW I, try C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

“There are no atheists in foxholes” is, bluntly, idiotic. I’d go so far as to suggest the only folks in foxholes are those who, quite rightly, are more interested in staying alive, than in god’s plan for them – which is to say, for all intents and purposes, atheists. If you truly believed in god’s plan and in the afterlife, why wouldn’t you stroll towards the enemy whistling a cheerful tune? Presumably, if god wants you to live, then you’ll live, and if he wants you to die, you’ll die. When you die, you’ll be whisked into the eternal loving embrace anyway, so why doubt the grand plan? And surely a little thing like taking shelter in a foxhole won’t protect you if your time is up? Why, it’s almost as if, when the chips are down, those who claim to believe aren’t quite so sure…

My father wrote of his experiences but I’ve never been able to find a copy. I asked some relatives but I never heard back. I don’t know why I didn’t have a copy.

WWII was over before my father went to Europe. He was in a unit of misfits, he said, so they wouldn’t have done any real fighting.

Don’t listen to your grandpa when he tells you everyone in America united in the war effort. WWII was divisive. Plenty of people called it a European or Asian problem — not anything for us to get involved in.

And then there’s all the crooks who profited illegally from the war preparations.

Just a little update here. Back on June 23, in comments on that day’s “Doonesbury”, TexTech and dukafinare assured us that Trump was going to prison on July 12, so keep checking those headlines, guys.

“There are no atheists in foxholes” isn’t an argument against atheists, it’s an argument against foxholes.

My father was never drafted to serve in WWII. By the time he was about to be called up, news that his two older brothers (US Navy pilots) were “missing” over the Pacific. So the local draft board gave him an exemption, and he spent the rest of the war working at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. The loss of the two uncles I never knew was a great family tragedy. To her dying day, my grandmother believed that one day Frankie and Hymie would come home, safe and sound, after all those years. Sometimes my father would curse the war because it was the reason that he lost his beloved brothers. My younger sister was named in honor of Uncle Frank.

Gold pillows, eh? Were they from whatzisname, the überChristian Trumpite who always wears this big cross around his neck and overcharges for his headrests?

Because 1John 5:19 We know we originate with God but whole world lying in power of wicked one (for now thus so many problems)

The eternal truths of soldiering.