• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

In after Baud. Damn.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

No one could have predicted…

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Mobile Menu

  • Seattle Meet-up Post
  • 2025 Activism
  • Targeted Political Fundraising
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Absent Friends / RIP / Paul Fussell, RIP

Paul Fussell, RIP

by @heymistermix.com|  May 24, 201211:08 am| 81 Comments

This post is in: RIP

FacebookTweetEmail

Paul Fussell died yesterday. Wartime is the best book I’ve read on World War II, and Doing Battle is a painfully honest account of being a soldier. Here’s how the latter starts:

Late in the afternoon of March 15, 1945, in a small woods in southeastern France, Boy Fussell, aged twenty, was ill treated by members of the German Wehrmacht. His attackers have never been identified and brought to justice. How a young person so innocent was damaged this way and what happened as a result is the subject of this book.

There’s a lot of this kind of understated irony, and a whole lot of anger, in that book. If you haven’t read his stuff, you’re missing out.

(h/t Librarian in the comments)

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Twitter, how does it work?
Next Post: That obscure object of desire »

Reader Interactions

81Comments

  1. 1.

    Douglass Truth

    May 24, 2012 at 11:12 am

    totally. pro military folks should read Wartime; Thank God For The Atomic Bomb is challenging, too. My favorite of his is Class.

  2. 2.

    earl_of_scruggs

    May 24, 2012 at 11:14 am

    I’m sad to hear this. He was an underrated writer, scabrous, ironic, compelling. He was gadfly of the kind we so sorely need, and, on the topic of WWII, his memoirs are a bracing antidote to the Tom Brokaw/Greatest Generation claptrap.

  3. 3.

    Mike Goetz

    May 24, 2012 at 11:15 am

    Seconded. Fussell was one of the greats. “The Great War and Modern Memory” is one of the key books of the 20th century.

  4. 4.

    Villago Delenda Est

    May 24, 2012 at 11:18 am

    OK, I’m inspired. The three book mentioned are on my “to do” list now.

  5. 5.

    Librarian

    May 24, 2012 at 11:26 am

    I read Great War and Modern Memory in college. It was one of those books that change your whole way of thinking.

  6. 6.

    Linda Featheringill

    May 24, 2012 at 11:27 am

    OT but fun:

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/24/1094430/-NBC-Marist-President-Obama-leads-Florida-Ohio-and-Virginia

    New poll shows Barack leading Mitt in Florida and Ohio and Virginia. In the bottom half of the article, look at the numbers reflecting whom people blame for the mess we are in.

    I haz a happy. :-)

  7. 7.

    Waldo

    May 24, 2012 at 11:34 am

    A pleasure to read on any subject, but yeah, his war stuff is essential.

  8. 8.

    Brachiator

    May 24, 2012 at 11:35 am

    Thanks for noting Fussell’s passing. He was indeed a challenging writer.

    There is a very good profile of him at the Guardian. I’ve seen some comments elsewhere that try to paint him as pure anti-Left. As usual, ideologically driven morons do not do justice to a complex human being.

  9. 9.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    May 24, 2012 at 11:35 am

    @Librarian: Same here. And what Mike G. said. I was stunned by this book. That was thirty years ago – time to read it again.

  10. 10.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    May 24, 2012 at 11:45 am

    @Brachiator:

    There is a very good profile of him at the Guardian. I’ve seen some comments elsewhere that try to paint him as pure anti-Left. As usual, ideologically driven morons do not do justice to a complex human being.

    From reading the biographical notes I suspect Mr Fussell’s opinion about the “America, Fuck Ya” crowd wouldn’t be printable.

  11. 11.

    Citizen_X

    May 24, 2012 at 11:45 am

    Loved Wartime. Been meaning to read The Great War and Modern Memory for years.

  12. 12.

    Raven

    May 24, 2012 at 11:52 am

    The Real War, Paul Fussel

    They knew that in its representation to the laity, what was happening to them was systematically sanitized and Norman Rockwellized, not to mention Disneyfied.

  13. 13.

    FlipYrWhig

    May 24, 2012 at 11:58 am

    I audited a class with him in the early 1990s. I don’t think I appreciated as much as I ought to have, in retrospect.

  14. 14.

    Ronnie P

    May 24, 2012 at 11:59 am

    The poet Philip Larkin wrote a famous negative review of The Great War, but at the end he says something to the effect of “but then again, he [Fussell] served, and I did not.”

  15. 15.

    RSA

    May 24, 2012 at 12:03 pm

    I mostly enjoyed his collections of curmudgeonly essays: Thank God for the Atom Bomb and Other Essays, BAD — Or, The Dumbing of America, and Uniforms: Why We Are What We Wear. I didn’t always agree with him, but his popular pieces were always fun to read.

  16. 16.

    HumboldtBlue

    May 24, 2012 at 12:11 pm

    I love you guys. I’ve been looking for new material, I just finished re-reading Goodbye Darkness by Manchester, a book I haven’t read since I was a freshman in college and I was tiring of my civil War collection.

    This adds some new flavor to my shelves, although I am loathe to buy from Amazon I may have to after researching Fussell.

  17. 17.

    EconWatcher

    May 24, 2012 at 12:15 pm

    Back in the day, when I was studying in Ann Arbor, I went to the late, great original Border’s bookshop (the bohemian one, before it became a soulless corporation). I said I’d like a good book explaining poetic meter, because I was trying to understand what Shakespeare was doing. An aging, intellectual hippie referred me instantly to Fussell’s “Poetic Form and Poetic Meter.”

    Awesome. Very fun read; really informative. If you have any interest in how poetry works, pick up a copy.

    RIP, Mr. Fussell.

  18. 18.

    Raven

    May 24, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Try Late Thoughts on an Old War by Phil Beidler
    Remembering Heaven’s Face by John Balaban

  19. 19.

    dedc79

    May 24, 2012 at 12:28 pm

    The Great War and Modern Memory is a life-changer. If you haven’t read it, use this sad news as motivation to do so now.

  20. 20.

    Davis X. Machina

    May 24, 2012 at 12:35 pm

    Fussell’s definition of, and disquisition on, chickenshit, in Wartime is all by itself reason to read the book.

  21. 21.

    Rachel in Portland

    May 24, 2012 at 12:46 pm

    In addition to his great cultural commentary, Poetic Meter and Poetic Form is the best book I have read on that topic. One of my favorite writers.

  22. 22.

    Uncle Cosmo

    May 24, 2012 at 12:46 pm

    I recall his recollection of his reaction (& that of the soldiers around him in Europe), waiting to be transferred to the Pacific theater for the invasion of Japan, to word of the dropping of the first atom bomb:

    It meant we were going to live.

    Now it may in fact have been the USSR’s entry into the war that was primarily responsible for the Japanese surrender–but it is hard indeed to dispute Lt. Fussell’s recollection or to deny the sincerity of that emotional response.

  23. 23.

    erlking

    May 24, 2012 at 12:48 pm

    @earl_of_scruggs: Couldn’t agree more. His acerbic wit and experience are powerful antidotes to the sepia-toned and nostalgic bullshit that infects so much writing about the war.

  24. 24.

    Mike in NC

    May 24, 2012 at 12:59 pm

    He was a national treasure, for sure. RIP.

  25. 25.

    Mike in NC

    May 24, 2012 at 1:00 pm

    He was a national treasure, for sure. RIP.

  26. 26.

    Mike in NC

    May 24, 2012 at 1:03 pm

    A national treasure, to be sure. RIP.

  27. 27.

    Quaker in a Basement

    May 24, 2012 at 1:11 pm

    Also, see his book “Class,” about social class markers in American society. Hilarious.

  28. 28.

    LanceThruster

    May 24, 2012 at 1:12 pm

    @Douglass Truth: At a tribute dinner for Gen. Paul Tibbets and the Enola Gay crew at the Proud Bird in LA, I gave Tibbets a copy of the essay, “Thank God for the Atom Bomb” which he said he had never seen or read. What prompted that was a History Channel piece on the Enola Gay crew that stated that some of Tibbets’ descendents thought he was some sort of monster.

    Fussell’s writing was powerful and compelling reading. I am fortunate to have read many of his works. He will be missed.

  29. 29.

    aimai

    May 24, 2012 at 1:13 pm

    The Great War in Modern Memory, as someone said upthread, is one of the greatest books ever written about war, poetry, memory and a specific moment in time. Wartime was also very good. But to really understand Fussell you have to read his wife Betty’s book “My Kitchen Wars” (Ma Batterie De Cuisine) which is her memoir of her lengthy marriage to a guy who was a brilliant, unhappy, closeted, gay man. It makes reading his other books all the more poignant because you see how fundamentally dishonest he was forced to be about his inner life even while he was writing (often, in the case of the GWIMM) about other gay men and their inner lives.

    aimai

  30. 30.

    Brachiator

    May 24, 2012 at 1:15 pm

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Now it may in fact have been the USSR’s entry into the war that was primarily responsible for the Japanese surrender

    I don’t know, this seems like a bit of historical revisionism. Japan’s military urged the emperor to keep fighting even after the first bomb was dropped.

    Note that I am not arguing here for the “wisdom” of dropping the bomb. But although Japan was clearly defeated by the latter months of 1945, I don’t get any idea that the nation was going to surrender without further bloody fighting. And the Soviet invasion of Germany was brutal; an invasion of Japan promised more of this brutality.

    @HumboldtBlue:

    This adds some new flavor to my shelves, although I am loathe to buy from Amazon I may have to after researching Fussell.

    amazon has also recently had some great deals on kindle nonfiction books, including some good books on the Civil War (e.g. a collection of essays by McPherson).

  31. 31.

    aimai

    May 24, 2012 at 1:16 pm

    @HumboldtBlue:
    Just wanted to say high HumboldtBlue, I haven’t seen you around the intertubes recently. If you do read The Great War in Mod etc… read it with a period copy of the Oxford Book of Poetry–specifically the edition that came out before WWI. Last time I read the book I went to my local BrynMawr Booksale and found an old, out of date, edition and it was invaluable since I could quickly find the relevant poems and their setting in the edition that (he argues) many of the great poets of that period were reading in the trenches.

    aimai

  32. 32.

    Raven

    May 24, 2012 at 1:22 pm

    I was amazed to find this video of a trooper from the 503rd PI about the retaking of Corregidor. Mr Calahan was either on the landing craft that my dad was a signalman on or in the craft next to it because I hear this story many times.

    http://www.witnesstowar.org/content/view.php?v=925

  33. 33.

    Barry

    May 24, 2012 at 1:28 pm

    @EconWatcher: “Back in the day, when I was studying in Ann Arbor, I went to the late, great original Border’s bookshop (the bohemian one, before it became a soulless corporation). I said I’d like a good book explaining poetic meter, because I was trying to understand what Shakespeare was doing. An aging, intellectual hippie referred me instantly to Fussell’s “Poetic Form and Poetic Meter.””

    Back in the day, Borders was known for this – if you applied for a job, they ask questions like ‘if the customer asks for X, what other books and authors would you recommend?’.

  34. 34.

    pseudonymous in nc

    May 24, 2012 at 1:28 pm

    @earl_of_scruggs:

    He was an underrated writer, scabrous, ironic, compelling.

    I have disagreements with some of his earlier 18th-c scholarly work — which was my first encounter with him, and the field I researched — but that’s mainly because the field has moved on in terms of its historical understanding since the 1960s, when he was actively contributing to it. (His work on prosody doesn’t date.)

    There are ironies about how, as an American writer, he provided that application of literary criticism to history in The Great War and Modern Memory, when it’s a war to which Americans (for obvious reasons) don’t have the same kind of broad cultural connection as Europeans. Definitely the antithesis of Brokaw’s pablum.

  35. 35.

    tejanarusa

    May 24, 2012 at 1:36 pm

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    My late father-in-law, a sailor on board ship in the Pacific, was waiting to be sent to the invasion of Japan. His reaction: exactly the same.

  36. 36.

    pseudonymous in nc

    May 24, 2012 at 1:41 pm

    @aimai:

    I could quickly find the relevant poems and their setting in the edition that (he argues) many of the great poets of that period were reading in the trenches.

    I’ve seen Wilfred Owen’s personal library on display: lots of small hardback india-paper OUP volumes. But the 1900 Oxford Book of English Verse, compiled by Q — one of the first anthologies, really, reflecting the birth of ‘English literature’ as an academic field — was definitely the one that went across the Empire and into the trenches.

  37. 37.

    Tonyds

    May 24, 2012 at 1:45 pm

    I read a lot of WWII books. The best I’ve ever read–and one of the best BOOKS I’ve ever read, is The Other Side of Time by Brendan Phibbs.

    An absolutely moving, magnificent work. Also, his discussion of the inability of some people to engage in abstract thought is an awesome portrait of the militarily incompetent and conservative minds.

    http://www.amazon.com/The-Other-Side-Time-Surgeon/dp/0316705101/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1337881437&sr=8-2

  38. 38.

    Raven

    May 24, 2012 at 1:48 pm

    @tejanarusa: He was probably “waiting” off of Okinawa, that would have been enough for anyone to drop to their knees.

  39. 39.

    FlipYrWhig

    May 24, 2012 at 1:52 pm

    @pseudonymous in nc: 18th c. lit is my field too.

  40. 40.

    Joseph P.

    May 24, 2012 at 1:54 pm

    I was just watching Ken Burn’s “The War” the other day. I remember being impressed at the comments made by Paul Fussel. I did not previously know who he was, but I now want to read his books. He sounds like he was a sensitive and introspective man, and I am sure he will be missed by those that knew him.

  41. 41.

    EconWatcher

    May 24, 2012 at 1:55 pm

    @pseudonymous in nc:

    Fussell became pen pals with Eugene Sledge, whose account of life as a grunt in the Pacific war was used for the HBO series, The Pacific. Sledge and Fussell were kindred spirits, and both of them told it like it was, with no false sentimentality.

    For the same reason people here are recommending Fussell’s war books, I’d recommend Sledge’s With the Old Breed. Don’t be put off by the title or the pulpy appearance of the book. It is one of the most harrowing accounts of war you will ever read.

  42. 42.

    LanceThruster

    May 24, 2012 at 2:02 pm

    If you would like to read “Thank God for the Atom Bomb” as well as see the actual observer instruction manual for the Bikini Atoll atomc bomb tests, go here – http://crossroads.alexanderpiela.com/files/

  43. 43.

    LanceThruster

    May 24, 2012 at 2:07 pm

    @EconWatcher: Was glad to have read “With the Old Breed” before seeing “The Pacific.”

    It’s an important reminder of how first hand accounts strip combat of its “glamor” by bringing you face to face with the sheer brutality, particularly in regards to the island campaigns.

  44. 44.

    EconWatcher

    May 24, 2012 at 2:09 pm

    @LanceThruster:

    I’d never heard of Peleliu before reading that book. Since then, I’ve read that it’s widely thought to be the nastiest fight of the war involving U.S. troops. (Nothing, of course, could hold a candle to Stalingrad.)

  45. 45.

    Raven

    May 24, 2012 at 2:11 pm

    @LanceThruster: Here is the Auburn University website devoted to Dr Sledge. I think it is important to see the man that he became.

  46. 46.

    Davis X. Machina

    May 24, 2012 at 2:12 pm

    @LanceThruster: Goodbye, Darknesss by William Manchester, too. Not what Manchester’s known or remembered for, mostly, which is too bad.

  47. 47.

    tybee

    May 24, 2012 at 2:23 pm

    @Raven:

    wow. thanks. i’ll spend some time on that site.

    for those interested in wwii, the best single volume treatment of that conflict is “Delivered from Evil” by Robert Leckie. i believe he wrote another book or two as well. :)

  48. 48.

    Anoniminous

    May 24, 2012 at 2:24 pm

    A writer who should be on everybody’s “The Most Influential Writers of the 20th Century” list. Alas he was too ornery and iconoclastic to be taken-up by Teh Masses and their Gate Keepers.

  49. 49.

    Raven

    May 24, 2012 at 2:31 pm

    @tybee: are you on tybee?

  50. 50.

    HumboldtBlue

    May 24, 2012 at 2:33 pm

    Oh, and Antony Beevor’s “Stalingrad” is a fantastic work. I have always struggled with keeping a mental map in my head when reading military history and for some reason (along with some maps I copied from online) I never had much of a problem with Beevor. It doesn’t hurt to have played hours of “Blitzkrieg” and I have been remiss in not picking up more of Beevor’s work (his follow-up to Stalingrad was IMO pretty meh).

    Also, while we’re on the subject, An Army at Dawn and Day of Battle by Rick Atkinson are fantastic.

    Hey, Aimai, just been lurking. Losing Strange seriously dampened my commenting urges.

  51. 51.

    HumboldtBlue

    May 24, 2012 at 2:33 pm

    @Davis X. Machina: I agree one hundred thousand percent. It’s a vastly overlooked work and a brilliant piece of writing.

  52. 52.

    lawrence

    May 24, 2012 at 3:04 pm

    i’ll never forget the day that Saving Private Ryan was released. Morning Edition did an interview with Steven Ambrose who fawned all over the opening and Paul Fussell followed up denouncing the opening for the blood porn that it was. iirc, the interviewer wasn’t prepared for such “straight talk”.

  53. 53.

    Svensker

    May 24, 2012 at 3:11 pm

    @aimai: .

    But to really understand Fussell you have to read his wife Betty’s book “My Kitchen Wars” (Ma Batterie De Cuisine) which is her memoir of her lengthy marriage to a guy who was a brilliant, unhappy, closeted, gay man.

    Yes. And Betty Fussell’s books about food and food history are gems in their own right. An intelligent, interesting woman.

  54. 54.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    May 24, 2012 at 3:13 pm

    Back in the early ’00s (’03 or ’04) I loaned my copy of Fussell’s The Boys’ Crusade to a young wingnut coworker who ha recently been getting into WWII history. Here’s the conversation we had when he returned the book:

    Young Wingnut: This book sucks!

    Me: Really? How so?

    YW: It makes war look bad.

  55. 55.

    Raven

    May 24, 2012 at 3:15 pm

    @lawrence: Wonder what he thought of the Thin Red Line adaptation? It was a shame that it came out at the same time, it was overshadowed by PVT Ryan.

  56. 56.

    EconWatcher

    May 24, 2012 at 3:19 pm

    @lawrence:

    I’m not sure I get that. For someone like me who has never seen war, I thought the first half hour of Saving Private Ryan was an education in what bullets really are, and what they can really do to a human body. It stuck with me, and made me understand some things better.

    If Fussell was all about removing the romance from war, I could see why he might have issues with the rest of the movie, but not the first half hour.

  57. 57.

    Villago Delenda Est

    May 24, 2012 at 3:34 pm

    @Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):

    Young Wingnut: This book sucks!
    Me: Really? How so?
    YW: It makes war look bad.

    /facepalm

    I’ll bet YW would never get anywhere near a fucking recruiting office.

  58. 58.

    HumboldtBlue

    May 24, 2012 at 3:37 pm

    If Fussell was all about removing the romance from war, I could see why he might have issues with the rest of the movie, but not the first half hour.

    I agree, I’m not sure why he would object to showing combat in its most vicious and deadly form. They didn’t glorify that landing, they showed us the horror of what men endured.

  59. 59.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    May 24, 2012 at 4:01 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I’ll bet YW would never get anywhere near a fucking recruiting office.

    Hell no! He spent his down time the early ’00s day-trading while cheerleading the rush to war in Iraq.

  60. 60.

    tybee

    May 24, 2012 at 4:03 pm

    @Raven:

    one island over. :)

  61. 61.

    Raven

    May 24, 2012 at 4:07 pm

    @tybee: HH

  62. 62.

    Bill Arnold

    May 24, 2012 at 4:09 pm

    @Quaker in a Basement:
    Re “Class”, one part that really resonated with me was the categorization into
    lower lower class
    middle lower
    upper lower
    lower middle
    middle middle
    upper middle
    lower upper
    middle upper
    upper upper.
    I don’t recall him discussing lower upper upper, middle upper upper, upper upper upper, etc. American inequality has a lot of orders of magnitude.

  63. 63.

    tybee

    May 24, 2012 at 4:09 pm

    @Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):

    should have YW read “johnny got his gun”

  64. 64.

    tybee

    May 24, 2012 at 4:12 pm

    @Raven:

    wilmington. 5 min from tybee. i’ll wave that way this weekend as i’ll be on tybee & little tybee a bit – unless “Beryl” rains/blows us out.

  65. 65.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    May 24, 2012 at 4:35 pm

    @tybee:

    He’d say the same thing. His (now) wife was a coworker, too, and a friend on FB, and they haven’t changed. I think the SNL “douchebags” characters were based on them.

  66. 66.

    pseudonymous in nc

    May 24, 2012 at 4:47 pm

    My grandad was on Sword Beach, then went across northern France through to the Netherlands, often alongside the Canadians. He didn’t tell too many stories, but the ones he did tell were bleakly comic. He kept diaries and sent letters that my uncle now keeps; I ought to look at them.

    @FlipYrWhig: I’m been on what you might call a decade-long sabbatical, but my heart’s with the 18th c.

  67. 67.

    smintheus

    May 24, 2012 at 5:03 pm

    If you enjoyed The Great War in Modern Memory, you’d probably also appreciate the memoir by Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That. It covers similar ground, but as an eye-witness and if anything more sardonically.

  68. 68.

    mellowjohn

    May 24, 2012 at 5:04 pm

    @tejanarusa: my father was serving on an LCI (landing craft infantry) with the 7th fleet, and in august 1945 they were moored in leyte gulf in the phillipines.
    instead of invading japan, he came home in february 1946. i was born in november.
    thank god for the atom bomb has always had special meaning for me.

  69. 69.

    smintheus

    May 24, 2012 at 5:09 pm

    @lawrence: Steven Ambrose was a drunken fool. I spent an evening with him about 20 years ago, when he came to my campus to give a high profile guest lecture. He was a bore and clownish. His lecture went over like a lead balloon with both faculty and students; had nothing consequential to say.

  70. 70.

    smintheus

    May 24, 2012 at 5:11 pm

    @mellowjohn: My dad was in the same position, though I was born many years later.

  71. 71.

    LanceThruster

    May 24, 2012 at 5:39 pm

    Thanks to all for your reading recommendations. While not a personal memoir, I also found this book on the way the war technology was employed quite illuminating.

    http://www.amazon.com/Brute-Force-Allied-Strategy-Tactics/dp/0670807737

  72. 72.

    LanceThruster

    May 24, 2012 at 5:46 pm

    @Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): It’s amazing how many personal veterans accounts start with buying into the John Wayne depiction of war and combat. It is usually the actual combat veterans who learn that the reality is far more severe and disturbing.

    Along those lines, I recently saw a docudrama on the Red Baron and did not realize that towards the end of the war before his death he spoke out against the wasting of young lives for no good purpose. He resented and resisted being used as a recruiting tool.

    Never let it be said though, that the 101st Fighting Keyboardists would ever allow themselves to be swayed by facts.

  73. 73.

    mainmati

    May 24, 2012 at 6:32 pm

    My Mother-in-Law is a good friend of Betty Fussell, ex-wife of Paul and I’ve traveled with her myself. A beautiful, warm and gracious person and a great writer in her own right. Her book Corn is an excellent read. My wife says, when she was growing up, everyone liked his books but that not many liked him personally since he was uniformly, harshly critical about everyone and everything. Maybe WWII really damaged him.

  74. 74.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    May 24, 2012 at 10:59 pm

    @LanceThruster:

    I have a great-uncle who was in, iirc, the 1st (Army) Division, on the front lines from the Torch landings through the end of the war (luckily he didn’t have to go into Normandy until D+10). The only thing he ever talked about was escaping from a POW camp in North Africa, which he says happened because the Italians running it were so inept.

    When I was 10 or 11, I asked my grandma (his older sister) why Uncle Ownie never talked about the war, and she let me know in no uncertain terms that war isn’t at all like the movies. I took that to heart. The world needs more Uncle Ownies and his sisters to make this plain.

  75. 75.

    Digital Amish

    May 24, 2012 at 11:28 pm

    There’s an excellent article from Fussel here that touches on some of his feeling about combat and war and it’s residual effect on personality. It’s here
    http://harpers.org/archive/1982/01/0024716

  76. 76.

    LanceThruster

    May 25, 2012 at 12:58 am

    @Digital Amish: Thank you so much for this. Thoroughly fascinating.

  77. 77.

    Bloix

    May 25, 2012 at 2:53 am

    @Douglass Truth: You can find Thank God for the Atom Bomb here – it’s not very long:

    http://crossroads.alexanderpiela.com/files/Fussell_Thank_God_AB.pdf

  78. 78.

    Batocchio

    May 25, 2012 at 5:00 am

    Aw, fuck. He had a great run and will be missed.

  79. 79.

    tybee

    May 25, 2012 at 9:40 am

    i like this line from the “thank god for the atom bomb”:

    Understanding the past requires pretending that you don’t know the present.

  80. 80.

    sherparick

    May 25, 2012 at 9:50 am

    @Librarian: I must admit as someone who never went to war himself (a luck of generational timing, to young for Vietnam, to old for the Gulf War and all the fun since), Fussell introduced me to far more than military history to what a constant “fuck-up” war is. It is a long piece of literary criticism, and hence not necessarily anyone’s Cup of Tea, but “The Great War and Modern Memory” is one of the great non-fiction books of the 20th century. http://books.google.com/books?id=1_vXso80qrAC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false.
    He justified his survival, and he memorialized his two comrades who died on top of the pill box on the German-French border near Sarreguemes, France in March 1945. Lieutenant Biedrzycki, who was killed along with TSGT Hudson atop that pill box, is burried in the American Military Cemetery of the Lorraine at St. Avold.

  81. 81.

    sherparick

    May 25, 2012 at 9:53 am

    @Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): My jaw drops. Beyond the Onion.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

On The Road - way2blue - SINALEI, SAMOA—RESPITE EDITION—FEBRUARY 2025.  (second of five) 7
Image by way2blue (7/13/25)

World Central Kitchen

Donate

Recent Comments

  • Chetan Murthy on Late Night Open Thread: Buyer’s Remorse (Jul 14, 2025 @ 2:22am)
  • AlaskaReader on War for Ukraine Day 1,235: A Brief Sunday Night Update (Jul 14, 2025 @ 2:19am)
  • Chetan Murthy on Late Night Open Thread: Buyer’s Remorse (Jul 14, 2025 @ 2:19am)
  • danielx on Late Night Open Thread: Buyer’s Remorse (Jul 14, 2025 @ 2:18am)
  • Craig on Medium Cool – Navel Gazing! (Jul 14, 2025 @ 2:16am)

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
No Kings Protests June 14 2025

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

Feeling Defeated?  If We Give Up, It's Game Over

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!