General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHas it been your experience when interacting with war veterans....
....most of them try to deliberately avoid discussing having to shoot at and potentially kill other people on the battlefield?
Most of the ones I've spoken with don't bring up the subject, and I personally don't feel like dredging it up for them. And that to me seems like the most natural response in having to deal with those types of harrowing experiences. I wouldn't view it as something to brag about, no matter how justified I may have been.
So if you come across someone who has fought in a war and that person makes a specific point of talking about how many people he killed, wouldn't that strike you as being somewhat abnormal?
Just an open question here. And for any DU veterans on here, I don't wish to open up any wounds, so feel free to pass on the question if you like.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)It wasn't until I was a teenager and read my father's Bronze Star citation that I had any idea he'd ever fired a weapon at anyone. He killed several Germans in an engagement and never, ever mentioned it.
Sopkoviak
(357 posts)And the louder they brag about it down at the VFW or especially in online forums are the biggest lying assholes.
dissentient
(861 posts)that veterans don't talk about how many people they killed, or consider it something to brag about.
That is why I think this Kyle character was some kind of psychopath, that he bragged about it and said he enjoyed it.
That is not a normal human response to killing.
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)I was drafted and he enlisted and was a Green Beret Captain.
We haven't talked to each other about Vietnam and both of us are in our late 60's. I don't see either of us wanting to bring up the conversation.
We don't belong to the VFW
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)There's talking about it, and then there's talking about it.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)very reluctant to talk about it, except when there was a gathering (not a bar trawl) or another important reason.
Ykcutnek
(1,305 posts)One bragged about how many times they fucked up and had to call in a CIA field operative to cover up civilian deaths.
TexasProgresive
(12,157 posts)They would talk about funny things that happened but not about actual combat. This includes my Dad, Grandfather and uncle. My Dad served twice. The 2nd time in special forces. Those people only talk about "stuff" when they all got together. He certainly never told me anything.
I want to add- those I've heard telling war stories are liars.
Elwood P Dowd
(11,443 posts)The Army guys I knew that were in the bad shit over there rarely talked about it. Friends from school who were in it didn't talk about it. The loudmouths who constantly talked about 'Nam usually turned out to be mechanics, cooks, MPs, and other similar MOS types who were never involved in combat.
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)Elwood P Dowd
(11,443 posts)about their 'Nam experience. The 11 Bravo or 11 Charlie types I knew that were in the bush or involved with TET rarely if ever brought up their combat experiences.
glasshouses
(484 posts)Some talk about it some don't.
Most talk about it with other combat vets not with random Joes like you are referring about.
Bandit
(21,475 posts)Maybe something ,"God the 678 was a motherfucker wasn't it?" That is about it.. Any talk about their time served is usually about other stuff, such as "remember that one hooch maid at Myloc, man she was something" Never ever ever about killing people or how much damage they dished out.. NEVER
glasshouses
(484 posts)unless they were in the shit themselves .
vankuria
(904 posts)and never discusses it either. If you ask him he'll answer you but never brings it up. In fact he finds it really distasteful when veterans brag or look for any kind of glory in what they did on or off the battlefield. He considers his time in the military a job just like everyone else and everything he did was what anyone else would do.
Very humble guy my husband.
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)Last edited Tue Jan 20, 2015, 08:25 PM - Edit history (1)
who won the Samuel Goldwyn Award For Screenwriting for his amazing screenplay Stagecoach Bravo about the Vietnam War (two-time Goldwyn Award winner, in fact). I think he's retired now but he was also a screenwriting professor at USC in their film school. McAdams had wild eyes that would bug out when he talked about being an infantryman during the Vietnam War. He'd describe his combat experiences as 30 or 40 minutes of complete insanity of people running around, shooting, screaming and losing touch with reality. He saw heavy combat and you could tell that it really changed his life. He never talked about specifically shooting someone but would discuss it as a totally chaotic gestalt of being someone else, out of body, in the heavier engagements he experienced. He's also written books about Vietnam. Frank Mcadams is one great guy, who takes time with young writers and is really encouraging.
My dad was a B-17 co-pilot shot down over Germany in WWII. His crew was followed by John Steinbeck when the latter went to England as a war correspondent and his name is mentioned several times in Steinbeck's war memoirs Once There Was A War. My dad parachuted out of a burning plane just before it exploded and fell through the roof of a barn, breaking his hips. A German soldier also shot him in the leg. My dad spent many months at Stalag Luft III (where the Great Escape occurred) but couldn't walk and his leg bones did not knit together as medical care was very poor. He had to wait until after the war to be treated. My dad would talk about being shot down but would always have nightmares afterwards where he screamed in his sleep and said he would relive having two of his crew members scream out as they were trapped and burned alive in the rear of the plane. He never watched films like Memphis Belle or 12 O'clock High. He didn't have a real complex about his experience and would talk about it (with the above described consequences) and would attend yearly Stalag Luft III POW reunions where everyone there had been shot down. What seemed to have traumatized him more than anything else, however, and something he only rarely talked about was killing a German civilian. On the POW train heading for the prisoner camp, a German train conductor, a civilian, was very cruel with the U.S. prisoners, sticking knives in their wounds and beating them. My dad said when the conductor got too close to an open door and the train was traveling very fast, he pushed the man out with a crutch, most likely killing him. My dad regretted killing a man all his life, up close and personal, even though that man was a sadistic bastard. My dad was the guy on the extreme right, with a mustache and cap.
tenderfoot
(8,438 posts)behave as if everyone owes them something and that they're the sole reason we have "freedom" of speech etc...
jwirr
(39,215 posts)years after the war ended. That day my dad got a call from the uncle's wife begging him to come over there as soon as he could. When he got there my uncle was ranting about what was happening and tell my father why he would never go back there again. It had to do with the way families treated their daughters. He talked about a lot of other things also.
Then when we were cleaning out my grandmother's house I and his daughters found a box in the closet - I knew what was in the box - his letters and other things he had sent home while in Korea. I took the box to him, told him what was in it and asked him what to do with it. He asked that I put it in his trailer to take home but he never opened it.
I don't think he wanted to open the memories that were locked inside his mind if he did not have to.
Lurks Often
(5,455 posts)I've read a number of memoirs, biographies & autobiographies of snipers* and none of them showed any noticeable remorse about what they did, most enjoyed the challenge and none of them seemed particularly bothered by the killing. What did bother them were the friends and fellow soldiers that were killed.
* From WWII 2 Russian, 2 German, 1 British and from WWI, 1 American that was serving with the Canadians in Europe, from Vietnam, Carlos Hathcock and 1 from Iraq, not Kyle's book.
PTSD is subjective, some are affected by PTSD and some aren't, two examples where they suffered from PTSD from WWII are Audie Murphy's book "To Hell and Back" and you can see the progression from eager soldier to combat veteran and the PTSD that came with it. E.B. Sledge's "With The Old Breed" is a similar example, only as a Marine in the Pacific.
In the end, it's an assumption to say ALL veterans won't talk about what they did in combat. Some may not discuss it all, some many only discuss it with people who want through similiar experiences and some have no problem talking about it.
dilby
(2,273 posts)My step-dad was a sniper in Vietnam he never talked about killing people but it was obvious by his medals that he was good at it, when my step-brother enlisted in the Army my step-dad told him in basic training don't let them know how good of a shot you are or you will end up a sniper like he was. My step-brother enlisted after getting a degree in respiratory therapy and enlisted to be medical which is what he did. My uncle was a machine gunner on a helicopter and if you listened to him talk he was mutherfucking Rambo in Vietnam and would have single-handedly won the whole thing if they would have just unleashed him. He had PTSD issues and died from drugs and alcohol. My other uncle never talked about Vietnam but did say his brother would have looked at shit a lot differently if he was in the jungle and not flying around in a helicopter. Then I knew another guy who really was the only guy I thought was truly messed up, he served two tours in Korea and three tours in Vietnam. He signed up for a fourth tour in Vietnam but was told he was getting a desk job so he left the service, according to him he was only good at killing, not pushing paper so the service had no purpose for him at that point. He was the security guard at a hotel I worked at in college and he had no problem saying he killed people, especially with rowdy guests who would make the mistake of calling him an old man.
Skittles
(153,179 posts)jaysunb
(11,856 posts)I was asked a lot when I first got home (1967) by people who seemed to watch too much teevee. It was not something I wanted to discuss then or now.
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)grandfathers or uncles who fought in WWII and Vietnam and didn't want to talk about it. IME, those in Gulf Wars I and II share more than the previous generation.
ThoughtCriminal
(14,047 posts)Hasn't said a word about what he saw and did. But he says that the ones that boast about it are usually posers who never set foot there.
DesertDawg
(66 posts)From the guys who actually did it for real. Two Grandfathers, one WWII, one Korea, Great Uncle who was a Pearl Harbor survivor, father Army S.F Vietnam, older brother Air Force Desert Storm, cousin a Green Beret in Afghanistan and Iraq and two friends in the Rangers and one friend USAF Special Forces. Plus all my dads Vet friends.
None talk about what they have done, none are very proud of it. They all pretty much think a certain Navy SEAL is a liar as are most all braggarts. In fact my cousin and two friends who were in Iraq feel several current glory hounds are full of shit.
I believe them.
AwakeAtLast
(14,133 posts)He rarely talks, and only in a moment of extreme vulnerability in my presence. No details.
niyad
(113,527 posts)never just in regular conversations.
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)when talking with war vets that yes, a good many of them do NOT want to talk about shooting at, and possibly killing, other people.
Some of them don't want to discuss their war experiences at all.
If someone made a point of talking about how many people he killed, I don't know. Maybe he's not really bragging or anything. Maybe he's punishing himself in some way by making himself remember.
I'm glad I never had to go to war. I don't know if I could live with myself. Quite likely I would have failed basic training anyway...
Avalux
(35,015 posts)There was a rare occasion when they'd share something, but not in detail. My Dad's father was a marine in the Pacific and killed a lot of Japanese soldiers at Tarawa, it was horrific. Times were different then though; now it seems everyone wants their story to be public.
sarisataka
(18,755 posts)I learned many things about my WW2 vet uncles. I was now a member of the 'club' and they knew I could relate.
We would only talk about experiences when it was only vets around (ranging from WW2, Viet Nam and the ME). Never was it bragging, more of informal group therapy.
The WW2 vets have now all passed on but those from Nam and more recent conflicts will still occasionally -go for a walk- when we are together at some family event.