Mandatory Reading

Phokus

Lifer
Nov 20, 1999
22,994
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No description and you need to sign in? I think you need to change the title of the thread.
 

Perknose

Forum Director & Omnipotent Overlord
Forum Director
Oct 9, 1999
46,839
10,597
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From the article:

"In 1944, Pvt. Jacob "Bud" Pennegar was a clerk in an army that desperately needed infantrymen. So three months after the D-Day invasion of Normandy, the 19-year-old from Pennsylvania stepped off a troop carrier bringing replacements to the Hurtgen Forest along the German-Belgian border.

Six decades later, the memory of his three weeks in the Hurtgen Forest still has the power to make Pennegar shudder and cry. "I feel guilty that I made it," he said softly. "Not lucky. Guilty. Damn.

"I don't even think soldiers today have an understanding how bad it was," said Robert S. Rush, a former Army Ranger who is a historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History and author of the book "Hell in Hurtgen Forest."

More than 24,000 U.S. soldiers were killed, wounded, missing or captured in the five-month battle. Another 9,000 were incapacitated by disease, particularly trench foot, a crippling injury caused by exposure to cold and moisture. Entire companies were wiped out in the fighting."



rose.gif




Small unit combat against a more of less equal foe is hell to the power of ten and beyond.

No one who hasn't been in this type of combat can truly have the first clue what it's like, and what it does to you, even if you yourself survive, maybe especially if you yourself survive.

That's why it's been my experience that real combat veterans never talk about what they've been through.
 

EagleKeeper

Discussion Club Moderator<br>Elite Member
Staff member
Oct 30, 2000
42,589
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My father refuses to talk about his experiences during the Buldge.
 

chess9

Elite member
Apr 15, 2000
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My father talked so little about WWII I didn't even know he was in the war until I was helping my mother clean some drawers when I was about 7 or 8. I found a box with all his medals and he had a 105mm morter casing in there too. :) We took it out and used it for a cigarette butt holder in the living room. Polished it up and coated it with varnish and it looked pretty cool.

After that I started asking questions and eventually got into a large box of photos and he started talking some. But, he wasn't one to go down to the VFW and tell stories with his buddies over beer. He preferred to get drunk at home. :)

-Robert
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,610
6,717
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We have all been through worse than a concentration camp, don't know it, don't want to know it, and don't want to know that we don't want to know. If you want to fight in the Great War fight the battle within.
 

Zephyr106

Banned
Jul 2, 2003
1,309
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Originally posted by: Moonbeam
We have all been through worse than a concentration camp, don't know it, don't want to know it, and don't want to know that we don't want to know. If you want to fight in the Great War fight the battle within.

WTF your Freudian repressed memories nonsense is really annoying.

Zephyr
 

NightCrawler

Diamond Member
Oct 15, 2003
3,179
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Originally posted by: Zephyr106
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
We have all been through worse than a concentration camp, don't know it, don't want to know it, and don't want to know that we don't want to know. If you want to fight in the Great War fight the battle within.

WTF your Freudian repressed memories nonsense is really annoying.

Zephyr


Leave it to moonbeam to ruin a serious thread with his flaky stuff. :(
 

chess9

Elite member
Apr 15, 2000
7,748
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One of the beauties of free speech is the variety of speech one gets.

Moonbeam is in touch with parts of his brain where we have no wiring. :) So, he lights up a few extra bulbs on the screen. :)

-Robert
 

n0cmonkey

Elite Member
Jun 10, 2001
42,936
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Originally posted by: NightCrawler
Originally posted by: Zephyr106
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
We have all been through worse than a concentration camp, don't know it, don't want to know it, and don't want to know that we don't want to know. If you want to fight in the Great War fight the battle within.

WTF your Freudian repressed memories nonsense is really annoying.

Zephyr


Leave it to moonbeam to ruin a serious thread with his flaky stuff. :(

It's only ruined if you let it be. That wasn't the droid you were looking for. Move along.
 

maluckey

Platinum Member
Jan 31, 2003
2,933
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I feel for the man, but disagree with his assumptions, and those of the common perception that people don't talk about painful wartime memories. My old man, who spent three tours of duty in Vietnam (all in First Cav) one tour as a grunt, and the next two as Air Cav, put it this way. "Bad war experiences are like losing a parent, wife or child. You can either let it ruin your life, or deal with it move on and start anew".

Various members of my family, and the community (I grew up for a while on an Army base) also had bad/painful combat experiences. They for the most part talk about it if asked. They have just moved on and it's not the most important thing in their life anymore. They have dealt with the emotions, and put it to rest. If you asked them, they would tell you whatever you wanted to know.
 

alchemize

Lifer
Mar 24, 2000
11,486
0
0
Originally posted by: Zephyr106
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
We have all been through worse than a concentration camp, don't know it, don't want to know it, and don't want to know that we don't want to know. If you want to fight in the Great War fight the battle within.

WTF your Freudian repressed memories nonsense is really annoying.

Zephyr

Something for once we agree upon ;)
 

jjones

Lifer
Oct 9, 2001
15,424
2
0
I learned more from my father from his WW II nightmares than he ever said consciously. He fought the Japanese in the islands and from some of his screaming out to his men during these nightmares, I could almost hear the firefight going on around me. There was more than a few times that I, along with my mother and brothers, had to hold him down until it passed and he went back to sleep.
 

DoubleL

Golden Member
Apr 3, 2001
1,202
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Originally posted by: maluckey
I feel for the man, but disagree with his assumptions, and those of the common perception that people don't talk about painful wartime memories. My old man, who spent three tours of duty in Vietnam (all in First Cav) one tour as a grunt, and the next two as Air Cav, put it this way. "Bad war experiences are like losing a parent, wife or child. You can either let it ruin your life, or deal with it move on and start anew".

Various members of my family, and the community (I grew up for a while on an Army base) also had bad/painful combat experiences. They for the most part talk about it if asked. They have just moved on and it's not the most important thing in their life anymore. They have dealt with the emotions, and put it to rest. If you asked them, they would tell you whatever you wanted to know
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For some yes, For most no, When you have no legs and arms, When you have no eyes and you scare people that look at you, When you have to spend the rest of your life locked in a VA home, When your hole life has changed and you live in pain from the time you get up till you go to bed and all you have wanted since you were 18 was a fast painless death, When you would give all the money you have just to get up and walk out and nobody would even look at you, It is NO, Them are my friends