Tag Results
7 posts tagged war
Today I attended a lecture at the World War II Museum on Indonesia’s relationship with Japan during the war given by an old (and my favorite) history professor. I miss school!
There are some cool things coming to the National World War II Museum.
Dignitaries and officials topped off the newest expansion with an evergreen tree at the highest point on the new building, the U.S. Freedom Pavilion.
The Pavilion, expected to open to the public this winter, will display the museum’s “macro” artifacts: airplanes, tanks, jeeps and a “simulated submarine ride in which 27 visitors at a time will feel the floor vibrate and the whoosh of a torpedo being fired.”
Also today, there was a ceremony to break ground for the _next_ expansion to the museum, called the Campaigns of Courage: European and Pacific Theaters.
The exhibits on display here will have an interactive narrative element that will guide visitors through the experiences of a particular service member:
“Each visitor will receive a bar-coded version of a GI’s dog tag bearing a service member’s name. Throughout the exhibit, updates will be available at kiosks.”
The updates will be supplied via information the museum collected through oral-history interviews with the actual service members.
You guys, this is going to be so cool. I cannot wait. Isn’t history the best?!
What a world we live in, a world in which peeing on dead people yields more moral outrage than killing them in the first place.
…
If you’re a fan of dark comedy, all the hand-wringing about preserving the dignity of our enemies after they’re dead can seem outright laughable. We allow—nay, encourage and demand, our troops to shoot people in the face, stab them in the guts, and bomb their homes. We ask them to do work that destroys families, communities, cities, and countries. We ask them to witness their friends and colleagues get slaughtered on the battlefield, and to see gore and trauma generally found in scary movies. What’s more, frequently we ask them to do all this when they’re still teenagers, too young to even drink a beer.
…
More American troops now kill themselves than die in combat, and female soldiers are more likely to be sexually assaulted by a colleague than to be killed by the enemy. In short, the kids aren’t all right, and it’s time for everyone to stop being shocked when they behave in abnormal, terrifying ways. War is an awful thing that irrevocably changes and destroys people, and it yields horrific, destructive behavior. If you’d like to live in a world in which soldiers don’t pee on their dead enemies, then it’s your duty to fight for a world in which soldiers aren’t killing people in the first place.
Some pretty valid points.
I also can’t help but feel strange watching Americans run wild in the streets to celebrate a successful so-called “kill mission.” In 2004, Americans were rightly outraged when a mob in Fallujah, Iraq, executed four U.S. contractors and burned their bodies in the streets, hooting and hollering and reveling in the deaths as they hung the charred corpses from a bridge. It was disgusting and reprehensible, but compare that behavior to what went on in Washington, D.C. A friend of mine overheard people gathered in front of the White House say things like “I want to wipe my balls on Osama’s beard” and “I’m going to piss on his grave.”
Like I said. Creepy!
Who knows?
Also, does anyone else find it creepy that a bunch of people are celebrating a death right now? I understand the significance, but it freaks me out.
