HIDEOUSLY GRAPHIC IMAGES OF WAR

Come on Gordon ,pull yourself together mate ...I thought you Jocks were meant to be a tough breed .. its late have you been at the malt again ?
( I'm still a new boy here I was going to leave it a wee bit longer before mentioning Vietnam) .
jim

 

actually Gordon we did get the VC but think about it we were foolish enough for media embeds to follow us (too) closely in Nam. Lets face it when we came into the Nam conflict, fought and returned we were all cold to some degree, some of us have had to deal with the tramatic effects of always continually having a set of eyes on our backs as no-one not even CO's could be trusted. some of us were delegated deep in the bush behind enemy lines having to serve in the solo fashion living days without the presecence of our buds...............to tell you the truth some of us have seen enough action to make the commoner puke. go ask this privately of any WW 2 vet on the fourm s that has seen close combat in any particular way as it does not matter.
Personally Jim I 'd rather not see images of graphic nature. Dang I could go on for pages but I will not .......

E ~

 

So Erich , you are a Vietnam vet ? remember I'm a newbie here and still finding my way around .
If there are other vets on site it would be good to know who you are and how you feel .
Erich just one voice such as yours is enough for me to come to the conclusion that it would be wrong to post such images on site .
Children viewing such images is one concern ,but I think respect for a veterans feelings carries so much more weight ...so this thread serves a purpose for debate only ...I will not be putting on any gruesome images .
Come on Erich ,if you have more to say on subject lets hear it .
jim

 

That's true enough, Erich. Doesn't seem to be a mistake many armies have made since.

 

Ach, It's a sign of our Celtic superiority, pal!!

 

That piece of film in Vietnam was shot by an Australian combat camerman called NEIL DAVIS. Davis was the quintessential journo of his day. He introduced Tim Page to a camera, (he first met him sitting on a tarpaulin in Saigon selling 'clap' pills...Davis bought the lot), and had good relations with some of the 'big' figures of the whole Vietnam period, (Sukarno, Suharto, "Big" Minh, Lon Nol).

The footage you speak of is from 1965 (I think). It's a village that has been accidentally napalmed by the South Vietnamese airforce, hence the pictures of the little girl running down the road in terror.

Davis had his own thoughts on our topic...(From "One Crowded Hour" by Tim Bowden, Page 184)

Although Vietnam has been called the first television war, it's horror was not at first apparent on the world's television screens. There were a number of reasons for this. In the mid-1960s colour television was relatively new to the United States, and it was not introduced to Australia until a few months before the end of the war. Blood loses it's impact in black and white and there was also a policy (not absolutely enforced) that American dead and wounded should not be shown on the screen.

"The restrictions were laid down by the American Government, and the television networks imposed self censorship by greatly restricting footage of American casualties. They didn't restrict film showing Vietnamese casualties.
I agreed with this to a certain extent, because it wasn't a good thing to have wives and parents of Americans seeing their dead men on the screen. It could be the first they knew about them being involved in the action.
However, I did object in overall terms that the American public was denied the right - and it is a right - to see the worst aspects of the war, that large numbers of Americans were being killed and wounded every day. If more of that had been shown, the full horror of the Vietnam war would have been brought home to the American public much sooner."

One way this censorship could be overcome, Davis argued, was for the film to be held up for several days until the relatives of the dead and wounded Americans had been informed, and then the footage screened.

"It was a sad thing for those relatives, but a sadder thing that more and more American soldiers were killed in a war in which they should never have been involved in the first place.
Americans are very conservative in many ways. Many things will not be shown on American television that will be screened in England, Japan or France, but the Americans are much like the Australians in this sense, very conservative, particularly where their own people are concerned.
There wasn't as much blood shown on American television as on Japanese, British or European".

Neil Davis's documentary "FRONTLINE" is still screened today. Neil himself died filming a coup in Thailand. Camera still rolling as he died, his last words

"were not exclamation or expletive, but monumental irritation as he registered the futility of it all."

"Oh...sh*t!"

 

Gordon , I'm still in a state of shock that we did not declare war on your people, when in the 1970s, Scotlands fans broke the goal posts at Wembley , it was an outrage .
Also outrageous are your women folk , they should come with a health & wealth warning . Not so long back I endured 2 years with one ...only 5 foot tall, but in the end 100% pure terror ...damned scary beasts those Scots lasses .
Good points again boatman ....you are indeed a wise man . "Live long and prosper"... as Jesus once said .
jim

 

Jim on a serious note I'd rather not comment further ....... as I counsel commrade in arms that have PTSD, things let's just say need to be worked out for many - of all ages and war's

 

I know a guy who still has a patch of Wembley turf growing in his garden. You ain't getting it back!
My better half saw your second comment; yir caird's marked, neebur!

 

Hello Erich , sounds like you have a tough ,but worthwhile role to play .
I have watched documentaries about the shell shock suffered during WW1 ..horrendous .
Glad servicemen get more support now .

 

well Jim that depends, several friends serving in Iraq have been called baby-killers when they got home and went through the usual spitting that we did in Nam. guess this isn't really surprising in todays culture. decompressing with a vet is sorely needed there are not enough counselors to go around. the vets from Afghan are in worse situation that has been proven already, am trying to help a national guard vet who is home for 3 weeks before getting back over there to finsih his tour(s), he has seen enough and he is not even ranked as a top graded soldier

 

Our service men get some of the same rotten treatment over here , we have a rapidly growing Muslim population in Britain , many towns and cities feel like a foreign land to me .
In Luton a few months back , Muslim extremists shouted baby killers to our troops that were marching through the town after a tour of duty ... the crowd along the road were incensed by this . There were many millions of British people that were angered by this news story ...we are not all wishy washy liberals .( sorry to any wishy washy liberals , but you are annoyingly wishy washy ) ...happy to debate .
In my own neighbourhood the young army cadets , who wear army issue combats , constantly get abuse . Its just not on .
Our war dead from Afghanistan get a final send off in the Town of Wooten Bassett . Crowds all too regularly line the streets as a mark of respect ,ex servicemen and others come to the town from across the country.
Well , some radical muslim group wanted to have a protest march through the town ,to highlight the amount taliban getting killed ,or something similar . Thankfully our government for once showed some backbone and said no .
Now before anyone calls me a racist or sends the heavy mob to my door ..I will say the following ...I play badminton ,twice a week with a really decent bunch of muslim lads ,in fact sometimes I'm the only Englishman in the group...they are warm , polite and friendly individuals ...I'm sure they are representative of the vast majority of Islamic people . Its not these folk that our brave soldiers are fighting .
jim

 

It was actually a ARVN who ever our Vietnamese ally was that was flying the plane, not an American.

 

I watched WWII movies and documentaries with my Dad, a WWII Veteran, and grew up watching Vietnam news footage. My Dad didn't talk much about his experiences or describe any of the greater horrors until I was older and had more of my own life experience. He described the death of his friend under a burning truck that had been strafed during WWII to me just before I turned 21 as he accompanied me to move my stuff home from the town in which I'd lived. He knew I had the ability to understand and wanted me to know that he understood how I felt surviving the fire that killed my fiance. When I was in my 30's and he realized that I was interested in his experiences, he shared a little of what he was able considering his PTSD. The horror of war needs to be shared, but the level needs to be tempered with the ability of the intended audience to comprehend and process.

The graphic images that we show on television, on the Internet, in any media version - fiction and fact - need to have a legitimate reason for being shown. The effective use of graphic images can give the immediate gut wrenching emotion to bring conscious attention of the viewer to the horror of war or a disaster, but if it is used too much people become immune. I also agree with other's who have posted that graphic images can be disturbing to those who have actually been in the circumstance, and why should we unnecessarily cause them to live it again - unless it is with warnings of content, and for a specific legitimate reason that they would accept. My two cents.

You might want to check out the pinned thread http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-general/24222-soldier-strips-romance-out-life-war.html

 

Hello Michelle , thought provoking and moving .
thanks for sharing your experiences on this discussion .
jim

 

Warning the following post does contain a graphic image!
I debated if I should post the image, would it serve a purpose? I decided to go ahead because I think we are really talking apples and oranges. I think what many non-combat vets see as graphic pictures is not really the true horror. These pictures don't get published and IMHO shouldn't be. We don't need to scar all of humanities souls.
I had a co-worker come in the other day and talk about having a sleep study done. I half-jokingly asked "you mean some people actually sleep more than two hours at a stretch? You mean I might actually have something medically wrong with me? I thought it was just the nightmares."
I have problems with things I've seen and my combat experiences were very limited compared to what is being seen in Iraq and Afghanistan today.

My son son and I went down to my fathers bar to celebrate when he came back from Iraq the first time. We were all laughing and having a good time until some guy came up, well meaning, said thank you for your service then and asked him how many people he'd shot in Iraq. I looked in my sons eyes and for a moment saw the hurt in his soul. I told the guy to move along, then got up and went outside to cry. My son came outside and said it's O.K. dad, I'm fine. I looked at him and started to cry a little harder and said I'm so sorry. He said what for? I said because it's my fault you went off and joined the Marine Corps and went off to war. I should have gotten out when you were born. You were raised around it and didn't have a chance. No 21 year old should have to see what you've seen, it's my fault and I'm sorry. We talked for a while then I manned up quit crying and we went back inside. Wars will always be with us, we can and should honor the courage, fortitude and skill of the warriors but society couldn't deal with the most horrible parts.

LRusso216 wrote:

It depends on what you consider graphic. In WWII this photo was held up from publication, it was debated as to if it should be released at all. It showed dead american servicemen and was considered too graphic. It was eventually released.

I don't think it's too graphic, it does show the human costs of war. Also many of the pictures that were published may have shown the dead but they were not the very graphic images, the most graphic images were censored and were not published. During the American Civil War Brady published many truly graphic images, by WWII the worst stuff was not published.



This one I think is too graphic, I don't see it would really serve a purpose to publish this type photo. It's bad enough that the combatants have to see and smell these things, and have them burned into their memories. The rest of world doesn't need the scars. (BTW, this one is fairly mild)


1986CamaroZ28 wrote:

Here again I respectfully disagree. I think if they were to see the real, truly graphic images they would be effected. Cartoon violence and special effects don't convey how truly terrible war is.

Erich wrote:

I'm with you sir.

 

Good points USMC ...I'm used to viewing the old black and white photos , they by their very nature are visually sanitised...That colour one just looks a bloody mess , a heap of butchers offal. I'm not shocked , just repulsed . The trouble now is that most of us have watched too many horror films that simulate this gory scene , so the shock factor is diminished .
It must be dreadful when these young lads have to witness their friends in that state .
I'm personally glad we do not have to view such images on our TV news coverage . I think these images probably have more power when the soldiers face can be seen, but we don't need to see it ...and if we did witness such images the anti war coalition grow significantly .
jim

 

Graphic images of war can be used as a teaching tool. You just have to be responsible about how you expose your kids to them. I also have taken all three of my kids (10,8.4) out to meet some wounded vets from Iraq and Afghanistan. Because today, with the killing and death being so rampant on tv, in movies and in video games...it serves as a very real, very stark reminder of what it costs to live free. No amount of pictures in the world can expose this lesson to a 10 year old as fast as shaking hands with a 19 year old kid with no legs and only one arm. It's important that they know, and that they understand.

 

ce' la guerre.....

Will we EVER find an alternative?

Let us decide to put our elected representatives, the ones that decide to send your sons and daughters to war, into an arena, to thrash it out amongst themselves. When the lives of politicians are PERSONALLY at stake from their decisions, maybe the number of decisions made that send people off to pursue "State policy in another format"......will no longer occur.

Make political decision makers personally liable with THEIR hides on the line....result= no more nationalist conflict....or whatever "ism" we happen to be pushing at the time.

Politicians make wars....soldiers and civilians DO NOT.

 

Good Morning Volga boatman ,
Agree in part with your sentiments. However, in a democracy we the electorate get the politicians we deserve ..its easy to blame our governments ,but we put them there in the first place .
I think the root cause of war throughout history is human greed ,we all seem to want far more than we actually need . This is true of evil dictators and the ordinary man on the street .
If we are to be perfectly honest , I imagine most of us would agree that the war in Afghanistan and Iraq is about securing the huge oil reserves in Iraq ,Iran and Saudi Arabia for the western market .
We could choose to have much lower standards of living ..be less wasteful , produce more renewable energy , have lower expectations , travel less ...basically consume only what we actually need to live a simple life .....result ,no need for middle east oil ...and no need for our involvement in the ongoing misery out there . Leave them to it . Simple .
Jim