88 Years, Still Having Flashbacks
(Thanks to dKossack Jim Staro of Veterans For Peace, who kindly looked up the link for me, and posted a long article on PTSD here.)
Night before last on NPR there was a short article for Veterans' Day, one of the historical-personal-relevance ones that All Things Considered specializes in, which featured Max Arthur, a British author who has just published a book of living history called Last Post, a compliation of recollections from the handful of surviving WWI veterans in the UK. You can listen to the link, there, and there are also exerpts that were not read on the air.
In the interview, several things struck me: first off, the NPR reporter was surprised that the survivors had "nothing patriotic" to say, when asked what their feelings on the meaning of life were; secondly, Arthur recounted how one of the survivors, Harry Patch, still has flashbacks to the day in September when a shell struck near him and killed five of his friends at once, for which a strong triggering incident was them moving into a new house which had an automatic light in the pantry - opening the door and having that white light come on instantly brought back the Salient, and the explosion; thirdly, the reporter also seemed bemused that so many of the surviving Great War veterans were so vehemently anti-war, cannot comprehend how we are still sending kids to be killed today just as then.
We got as far as their second line and four Germans stood up. They didn't get up to run away, they got up to fight. One of them came running towards me. He couldn't have had any ammunition or he would have shot me, but he came towards me with his bayonet pointing at my chest. I fired and hit him in the shoulder. He dropped his rifle, but still came stumbling on. I can only suppose that he wanted to kick our Lewis gun into the mud, which would have made it useless. I had three live rounds left in my revolver and could have killed him with the first. What should I do? I had seconds to make my mind up. I gave him his life. I didn't kill him. I shot him above the ankle and above the knee and brought him down. I knew he would be picked up, passed back to a PoW camp, and at the end of the war he would rejoin his family. Six weeks later, a countryman of his killed my three mates. If that had happened before I met that German, I would have damn well killed him. But we never fired to kill. My Number One, Bob, used to keep the gun low and wound them in the legs - bring them down. Never fired to kill them. As far as I know he never killed a German. I never did either. Always kept it low.
Night before last on NPR there was a short article for Veterans' Day, one of the historical-personal-relevance ones that All Things Considered specializes in, which featured Max Arthur, a British author who has just published a book of living history called Last Post, a compliation of recollections from the handful of surviving WWI veterans in the UK. You can listen to the link, there, and there are also exerpts that were not read on the air.
In the interview, several things struck me: first off, the NPR reporter was surprised that the survivors had "nothing patriotic" to say, when asked what their feelings on the meaning of life were; secondly, Arthur recounted how one of the survivors, Harry Patch, still has flashbacks to the day in September when a shell struck near him and killed five of his friends at once, for which a strong triggering incident was them moving into a new house which had an automatic light in the pantry - opening the door and having that white light come on instantly brought back the Salient, and the explosion; thirdly, the reporter also seemed bemused that so many of the surviving Great War veterans were so vehemently anti-war, cannot comprehend how we are still sending kids to be killed today just as then.
We got as far as their second line and four Germans stood up. They didn't get up to run away, they got up to fight. One of them came running towards me. He couldn't have had any ammunition or he would have shot me, but he came towards me with his bayonet pointing at my chest. I fired and hit him in the shoulder. He dropped his rifle, but still came stumbling on. I can only suppose that he wanted to kick our Lewis gun into the mud, which would have made it useless. I had three live rounds left in my revolver and could have killed him with the first. What should I do? I had seconds to make my mind up. I gave him his life. I didn't kill him. I shot him above the ankle and above the knee and brought him down. I knew he would be picked up, passed back to a PoW camp, and at the end of the war he would rejoin his family. Six weeks later, a countryman of his killed my three mates. If that had happened before I met that German, I would have damn well killed him. But we never fired to kill. My Number One, Bob, used to keep the gun low and wound them in the legs - bring them down. Never fired to kill them. As far as I know he never killed a German. I never did either. Always kept it low.