"War was always the same: not a neat affair of lines across maps, nor a hallooing gallantry, but men who gasped and sweated and bled in bewilderment."
-Poul Anderson, "Delenda Est" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2006), pp. 173-228 AT p. 223.
("Delenda Est" is the story about Carthaginian victory in the Second Punic War. Thus, a single text presents both historical speculation and authentic experience.)
In "The Last Word," Janissary Sergeant Hans lives and dies for war. His grandfathers defended Reich and Fuhrer against Draka and lost so now he leads a squad for the Draka - and does not worry about it. He recognizes that his chance of living long enough to retire is low but shrugs. Having led his men into a Yankee holdout ambush, he knows that he will be court-martialled and wonders how he had missed those Yankee bastards but:
"Then a grenade burst half a meter in front of his face, and such questions became academic." (Drakas!, p. 255)
Hans must die instantaneously. Thus, he does not know that the explosion was caused by a grenade and does not reflect that his questions have become academic. All or most of the quoted sentence is not Hans' point of view but the voice of the omniscient narrator.
Anson MacDonald (Robert Heinlein) finds ground combat even more chaotic, frightening and frightful than expected. Heinlein is shown adhering to his principles while experiencing, and accepting, what happens to the infantry. He refers to the starship, New America, whose captain, we know, is Anderson... Thus, both of these seminal sf writers are in different ways involved in the war against the Draka.
What a pity that MacDonald was not booby-trapped to take his Draka captor with him.
5 comments:
I have been listening to episodes of Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History". When the topic is a war he often mentions how much worse a battle must have been when you were face to face with someone trying to you while you try to kill him, than when war is conducted using projectile weapons. OTOH battles tended to be shorter then. In any case there must have been many people with what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
A disorder not recognised as such back then.
Kaor, Jim and Paul!
Jim: I think, most times, in the fierce concentration hand to hand combat requires, most soldiers will be busy controlling their emotions and killing the SOB trying to kill YOU.
Paul: My recollection is that the symptoms of what we now call PTSD was first clearly described as a disorder during WW I. In those days it was called "shell shock."
Ad astra! Sean
My understanding is that the 'Post' in PTSD is because it is something that occurs *after* the traumatic events. Eg: an ex-soldier might react violently to something startling because that was a totally appropriate & life saving response in the jungles of Vietnam.
Kaor, Jim!
And I agree that must be part of what PTSD is, as a disorder.
Ad astra! Sean
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