Soldiers learn from experience to enjoy talking. There are too many times when you are just sitting around, unable to do anything but talk. There are too many weekends where the only purpose is to sit around and drink and bullshit.
In this sort of situation, the person who can entertain is admired. The better he entertains, the greater his stature in his group. Some people are very good at turning minor events into enjoyable anecdotes. Some people aren’t, and they begin exaggerating stories in order to increase the humor or cool factor and thus gain stature. The stories grow with each re-telling, and quickly become lies.
That aside, these stories seem deliberately planted to undermine the military and the war effort in general. The dog story is the only one that I feel could be a soldier’s tall tale.
Little changes from one war to the next excepting the weapons, and sometimes the tactics, to take advantage of the new weaponry. This was brought home to me when I came back from Viet-Nam and had to re-read Homers Iliad in an English Lit course. About 1/3 the way through, the light came on, and I had to re-start the book. Yes, I had heard nearly every single battle story in the Iliad either first-hand from the warriors themselves, or, more often, second or third hand, which did little for the overall credibility of the things, over drinks in the NCO club in Saigon. The weapons had changed, but the feats and accomplishments were the same.
The feats of Homers heros mirror those of the field grunts from Nam, and probably Iraq as well, The stories Mr Thomas is sending back all have some critical element in them that just screams “BULLSHIT” to anyone who has ever really been there.
The New Republic has been called on this by more than one blogger with military experience, and the response has been that the anonymous stories were confirmed by anonymous sources. Yeah, right.
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Soldiers lie. It’s not intentional, but to make sense in their moral environment. Experience in listening Viet Nam vets.
I’ll disagree slightly.
Soldiers learn from experience to enjoy talking. There are too many times when you are just sitting around, unable to do anything but talk. There are too many weekends where the only purpose is to sit around and drink and bullshit.
In this sort of situation, the person who can entertain is admired. The better he entertains, the greater his stature in his group. Some people are very good at turning minor events into enjoyable anecdotes. Some people aren’t, and they begin exaggerating stories in order to increase the humor or cool factor and thus gain stature. The stories grow with each re-telling, and quickly become lies.
That aside, these stories seem deliberately planted to undermine the military and the war effort in general. The dog story is the only one that I feel could be a soldier’s tall tale.
Little changes from one war to the next excepting the weapons, and sometimes the tactics, to take advantage of the new weaponry. This was brought home to me when I came back from Viet-Nam and had to re-read Homers Iliad in an English Lit course. About 1/3 the way through, the light came on, and I had to re-start the book. Yes, I had heard nearly every single battle story in the Iliad either first-hand from the warriors themselves, or, more often, second or third hand, which did little for the overall credibility of the things, over drinks in the NCO club in Saigon. The weapons had changed, but the feats and accomplishments were the same.
The feats of Homers heros mirror those of the field grunts from Nam, and probably Iraq as well, The stories Mr Thomas is sending back all have some critical element in them that just screams “BULLSHIT” to anyone who has ever really been there.
The New Republic has been called on this by more than one blogger with military experience, and the response has been that the anonymous stories were confirmed by anonymous sources. Yeah, right.
Some of the stories are just factually impossible. TNR is going to regret these tales as another Glass.