amari_z | Mostly More on Band of Brothers (Reply)

I'm done reading the book and a few more things occurred to me.

There’s at least one clear instance I’ve noticed where the filmmakers took a liberty with the material—and I don’t really understand why they did. One of the later episodes focuses on Pvt. David Kenyon Webster, who returns to the company after being wounded. In the miniseries, he arrives and finds everything different. Many of his friends are dead or wounded, there are new officers and he’s greeted with hostility for not having been there while the company suffered through some tough experiences. In the miniseries, he proves himself to his fellows again by participating in a night raid in which a group is sent over to the German side of an occupied town. It all makes for dramatic tension and a story arc, sure. But it turns out that the filmmakers made it up (though the raid itself is real). Webster did return to E Co. after being wounded at this time (it was his second wound, and his second return to the company) and while he found many of his old comrades dead or gone, but he (a Harvard English major) described his feelings on returning as:

“It was good to be back with fellows I knew and could trust . . . . Listening to the chatter in the truck, I felt warm and relaxed inside, like a lost child who has returned to a bright home full of love after wandering in a cold black forest.”

Ambrose uses this to illustrate that, despite the changes to the company, it still remained as a whole. Since this all ties back to the theme of the book—-that the experiences of these men bound them together in a unique way only found in combat—-it seems odd that the filmmakers chose to make the rest of the company hostile to Webster's return--he had been with the company since the very beginning. It undermines the central concept, as well as being utterly opposed to the reality of Webster’s feelings on his return.

Since I’ve complained a bit about the miniseries, I will now complain a bit about the book. At one point, Ambrose describes how the American troops had won against the German army, despite having been living in much worse conditions, being out numbered and less well-equipped. He states:

It was a test of arms, will and national systems, matching the best the Nazis had again the best the Americans had, with all the advantages on the German side. . . . The Americans established a moral superiority over the Germans. It was based not on equipment or quantity of arms, but on teamwork, coordination, leadership and a mutual trust in a line that ran straight down from Ike’s HQ right down to E Company. The Germans had little in the way of such qualities. The moral superiority was based on better training methods, better selection methods for command positions, ultimately on a more open army reflection a more open society. Democracy proved better able to produce young men who could be made into superb solders than Nazi Germany.

This bugged me. I know nothing about the German army v. the American army in terms of training, etc., so I have no grounds to argue with that, but what bothers me is the “moral superiority” phrase and the “Democracy proved better able to produce young men . . . .” On one hand, it’s hard to argue that the Allies didn’t have “moral superiority” on their side given the Nazi’s unquestionable evil/crazy polices, actions, agendas, etc. (not saying, of course that the Allies didn't do inhumane things as well--the bombings that killed many French civilians at Pas de Calais in order to hide the landing site for D-day and the killing field at Falaise come to mind as just two of many examples that never get a mention in U.S. high school--but on the evil scale, Germany came out far on top). But I’m not sure how that becomes a way to say that democracy produces morally superior men who will be better soldiers. Again, I know nothing about the history, but it seems quite as likely that a totalitarian regime that sufficiently brainwashed/created a sense of superiority in its military could actually produce quite good, fanatical soldiers (i.e., the SS)—but I have to think that the majority of the Germany regular army were regular people drafted into service. They were not necessarily members of the Nazi party. On an individual basis, I’m not sure why a German boy drafted from some German village would necessarily be any less “moral” than a boy from a small American town. It is also a bit weird to me to argue that democracy produces better soldiers, although I’ve heard this theory before. My impression of what makes a “good” military seems to be the antithesis in some ways of democratic values. Anyway, I’m rambling about stuff I have no knowledge of, but it bothers me because it smacks of things I don’t like and am very suspicious of, i.e., nearly every war monger's justification for a war, not to mention the justifications for the invasion of Iraq (the non-WMD ones) about spreading democracy through the world as some kind of panacea that will cure the ills of all places and all cultures.

This statement by Ambrose also seems belied by things he describes in his own book, including some of the American’s respect for the German troops. He recounts Winters’ pleasure at seeing the marching of the German prisoners on the way back from assigned work in a hospital—“They sang and they marched with pride and vigor and it was beautiful. By God, they were soldiers!” It is also contradicted by his descriptions (taken from Paul Fussell) of the psychology of the infantrymen on the front lines:

Paul Fussell has described the two stages of rationalization a combat soldier goes through—it can’t happen to me, then it can happen to me, unless I’m more careful—followed by a stage of “accurate perception: it is going to happen to me, and only my not being here [on the front lines] is going to prevent it” . . . . When it does come to a member of a rifle companion the front line, it is almost impossible to make him stay there and do his duty. His motivations have to be internal. Comradeship is by far the strongest motivator—not wanting to let his buddies down, in the positive sense, not wanting to appear a coward in front of the men he loves and respects above all others in the negative sense. Discipline won’t do it, because discipline relies on punishment, and there is no punishment the Army can inflict on a front-line soldier worse than putting him into the front line.

This is not about moral superiority. If this is a correct perception, then an army that does a better job building a sense of comradeship among its men will be the more successful. I don’t see how morality comes into play.

Oh, another note, apparently the Winters-Sobel moment about the salute did occur, much like in the miniseries—the line Winters utters (“we salute the rank, not the man”) was taken directly from the book.

Also, apparently the E Co. commanding officer Capt. Speirs, who is shown looting in Germany with great enthusiasm in the miniseries, did actually loot in Germany with great enthusiasm, contrary to what I'd read and noted in an earlier discussion. He was sending the stuff back to his new English wife and baby, but in a twist of irony, his English wife, who had married him thinking her husband had been killed in action, turned out not to be a widow, and she chose her old husband over him. The couple apparently kept all of Speirs' loot.

I'm now starting Paul Fussell's The Boy Crusaders, which I picked up as a potential balance to Ambrose. I've only read the first few pages, but it seems promising. In the preface Fussell states that he is writing partially to confront the view "which, if not implying that war is really good for you, does suggest that it contains desirable elements--pride, companionship, and the consciousness of virtue enforced by deadly weapons." He has also already provided definitions for the militarily ignorant, which Ambrose neglected to do: "A squad consisted of twelve men armed with rifles and led by a sergeant. . . . A platoon consisted of three such squads led by a lieutenant, and a company, four platoons . . . . Formed up for an attack one can imagine all of them scared to death."

And because I want to remember it and it seems an appropriate place, I add a quote from WWI poet Siegfried Sassoon:

Let no one ever, from henceforth say one word in any way countenancing war.
It is dangerous even to speak of how here and there the individual may gain
some hardship of soul by it. For war is hell, and those who institute it
are criminals. Were there even anything to say for it, it should not be said;
for its spiritual disasters far outweigh any of its advantages.

In other news, I finally installed the memory I had bought months ago for my aging laptop. I've never done anything like this before, so I've been putting it off out of fear (and of course laziness). There were some tears and some screaming and the first five tries resulted in failure and I very nearly gave up, but eventually I got it to work. BTW, when a manual says that "you may encounter some resistance" in getting a part to slide into a slot, interpret that to mean you have to push hard enough that you're sure the whole thing is going to break off, and then push even harder than that. Oh, and if you can't get the new memory chip to fit, never take out the other memory chip in order to see how that one works--you'll be left with two chips that won't fit in place and a computer that instead of just being slow, will not work at all.

My fingers actually hurt now.