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When the 101st Airborne Saved Friend and Foe

StukaFox says...

I've been to this church in the Normandy countryside. It's remote, removed from the beaches, and from all outward appearances unremarkable. It's not until you walk in and realize how small it is inside, unlike the grandiosity of Notre Dame in Paris or Cathédrale Notre Dame in Reims: it's narrow and confined. How so many wounded soldiers fit in the little space is beyond me. I can't imagine the stone floor slicked with blood, the moans of pain, the smells of wounds. Even the pews seem too narrow to accommodate a human body laid lengthwise.

Even with all that said, if you stand inside that little church it's impossible not to feel the touch of history. Of everything I saw in Normandy, nothing made a bigger impression on my than the little church in Angoville-au-Plain.

b4rringt0n (Member Profile)

b4rringt0n (Member Profile)

Patrick Stewart Looks Further Into His Dad's Shell Shock

MilkmanDan says...

Possible, but I don't really think so. I think that the Medical minds of the time thought that physical shock, pressure waves from bombing etc. as you described, were a (or perhaps THE) primary cause of the psychological problems of returning soldiers. So the name "shell shock" came from there, but the symptoms that it was describing were psychological and, I think precisely equal to modern PTSD. Basically, "shell shock" became a polite euphemism for "soldier that got mentally messed up in the war and is having difficulty returning to civilian life".

My grandfather was an Army Air Corps armorer during WWII. He went through basic training, but his primary job was loading ammunition, bombs, external gas tanks, etc. onto P-47 airplanes. He was never in a direct combat situation, as I would describe it. He was never shot at, never in the shockwave radius of explosions, etc. But after the war he was described as having mild "shell shock", manifested by being withdrawn, not wanting to talk about the war, and occasionally prone to angry outbursts over seemingly trivial things. Eventually, he started talking about the war in his mid 80's, and here's a few relevant (perhaps) stories of his:

He joined the European theater a couple days after D-Day. Came to shore on a Normandy beach in the same sort of landing craft seen in Saving Private Ryan, etc. Even though it was days later, there were still LOTS of bodies on the beach, and thick smell of death. Welcome to the war!

His fighter group took over a French farm house adjacent to a dirt landing strip / runway. They put up a barbed wire perimeter with a gate on the road. In one of the only times I heard of him having a firearm and being expected to potentially use it, he pulled guard duty at that gate one evening. His commanding officer gave him orders to shoot anyone that couldn't provide identification on sight. While he was standing guard, a woman in her 20's rolled up on a bicycle, somewhat distraught. She spoke no English, only French. She clearly wanted to get in, and even tried to push past my grandfather. By the letter of his orders, he was "supposed" to shoot her. Instead, he knocked her off her bike when she tried to ride past after getting nowhere verbally and physically restrained her. At gunpoint! When someone that spoke French got there, it turned out that she was the daughter of the family that lived in the farm house. They had no food, and she was coming back to get some potatoes they had left in the larder.

Riding trains was a common way to get air corps support staff up to near the front, and also to get everybody back to transport ships at the end of the war. On one of those journeys later in the war, my grandfather was riding in an open train car with a bunch of his buddies. They were all given meals at the start of the trip. A short while later, the track went through a French town. A bunch of civilians were waiting around the tracks begging for food. I'll never forgot my grandfather describing that scene. It was tough for him to get out, and then all he managed was "they was starvin'!" He later explained that he and his buddies all gave up the food that they had to those people in the first town -- only to have none left to give as they rolled past similar scenes in each town on down the line.

When my mother was growing up, she and her brothers learned that they'd better not leave any food on their plates to go to waste. She has said that the angriest she ever saw her dad was when her brothers got into a food fight one time, and my grandfather went ballistic. They couldn't really figure out what the big deal was, until years later when my grandfather started telling his war stories and suddenly things made more sense.


A lot of guys had a much rougher war than my grandfather. Way more direct combat. Saw stuff much worse -- and had to DO things that were hard to live with. I think the psychological fallout of stuff like that explains the vast majority of "shell shock", without the addition of CTE-like physical head trauma. I'd wager that when the docs said Stewart's father's shell shock was a reaction to aerial bombardment, that was really just a face-saving measure to try to explain away the perceived "weakness" of his condition.

newtboy said:

I feel there's confusion here.
The term "shell shock" covers two different things.
One is purely psychological, trauma over seeing things your brain can't handle. This is what most people think of when they hear the term.
Two is physical, and is CTE like football players get, caused by pressure waves from nearby explosions bouncing their brains inside their skulls. It sounds like this is what Stewart's father had, as it causes violent tendencies, confusion, and uncontrollable anger.

Should we Build a Wall? Great Walls through History

MilkmanDan jokingly says...

I am attempting to play Devil's Advocate and argue that while none of those walls really did much to serve their design goal of keeping "others" out, they may have been "successful" in other ways. This is what I came up with:

Hadrian's Wall: Served as the inspiration for The Wall in A Song of Fire and Ice / Game of Thrones. GoT is awesome, so ... totally worth it.

The Great Wall of China: Did essentially nothing to keep out Mongols, and up to a million or so people died making it, but hey -- today it is one of the biggest draws for tourism into China. China made $618 billion in tourism in 2015 alone, so surely it has already covered the adjusted-for-inflation cost to build it of $380 billion!

The Atlantic Wall: Sure, the Allies broke through it in Normandy in one day. But it forced them to plan how and where to attack it for months, and did result in ~10,000 Allied deaths compared to ~6,000 Germans.

However, that is tiny compared to the really bloody battles of WW2 like Stalingrad (~1.5 million dead), basically the result of Russia using their people as an expendable "meat wall" against the far better-equipped Germans.

...Hmmm -- maybe instead of a literal wall, we should follow a similar approach and just throw lots of expendable bodies at our border with Mexico. I suggest starting with 435 utterly worthless people (US Congressmen) and 55,600 functionally worthless people (TSA employees). Everybody wins!

The Making of "Saving Private Ryan"

ulysses1904 says...

Good post. I've always been interested in the history of WWII, I'm re-reading Ken Burns' "The War" these days. The best book I have read is David Webster's "Parachute Infantry", he was a good writer who was there at the Normandy and Market Garden airdrops and also did Germany occupation duty. They did him a real disservice in the "Band of Brothers" episode "The Last Patrol", they made him out to be a weasel when he was anything but.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: Star Wars Fans Are "Prickly"

Jinx says...

Eh. I'd still favour a small modern torpedo boat against a 16th century man-of-war. I mean, this was the ship that destroyed a space station the size of a moon.

Enterprise vs Sajuuk. Falcon vs Normandy. Gogo, war of the fandoms.

Zawash said:

The Falcon is 35m long, and is a light freighter.
The Enterprise is several hundred meters long, and is a battleship.

No contest. The Falcon would have as much chance against the Enterprise as it would against a Star Destroyer (or Nebulon-B frigate, or..).

Starships Size Comparison

Payback says...

IKR! Why go through all the trouble and not make it to scale?? The Enterprise A is apparently shorter than the Normandy, yet is listed as longer...

How is Halo a starship? Ringworld actually travelled to another star, but did Halo copy that at some point? (along with the basic premise).

wraith said:

Nice, but the maker of this video should have checked some of the names and measurements.

RMS Titanic: Fascinating Engineering Facts

Ickster says...

Me either. I ended up doing some Wikipedia reading, and it turns out that there was a sort of transitional phase where the combination of reciprocating engines with a cruising turbine wasn't entirely uncommon. I'd always thought it one or the other exclusively.

I also hadn't realized how many ships used turbine-electric setups instead of direct drive. Wiki page.

One quibble with the video--I didn't get all of the ships shown when he was talking about coal dust as the reason for black hulls, but at least a couple were late enough that I'm pretty sure they'd been build as oil-burners (SS Normandie for example).

radx said:

I had no idea they used a Parsons turbine to drive the center propeller. Fascinating.

*promote

saving private ryan-the taking of omaha beach-opening scene

radx says...

Just for reference: the plain number of casualties at Omaha beach was comparatively small. Fighter-bombers caused higher numbers of casualties among motorised columns of German divisions in Normandy in a single day than the initial invasion or even the encirclement at Falaise.

If I remember correctly, the approach to the bridge of Oissel alone -- one of two bridges across the Seine in that area -- saw more deaths within a few hours at the end of August than Omaha Beach. All without any Allied ground forces present, just P47s, Typhoons and bombers. Same for the roads leading to Rouen and Elbeuf.

Why Violent Video Games Don't Cause Violence | Today's Topic

VoodooV says...

I'll give them credit. They brought up two very good points. when games start to approach holodeck-levels of realism. At some point, someone's going to say...nah, we really don't need to recreate a hyper-realistic storming of Normandy Beach or whatever.

But then on the other hand, if people are able to successfully compartmentalize themselves, let them go nuts with super disturbing massively deviant simulations....as long as they can separate that from RL behavior. I'd much rather people act out demented shit with simulations than do it RL.

lucky760 (Member Profile)

The Colbert Report - Don McLeroy on Texas Textbooks

heropsycho says...

Got in another debate with a hardcore conservative today. Different one this time. I learned some pretty awesome things.

1. If you spend more money on your military, it will always be stronger. No matter what! If you slightly reduce spending on your military while removing troops from conflicts such as Iraq, thereby freeing troops up for other things, your military will still be weaker.

2. Military might is virtually solely determined by number of people in it. China has a better military than the US. In fact, China could successfully land invade the US right now!!! When presented with the fact that China has not even attempted a land invasion of Taiwan because a portion of the US navy is sitting between the two, this was ignored. When I pointed out the US spends multiple times more than China does on military, and therefore he contradicted himself, this was promptly ignored because China apparently also has a better economy than the US, too.

3. When I disputed the proposition that China could successfully land invade the US by pointing out that amphibious assaults require air power, and China doesn't have sufficient aircraft carriers, I was told that air power is not required for a successful massive land invasion. For example, the only thing air power was used for during D-Day was patrols and to parachute some troops in behind enemy lines. They were not required to protect naval vessels carrying troops, nor did they participate in any significant bombings of Normandy. Also, the US successfully invaded Normandy without aircraft carriers, so the fact that China only has one aircraft carrier is irrelevant. I asked how China would get its air force over to the West Coast of the US without aircraft carriers, but that was ignored because an air force wasn't necessary.

4. When I pointed out multiple sources of info showing that air superiority was needed during D-Day, and was specifically sought out prior to even contemplating invasion, and the fact that I have a degree in History, taught it, and my concentration in college was WWI to the present, he responded that he knew more because he was in the navy for 8 years.

In the end, I was accused of thinking I knew more about everything than anyone else, and ridiculed for thinking I knew things because I went to college.

Sadly, this is a true story, and I'm related to this person.

I know there are idiots in every political group, but the amount of ignorance and idiocy coming out of the right these days is staggering, and so many of them are obnoxiously loud and proud about these kinds of views.

The Religious Mind Is Morally Compromised: Demonstration

shinyblurry says...

I'm glad you reference your video, which is a perfect example of trying to make illogical moral exceptions for your deity. You accuse my comment of being but "a weak appeal to emotions", but it is actually a succinct argument refuting the video's thesis. But since you clearly cannot understand anything with a hint of subtlety, I will spell it out for you:

The video argues that evil must exist in order for there to be freedom of the will. Fine enough, but that only accounts for the kinds of evils done by humans. The things my comment link to are all examples of evils that are not caused by human actions, but by nature (i.e. "acts of God"), and affect perfectly innocent beings. A child who is born with a genetic disorder that will cause it (and it's parents) to suffer for it's whole life is not a matter of "freedom of the will". Answer me this, with a simple "yes/no" answer please: did the 13-day old baby killed by the family dog deserve it?

I know what you'll say: all of humankind, nay, of creation, is tainted because of "original sin". Remember how we've already discussed this ad nauseum? The concept of original sin relies on the story of Creation and the Fall. I know you literally believe that all of humankind is the offspring of an incestuous clusterfuck that started with Adam and Eve, and was renewed when God killed everyone except one family (incest ftw eh?). Let's put aside how utterly disgusting and impossible that is, and concentrate on how it is also a totally immoral belief. You are saying that God, omni-potent/benevolent, lets every single being be "tainted" with "sin" no matter how they live, and thus deserve anything nature's twisted ways will throw at them? All because ONE person did not blindly follow his orders (although without knowing it was wrong to do so)? Do you even realise what a sick, twisted tyrant of a deity you are defending?


It's clear you didn't understand the argument the video was making, or even your own argument:

The video is outlining Plantigas free will defense which states:

God's creation of persons with morally significant free will is something of tremendous value. God could not eliminate evil and suffering without thereby eliminating the greater good of having created persons with free will who can make moral choices. Freedom (and, often it is said, the loving relationships which would not be possible without freedom) here is intended to provide a morally sufficient reason for God's allowing evil

The FWD neatly solves the logical problem of evil. Now, you make a point from natural evil, but this also addressed by the FWD. The corruption that came into the world was from originl sin. You say it isn't fair that other people have to suffer for the choices of the prior generation, ignoring that every child is impacted by the choices of their parents, and every other generation before them. God would either have had to start over or prevent all evil, and either choice would eliminate free will. What you miss is that people still have the same opportunities to accept or reject Gods offer of salvation, regardless of original sin. Children who have no capacity to make that choice do receive salvation.

What you're really referring to is the Evidential problem of evil which goes like this:

A) It is improbable that an omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent God, would allow gratuitous suffering.
B) Gratuitous suffering does exist.
C) Therefore it is improbable that an omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent exists.

There are a few ways to address this argument. In chaos theory, something small and insignificant, like the flapping of a butterlfys wings, can lead to something large and powerful, like the creation of a hurricane. Likewise, the actions we undertake have a ripple effect that go beyond our finite understandings. In the movie sliding doors, there are two timelines to the story, where the heroine is trying to get on a subway, and either makes it at the last minute, or gets there a few seconds late and misses it. In the timeline where she makes it, she goes on to have a happy and successful life, but is suddenly killed in a car accident. In the other, she endures a lot of suffering but ends up living to a ripe old age.

Only an omniscient God could see how all of this is going to play out. Just because something may seem pointless to us at the time doesn't mean it couldn't turn out to be beneficial later. If God is working towards a greater good, suffering may be part of how that ultimate good is achieved. It's easy to think of examples. Let's say you were going to take a trip to Tibet to climb Mt Everest, but you ended up breaking your leg and cancelling the trip. Later you find out that the plane you were going to take crashed into the ocean. What seemed pointless at the time actually saved your life.

The invasion of Normandy resulted in untold casualities, but served the greater good of serving to end the war. So, it isn't something we can really quantify, whether some suffering is pointless or not. It is also an incomplete sample. You can say yes, when you only consider the suffering in the world, God doesn't seem as likely, but that is part of the picture. When you consider all of the good things, the probability starts to balance out.

1There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.(Job 1:1) The very first verse says Job was perfect. "But that's the narrator speaking!" you might interject. Fine:

And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? (Job 2:3) This is God speaking, and he follows by saying that "[Satan] movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause", i.e. "Satan made me do it". It is not Dan who is twisting the story, but you. Unless, of course, the Bible is not inerrant, but there's no way you'll accept that, now is there.


I've already addressed all of this. Although some translations render the word as "perfect", it is referring to an outstanding moral character and piety towards God, not sinlessness. This is proven by Jobs own words:

Job 9:20 If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.

Job 13:26 For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.

As far as "the devil made me do it", you fail to understand what is going on. Satan is like a prosecuting attorney in Gods courtroom.

Revelation 12:10

And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.

Satan laid a false accusation against Job, brought him to trial, and Job was tried and tested and found innocent.

Thankfully for you (and everyone else) he is but a figment of your imagination.

You protest too much, hpqp. Your fervent denial shows you have more than a clue. You accuse me of delusion but you're the one fooling yourself.

>> ^hpqp

Zero Punctuation: Borderlands

Shepppard says...

>> ^xxovercastxx:
I'm a bit shocked that he needs "another week" to finish ME2. I finished it last weekend. All of it. Side-quests too.
I played a little bit Thursday night, a few hours Friday night and, since my plans for the weekend fell through, pretty much all day Saturday and Sunday. I just checked my final saved game and it's 31 hours.
They really stripped the thing bare. Lots of features removed or simplified. Apparently nobody liked the driving in the first game so they completely removed that (unless you buy the driving DLC). The problem with the driving in ME1 was there was nothing on 90% of the planets besides a mineral deposit or two. That hasn't changed, but now you have to rub the planets with your mouse cursor in order to find mineral deposits instead of actually exploring them. It's like doing a 10' scratch-off ticket with a penny.


I actually just straight up hated the MAKO, to the point where when I Was exploring the normandy crash site, I smiled a bit when I saw its "Wreckage".

The controls were brutal, I can think of many times where the paths you were supposed to take in certain places (Liaras dig site in particular) weren't well laid out, and therefore I personally died almost every single time I got to the end because "Oh shit, I turn left theres a wall there, turn right!" and started barreling off the path into the lava, and by the time I went "Oh shit, lava!" and hit reverse, I was either too late and in the lava, or about to touch it. And for some reason, lava is an instant kill.

I did find some of it more simplified, but it took me ages to realise things from the first game were missing. I never had to worry about inventory because you never picked anything up unless it was usefull, and eventually realised I didn't have to sit there spamming clicks to sell all 150 items in my inventory, that I like. The cover system works out well, scanning works well, hacking and bypassing are 100x more fun then just the space frogger it used to be. The only true "Complaint" I have about the game, is that the biotic is borderline useless on a first playthrough, and only somewhat useful once you unlock "Reave" and can start a new game with it. Biotics don't do anything against armour, barrier, and shields. Other then that, I liked all the changes.



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