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The Color of Hell

On Memorial Day, Firewall host Bill Whittle shows how what we remember as iconic battlefields looked very, very different to the men that fought and died on them.

On Memorial Day, Firewall host Bill Whittle shows how what we remember as iconic battlefields looked very, very different to the men that fought and died on them.

18 replies on “The Color of Hell”

My gosh……. I had never considered this. I used to look thru my Dad’s ld photos when he was in the war when I was a little kid. He was a Marine in the Pacific theater and I grew up so PROUD of him.

I was at the USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor. There were two young Japanese tourists there, a man and a woman. They were carrying on between themselves, speaking Japanese and giggling.

I don’t think they were giggling about the war, or the USS Arizona or the American dead decomposing beneath the surface of the water. American dead killed by a Japanese sneak attack. I think they were just doing what young couples do and were heedless of where they were doing it.

Even so, I lost my temper. It just overwhelmed me that in this place Japanese citizen would be anything but quiet and respectful if for no other reason than that there are non-Japanese people standing around them who are also being quiet and respectful.* That’s their culture but they also have a culture of “gaijin” which often manifests as disrespectful of persons and places not Japanese. I knew all this and when I say “lost my temper” I mean I didn’t rant, rave, foam at the mouth, hit anyone or threaten to hit anyone …

I just kept smiling and tapped the guy on the shoulder, lightly and politely. When I had both their attention I pointed down and said …

“Hiroshima, Nagasaki, ha ha ha to you too.”

They both shut up immediately. I’m sure they didn’t understand anything but the names of those cities but those names got my point across just fine.

(*I’ve noticed that behavior elsewhere. I’m not Catholic but a long, long time ago I visited the Vatican with a couple of Brit buddies of mine. They were cutting up a bit and I had to politely ask them to show some respect for the people around us. Which they did. There’s something about somber or stately places that brings that kind of behavior out in some people. I don’t know why, I think it’s a reaction to being uncomfortable. I saw it at the Wailing Wall too. I shouldn’t have lost my temper at the USS Arizona Memorial like I did. I don’t really regret it but I do try to exercise more self control than that as a rule too.)

I would love to know why someone voted this down, wouldn’t you? It seems that Down votes should not be allowed unless accompanied by an explanation. Up votes without an explanation are nice but say nothing…

I don’t think you can unvote so it’s possible somebody voted down accidentally when scrolling down on a phone or tablet and couldn’t undo it.

Nice! I’m liking Country more and more, even tho I’ve never heard of Jamey Johnson before…

There is an HBO documentary just out, “The Cold Blue” about the 8th Air Force raids over Germany. It takes a page out of Peter Jackson’s book, and shows that part of the war in glorious color, making the people and planes have a reality that black and white could never do. The crews were so YOUNG–just boys really, and about 25% never came back home.

There’s an old WWII movie staring Errol Flynn, I think it’s called Flight Surgeon. Something like that. At the end of the movie all the flight cadets are on parade on N. Island, San Diego. And in the background, a carrier is passing by. Based on the island and year, that could only have been the Enterprise CV-6. Sister ship to the Yorktown lost at Midway and Hornet lost in the south seas after only a year in service.

But here’s the thing, the movie was shot in glorious COLOR. There’s the Enterprise in sharp, rich color. A ship, and her sisters, who’d I’d only seen in B&W fotos. I don’t think there’s any news reels of that class. A ship that was scrapped before color was common. Yet there she was, a random extra in a Big Budget Hollywood movie. In Technocolor

BC. Before color. I was in my teens before I realised WW1 and WW2 were in color. Why I thought this I don’t know. Probably because I only saw film of the time in black and white.

Hell truly is made not by location but actions. Paradise with horror is hell.

God bless all who served in those trying times. There is evil in this world. I’m proud our country paid the price to stop things like the Nazi death camps. I hope we will always stand up to those who would slaughter.

Yup. Bill talked about it on the Stratosphere Lounge. I was waiting for him to mention it here.

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