The futility and tragedy of war

Two Vietnamese soldiers talking in 1976 after the war about meeting the dead in their dreams:

" 'Do you speak to them?'
'Yes, but...well, differently. The way you speak in hell. There are no sounds, no words. It's hard to describe. It's like when you're dreaming - you know what I mean.'
'You can't actually do anything to help each other?' asked Kien. 'Do you talk about interesting things?'
'Not very. Just sad and pitiful things, really. Under the ground in the grave human beings aren't the same. You can look at each other, understand each other, but you can't do anything for each other.'
'If we found a way to tell them news of a victory would they be happier?' Kien asked.
'Come on! Even if we could, what would be the point? People in hell don't give a damn about wars. They don't remember killing. Killing is a career for the living, not the dead.'
'Still, wouldn't peacetime be an ideal moment for the resurrection of all the dead?'
'What? Peace? Damn it, peace is a tree that thrives only on the blood and bone of fallen comrades. The ones left behind in the Screaming Soul battlegrounds were the most honoruable peole. Without them there would be no peace,' the driver replied.

'That's a rotten way to look at it. There are so many good people, so many yet to be born, so many survivors now trying to live decent lives. Otherwise it's not been worth it. I mean, what's peace for? Or what's fighting for?' Kien asked.
'Okay, I'll grant you we have to have hope. But we don't even know if the next generation will get a chance to grow up, or if they do, how they'll grow up. We do know that many good people have been killed. Those of us who survived have all been trying to make something of ourselves, but not succeeding.' "

(From Bao Ninh's The Sorrow of War, quoted from the excerpt appearing as 'The Jungle of Screaming Souls' in War Stories (eds. Sebastian Faulks and Jörg Hensgen, pp. 354-55.)

 

New month, new books

I've just started reading War Stories, an anthology edited by Sebastian Faulks and Jörg Hengsen. The anthology comprises a long list of excellent short stories and sections of novels that depict different experiences and viewpoints in war, from different nations (US, Germany, Greece, Japan, French, and so on), from writers who have been in the war.

The selection is outstanding: there are pieces focusing on combat, on the strange sides of war - for example the beauty of artillery lights at night -, the horror of rape and killing civilians, of losing one's comrades, of going mad with fear, and so on. The editors obviously knew the literature well and set high standards. The only thing I'm sorry about is that there aren't more Asian perpectives, and Anglo-Saxon writers dominate the list somewhat, but then again I guess if someone is editing a book in English for mostly English speaking audiences that isn't a terrible fault. The authors certainly are aware of other literature than what they have included and provide a helpful bibliography at the end of the book broken down by conflicts with which those writings deal.

It is a great read, and I wish more people - young and old - would read it. In the last few years I have encountered both in TV and on the internet many people who have never experienced war but make big prononouncements about what they would do in a conflict, how other countries should start wars, or how refugees are really lazy or defectors for not picking up arms against well trained armies and militias. The book makes one understandin well that civilians have nothing to do in war, in fact, nobody has anything to do in war. It is a horrible dirty affair, one that always borders on the insane and people wanting to go to war need to be stopped. It is not an affair of nations but of bad leadership.