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Carpal Tunnel
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Speaking of the songs excerpted for the lyrics: "War" (what is it good for?) was first recorded by Edwin Starr circa late 60's/early 70's (anybody have a more specific date?) and Bruce Springsteen covered the song in '88 largely to spite the Reagan/Bush camp, I presume, for "co-opting" his song (as Bruce put it), "Born in the USA," out of context as a jingoistic rallying cry to gain their re-election on the votes of the defections of working-people in '84...this really pissed Bruce off by the way. "Born in the USA" was actually an anti-war anthem set against the Viet Nam War.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Thought this thread would be incomplete without asking for a personal listing of, say, the top three war books (fiction or non-fiction) you've ever read. Here's mine:
1. All Quiet on the Western Front -- Erich Maria Remarque -- I must've read this astounding novel 4 times by the time I was 14! Having the common WWI German foot soldier presented as a vulnerable human being who despised war as much as anybody (and from their viewpoint yet!) totally negated all the war-is-cool garbage we saw growing up in post WWII America...John Wayne movies, TV show fluff like "Combat!" (a good show for what it was however) and "The Gallant Men." And, of course, Remarque's powers as a novelist and wordsmith surpassed my infatuation with an anti-war message from a German point of view, and the grisly details of war life and combat that made war uncool for me very early. This book should be required reading for all middle-schoolers...then no one would ever have a notion that war was cool, again!
2. Brave Men -- Ernie Pyle; non-fiction -- More than a journalist, Pyle was able to put a human face on the WWII infantryman, showing all the foibles and courage of daily combat existence in the European theatre.. Affectionately known as "G. I. Joe" to US servicemen he met his fate at Okinawa, ambushed in a jeep on the small island if Ie Shima a few weeks before the war's end. And his last ship was my father's (a Navy corspman with the 1st Marine Division) troop transport, an LST named the U.S.S Charles Carroll. My Dad took some of Pyle's last shipside photographs after meeting him, and still has them. Ernie Pyle will finally get some of his due when he's featured on a C-SPAN American Writers segment in a few months...watch for it!
3. The Killer Angels -- Michael Shaara; novelization. -- A moving and poignant account of the battle of Gettysburg from a Southern point of view. And it was also the basis for the TNT film, "Gettysburg."
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yes, All Quiet was a similar formative experience for me. Next and equally important came Catch 22. Think it's about time to re-read that  This has got me pondering... curious that the experience of war has left us with a legacy of much great poetry, but little extended writing of other kinds... But now that's made me think, of course, of Sebastian Faulkes and his wonderful novels including Girl at the Lion D'or - novels set in wartime rather than war novels are a richer field, perhaps.
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Carpal Tunnel
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the experience of war has left us with a legacy of much great poetry
Not the least of which is Walt Whitman's work of Civil War poems, Drum Taps, from "Leaves of Grass."
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