Modern War Heroes

Sometimes a soldier just needs to take a moment off and find the good things in life to laugh at – especially when on tour. As any one who knows someone in the military knows, our soldiers are often stuck “hurrying up to wait”. This is how they fill that downtime.

Visit this website to view more humorous photos taken by our brave men in uniform.

We all know of the tragedy in 1941 that struck the U.S. Naval base located at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. But you haven’t seen it the way that the pictures show it.

Click here to see Pearl Harbor photos.

I found this page over at Good.is. It is a series of photos showing troops inhabiting Saddam’s palaces in Iraq. The contrast between the opulent surroundings and the working soldiers is certainly an interesting one.

WWII soldier John T French kept a journal while holed up in a muddy trench with German sniper bullets whizzing over his head every day. And the story that it tells is quite remarkable. In his diary he tells horror stories of the killing and death. He describes ‘piles of men’ who had been killed in the firefight, and he describes ducking those same bullets who killed his countrymen.

He also talks of downtime in the fighting when he and his comrades would shout good natured insults to the opposing Germans, who would throw their own back. 30 minutes were spent in verbal sparring involving cultural cliches from each country. Then they would duck under the trenches and get back to fighting.

French survived the horrors of the Second World War, but succumbed to TB at age 37.

I always find it fascinating to see items such as these diaries. As I know I’ve mentioned in a previous post, for me, seeing these words written, and photographs taken, so long ago really brings the people involved to life. While in school I always found it so easy to tune out and simply memorize the dates. I did these brave people an injustice by letting them remain just names on a piece of paper.

But they weren’t just names. They were people with hopes, dreams, and lives of their own, and not just some name to memorize in order to pass a test. This is something we all need to remember.

If you are interested in reading more of French’s diary, click here.

I found this site with some pretty spectacular photos from the front in Afghanistan. It helps give the sense of what the men and women in service are dealing with on a day to day basis. A window into their daily lives in service.

Scenes from Afghanistan: The Sacramento Bee

A young German soldier in pain being treated by American GI.

This photo is touching. The wounded soldier is just a kid, and this photo does nothing to soften that reality. He’s someone son, sent out onto the battlefield to fight for someone else’s ideals, here wounded, in pain, and obviously scared. An American soldier, the enemy, is reaching out and taking care of him, helping him bandage his wounds. It’s good to see that, in the midst of the horrors of the battlefield, someone could spare a moment of compassion and see the human being behind uniform.

Thank you Washington Post for this list of our lost soldiers. We never want to forget the sacrifice they have made.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/fallen/

I don’t know the backstory to this photo, but it certainly is sweet. Even tough guys can have a soft spot.

I ran across this website this morning. It was created by a man named Steven Curtis who was employed as a photographer during the Vietnam War. His about page mentions that he mostly was commissioned to photograph war images, but he personally was interested in capturing the human element in the midst of such inhumanity. These images are a real reminder that history is alive and that people just like you and me had to endure such hardships.

Nineteenth birthday party

Click here to travel to Stephen’s webpage.

Understandably, the technology to produce color photography was still quite rare during the time of World War I. This website has a fairly large collection of color photographs. Very interesting, and certainly not something you see every day. I think it is important to see these reminders of our past. Check it out.