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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 18, 2014 - 05:02pm PT
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Okay, I have spent the past few days researching WW1 for a book I am contemplating.
But aside from the vast human misery of war, any war, there are both technological and medical advances that do arise from conflicts.
For one, it is a sort of one "upmanship" on the technolgical front… keeping in front of the foe.
But medically, conflict does seem to hasten new techniques. Sadly in many circumstances.
Some of the best surgical techniques arise from conflict. Look at the Troubles in Northern Ireland, as one example. Some of the best surgeons for traumatic injuries from bombs and violence in the UK and Ireland, are those medical professionals in the North who have had to learn and deal with such trauma. Knee-cappings by both sides of the militant/extremist camps, some doctors in the North have perhaps become world experts on treating these injuries.
And this is true in many conflict zones. Sadly
We can look to MASH or other media programmes, but the fact is, and a very sad fact (EDIT, considering why), is that new techniques come to light.
But why can't they do it in peace time? Not to sound naive.
I was once a certified EMT1. Didn't last long.
It seems, appears, that at times in order to kick human beings into "progressive" mode, that is finding new solutions to injury comes out of "war".
Just looking at World War One and the field medical/medicine advances… but why wait until a war?
I do not mean to be simplistic. But in my latest research on conflicts and war, medical advances for traumatic injury seem to "abound".
I could be wrong.
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Aug 18, 2014 - 05:15pm PT
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To answer your question... Yes.
Your not speaking German today, are you?
Medical stuff..... I think it boils down to who is willing to pay.
During wartime, we seem to did up the bucks to pay for care, and sadly there is a long line of customers.
Most of the current crop of injured, surving fighters all have brain injurys the like of witch we have never encountered.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Aug 18, 2014 - 05:22pm PT
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A massive number of new technologies have been developed by the machine, many of them good, a good number of them bad.....
Good:
*GPS
*Freeze drying
*Epipen
*Cargo pants
*Duct tape
*Jerry Can
*JEEP
*Computers
*Microwave
Bad:
*Nukes
*Agent orange
*etc...............
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Aug 18, 2014 - 05:31pm PT
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Several years ago( before the recent wars) there existed a joint program that put Armed Forces trainee MASH type physicians in certain inner city hospitals to assist the resident Docs there in the treatment of the numerous gunshot victims being brought in as the result of street gang warfare. The point was to give these peace time battlefield surgeons real world experience with small arms wounds.
From the US military's standpoint your thread would have read:
Peaceful Civilian Life---Are there benefits?
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 18, 2014 - 05:33pm PT
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Your not speaking German today, are you?
Ich nein verstehen Deutsch.
That is the sum total of my German, sort of.
But Guyman, I am perplexed, what do you refer to?
EDIT
From the US military's standpoint your thread would have read:
Peaceful Civilian Life---Are there benefits?
Touché Ward.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Aug 18, 2014 - 05:38pm PT
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Ich nein verstehen Deutsch.
That is the sum total of my German, sort of.
But Guyman, I am perplexed, what do you refer to?
Guyman doesn't know the Irish supported the Germans, that's all.
Benefits of war? Immense profits for the arms merchants, obscene profits.
I am the Cannon King, behold!
I perish on a throne of gold.
With forest far and turret high,
Renowned and rajah-rich am I.
My father was, and his before,
With wealth we owe to war on war;
But let no potentate be proud...
There are no pockets in a shroud.
By nature I am mild and kind,
To gentleness and ruth inclined;
And though the pheasants over-run
My woods I will not touch a gun.
Yet while each monster that I forge
Thunders destruction form its gorge.
Death's whisper is, I vow, more loud...
There are no pockets in a shroud.
My time is short, my ships at sea
Already seem like ghosts to me;
My millions mock me I am poor
As any beggar at my door.
My vast dominion I resign,
Six feet of earth to claim is mine,
Brooding with shoulders bitter-bowed...
There are no pockets in a shroud.
Dear God, let me purge my heart,
And be of heaven's hope a part!
Flinging my fortune's foul increase
To fight for pity, love and peace.
Oh that I could with healing fare,
And pledged to poverty and prayer
Cry high above the cringing crowd:
"Ye fools! Be not Mammon cowed...
There are no pockets in a shroud."
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Aug 18, 2014 - 05:48pm PT
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Benefits of war? Immense profits for the arms merchants, obscene profits.
Any kind of profit is "obscene" to a certain mentality, and not just for arms manufacturers----profit itself is considered obscene, no matter what the business . Imagine the witless absurdity of expecting the US arms manufacturers in WW 2 to operate efficiently in the red.
Besides, without the help of the Lend/Lease program how would that psychopathic communist Stalin been able to kill so many Germans and his own fellow countrymen and occupy Eastern Europe for a generation?
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Aug 18, 2014 - 06:13pm PT
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What an interesting post, Ward. A combination of a weak grasp of facts and logic.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Aug 18, 2014 - 06:24pm PT
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What an interesting post, Ward. A combination of a weak grasp of facts and logic.
What would have been your response to Hitler--- would it have been a financially unsound US/ Allied arms industry and bloviating pseudo-moral reservations about someone making obscene profits?
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Captain...or Skully
climber
in the oil patch...Fricken Bakken, that's where
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Aug 18, 2014 - 06:48pm PT
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In a word......no.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Aug 18, 2014 - 07:40pm PT
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No!
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Aug 18, 2014 - 07:40pm PT
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What would have been your response to Hitler--- would it have been a financially unsound US/ Allied arms industry and bloviating pseudo-moral reservations about someone making obscene profits?
There would have been no Hitler if there'd been no death merchants before him.
No, Bill, I'm not a-spooning out no patriotic tosh
(The cove be'ind the sandbags ain't a death-or-glory cuss).
And though I strafes 'em good and 'ard I doesn't 'ate the Boche,
I guess they're mostly decent, just the same as most of us.
I guess they loves their 'omes and kids as much as you or me;
And just the same as you or me they'd rather shake than fight;
And if we'd 'appened to be born at Berlin-on-the-Spree,
We'd be out there with 'Ans and Fritz, dead sure that we was right.
A-standin' up to the sandbags
It's funny the thoughts wot come;
Starin' into the darkness,
'Earin' the bullets 'um;
(Zing! Zip! Ping! Rip!
'ark 'ow the bullets 'um!)
A-leanin' against the sandbags
Wiv me rifle under me ear,
Oh, I've 'ad more thoughts on a sentry-go
Than I used to 'ave in a year.
I wonder, Bill, if 'Ans and Fritz is wonderin' like me
Wot's at the bottom of it all? Wot all the slaughter's for?
'E thinks 'e's right (of course 'e ain't) but this we both agree,
If them as made it 'ad to fight, there wouldn't be no war.
If them as lies in feather beds while we kips in the mud;
If them as makes their fortoons while we fights for 'em like 'ell;
If them as slings their pot of ink just 'ad to sling their blood:
By Crust! I'm thinkin' there 'ud be another tale to tell.
Shiverin' up to the sandbags,
With a hicicle 'stead of a spine,
Don't it seem funny the things you think
'Ere in the firin' line:
(Whee! Whut! Ziz! Zut!
Lord! 'ow the bullets whine!)
Hunkerin' down when a star-shell
Cracks in a sputter of light,
You can jaw to yer soul by the sandbags
Most any old time o' night.
They talks o' England's glory and a-'oldin' of our trade,
Of Empire and 'igh destiny until we're fair flim-flammed;
But if it's for the likes o' that that bloody war is made,
Then wot I say is: Empire and 'igh destiny be damned!
There's only one good cause, Bill, for poor blokes like us to fight:
That's self-defence, for 'earth and 'ome, and them that bears our name;
And that's wot I'm a-doin' by the sandbags 'ere to-night....
But Fritz out there will tell you 'e's a-doin' of the same.
Starin' over the sandbags,
Sick of the 'ole damn thing;
Firin' to keep meself awake,
'Earin' the bullets sing.
(Hiss! Twang! Tsing! Pang!
Saucy the bullets sing.)
Dreamin' 'ere by the sandbags
Of a day when war will cease,
When 'Ans and Fritz and Bill and me
Will clink our mugs in fraternity,
And the Brotherhood of Labour will be
The Brotherhood of Peace.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Aug 18, 2014 - 07:45pm PT
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Well, the advance in aviation technology between 1914 and 1918 was stunning.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 19, 2014 - 12:28am PT
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I wrote in my OP
vast human misery of war
Let us not forget the vast amount of misery caused to other life forms (animals primarily). For example, carpet bombing, agent orange, land mines and napalm must have wasted a lot of life besides humans.
Gary, I will go off topic on the following.
Guyman doesn't know the Irish supported the Germans, that's all.
Not really accurate. The Emergency, as it was called in Ireland during WW2, was Ireland's attempt at remaining neutral. There are a number of instances where combatants, Axis and Allied, were detained (concentration camps for better lack of terms) if they were found in the Republic.
Also, Churchill cut a deal with the Irish government to keep some ports open to Allied shipping. And a lot of Irishmen enlisted in Allied forces.
But yes, it was sort of a case of "my enemy is your enemy". And de Valera did send condolences to the Germans regarding Hitler's death. But Dev was a New York-born scumbag anyway, though idolized in Ireland.
The Emergency is another topic I have been researching for a novel. A good read, IMO, is A U.S. Spy in Ireland, by Martin S. Quigley (said spy), about his experiences undercover (ostensibly for the film industry, that was his cover) during WW2.
And Guyman, I guess it was late in the night and I had a a couple glasses of wine, so I did not at first understand your reference to not speaking German. I get it now in the cold light of (a bright sunny) morning.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 19, 2014 - 01:02am PT
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I don't know QINTL, isn't the G.I. Bill open to any soldier, regardless if they served in a conflict or not? Again, I don't really know, but I get your gist.
Now, as for a prize, how much does a box of Cracker Jack's cost? I'll send you the money. ;-)
Again, off topic, some food historians suggest that Cracker Jacks were the first junk food. I certainly loved them, and looked forward to whatever prize was in the box.
Back on topic. I always used to joke that I want to be rich (well, I do, honestly) and that at first I will start out selling handguns on street corners, then graduate to bigger stuff, you know, grenade launchers and SAMs, and then hit the big time with tanks, jets and nukes.
Then sit back in my jacuzzi on my yacht and watch the world and humanity destroy itself. BOOM.
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Delhi Dog
climber
Good Question...
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Aug 19, 2014 - 02:03am PT
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Interesting topic.
Survival writes; "A massive number of new technologies have been developed by the machine, many of them good, a good number of them bad....."
Question might be: would these things have come about without war?
Where there is a need there is often a solution found.
It is telling of the human race that the impetuous for many "inventions" is a result of our need to kill each other.
Another way to think about it that leaves me with only one answer...
Is war worth these inventions?
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Aug 19, 2014 - 04:20am PT
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Patrick.
Seeing your question, Ernst Junger's "Storm of Steel" and "Fire and Blood" might interest you. The books could also answer parts of the German hint.
Junger was the last living bearer of the military version of the order of the Pour le Mérite. He died 102 years old.
I have to admit - I don't like the OP question. After all: What are the benefits of shooting your neighbour?
The Judge, BM, CMC:
As war becomes dishonored and its nobility called into question those honorable men who recognize the sanctity of blood will become excluded from the dance, which is the warrior's right, and thereby will the dance become a false dance and the dancers false dancers. And yet there will be one there always who is a true dancer.
Only that man who has offered up himself entire to the blood of war, who has been to the floor of the pit and seen horror in the round and learned at last that it speaks to his inmost heart, only that man can dance.
There is room on the stage for one beast and one alone. All others are destined for a night that is eternal and without name. One by one they will step down into darkness before the footlamps.
More CMC:
"Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself, but rather in the value of that which is put to hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and the strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all."
Brown and the judge:
"What is my trade?
War. War is your trade. Is it not?
And ain't it yours?
Mine too. Very much so.
What about all them notebooks and bones and stuff?
All other trades are contained in that of war.
Is that why war endures?
No, it endures because young men love it and old men love it in them..."
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Aug 19, 2014 - 05:59am PT
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Ward posted:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2460094/Panic-drove-Britain-slaughter-750-000-family-pets-week.html
Wow. That's harsh, TFPU.
In WWII Americans sent their dogs off to war. Some family pets were turned into suicide bombers. Loaded with explosives, they had been trained to run to concrete bunkers.
Lots of great literature and poetry came out of the Great War, some was extinguished as well. "Saki", aka HH Munro, died in a trench at the hand of a German sniper. His last words were, "Put that bloody cigarette out!"
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nature
climber
Boulder, CO
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Aug 19, 2014 - 07:07am PT
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the upsides are huge for companies like Halliburton.
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