====================================================================== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. ======================================================================
Many thanks Ray, for that URL. I have watched the film this morning - and cannot help wondering what its impact is on those who have never served in their country's army. For me, having joined the British army only in August 1944, aged 19 -it felt like the truth personified. The first drill sergeant (not actually the first, because I spent six weeks in primary training, of which I have few memories, before joining the Armoured Corps for my main training as a driver/(wireless) operator impressed on one's memory, which left me with the pride in the Royal Tank Regiment) - how true. (This was up in Co. Durham - so different from my home territory of East Anglia - with its stone houses, and a dialect "Geordie" which was mainly incomprehensible to me when arrived). My first (in Armoured Corps training) was named Sergeant Steel - what an appropriate name - and certainly his face is truly impressed on my memory, as someone the whole troop came to partly regard as a lunatic demon, but who yet gained a deep-seated respect. Then this was followed by officer training at Sandhurst, which was even more vigorous as well as more academic with theory of strategy and tactics as well as the combat training which left me at my heaviest ever with muscles I had never known I had !! The main difference between my experience and that of today's recruits was that we were training to liberate the world from fascism, not to simply be used as tools of our and other governments' attempts to rule the world ... a difference which puts a whole new complexion on the system and basis of army training. By the time I was commissioned as a junior officer VE-day had come, to be followed by VJ-day before the planned embarkation of my unit for the Far East, and I spent two very eventual (and, in retrospect) enjoyable and educative years in occupation duties in Italy and Egypt - in which, as a very young man, I was entrusted with responsibilities which were vast in comparison with anything I experienced in the remainder of my professional life. It still remains almost impossible for me to enter into any deep conversation, whether concerned with politics or with family and local affairs, without harking back to parallels, and sometimes solutions, which are coloured by my 4 years in the army. Paddy <http://apling.freeservers.com -----Original Message----- From: marxism-bounces+e.c.apling=btinternet....@lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:marxism-bounces+e.c.apling=btinternet....@lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of jay rothermel Sent: 22 April 2010 2:13 AM To: e.c.apl...@btinternet.com Subject: [Marxism] "Anybody's Son Will Do" ====================================================================== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. ====================================================================== http://www.countercurrents.org/willers200410.htm In 1983, the National Film Board of Canada produced a 57-minute film, "Anybody's Son Will Do". Arguably the best anti-war film ever made, and tailored for public television, it scared the hell out of the U.S. military machine, which has done its best to "disappear" it. For years it has been nearly impossible to find a copy, but some kind soul has posted it on YouTube where it can be seen in six segments. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DShDaJXK5q <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DShDaJXK5qo> ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/e.c.apling%40btinternet.c om ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
