Jim > Recent Status Updates

"Most of the patrons looked at us as they would at whores in church. Just smelling our fatigues was about as close as many of them would ever get to the real war."

"They have a huge shoulder-fired rocket called a Javelin, for example, that can be steered into the window of a speeding car half a mile away. Each Javelin round costs $80,000, and the idea that it's fired by a guy who doesn't make that much in a year at a guy who doesn't make that much in a lifetime is somehow so outrageous it almost makes the war seem winnable."

Good grief. This is going to be a tedious slog!

Civilization is a mechanism that allows us to avoid the necessary but ugly aspects of life; most of us do not euthanize our own pets, we don't unplug the life support on our own ailing grandparents, we don't repair our own cars, and we don't process our own raw sewage.

“By 8 o’clock on the morning of 13 April, the ship was just south of Gibraltar,and the main problem to exercise the minds of the senior military personnel at their daily meeting was the men’s habit of waiting for the showers completely naked in the passageways. This was not deemed to be offensive to the women on board, but rather it was feared that it would be titillating for homosexuals amongst the P&O crew.

"Postcards quickly appeared in Belgrade during the NATO bombing campaign with an illustration of the American Stealth bomber; supposedly invisible to radar, shot down by a Cold War-era piece of equipment. "Sorry, we didn;t know it was invisible," read the caption."

“Soldiers are by nature creatures of caution and their experience in the Army teaches them to play safe and not to fool with things they don’t understand. A soldier who believes he has been attacked by gas, having got his respirator on, is inclined to keep it on. The sight of an officer, regardless of seniority, with his respirator off does not impress, indeed it tends only to confirm his worst suspicions “

Re: Joint Services Movements Staff:”This is home for the rejects, the socially disadvantaged and the psychopaths of the three services. Only here is the power to move, feed, transport and accommodate a division’s worth of troops vested in the hands of a RAF Corporal. Only here will you hear a Royal Navy Petty Officer address an Army Brigadier as “Luv”.

“This afternoon distraught American ack-ack gunners brought down their third Spitfire. This had just flown in from Sicily and, taking off in pursuit of FW 190s, was immediately shot down...”

About green American troops: “Armed hillbillies were constantly jumping out from behind a hedge to point their rifles at us and scream a demand for a password that nobody had bothered to give us.”

“We shook hands at the end of that lunch, and neither of us ever felt the need to put it in writing. Art remained my agent for forty-eight years on the strength of that handshake, with never a written contract between us. Nowadays, no one does business like that; but,then, Art Rush was one of a kind.”

"Dr Earl Russell recalls that the first case of syphilis he ever treated was contracted by a soldier who "managed to acquire the disease through the wire at Pusan. This was obviously a highly skilled feat and said something for the abilities of the Canadians who went to the Far East.""

"The whole battalion was on parade, over nine hundred of us. Then the major got up in front of us and yelled, "You are going into Korea tomorrow. I hope to hell you die better than you live."

"War is often imagined like a great battle scene in a movie where dozens of extras are wiped out at once. In real life, there are no extras in war. Everyone gets to play a central character."

"War is the darkness in humankind's nature and the profanity in our imagination. It is a violation and an abomination. Only the malevolent or deranged would seek a war."

"During the war, my name would remind me of a Kurdish saying: that the tree of freedom is watered with blood."

I might have to break my rule about finishing every book I start. This guy is coming off as a flaming lefty, so his objectivity is in question, at least in the early stages.

”You should only read what is truly good or what is frankly bad.” (quoting Gertrude Stein)

"Giger had been fired from four positions as batman, and after a session with red and white wines had told a kindly member of the military police he should be inflicted with an inferiority complex, or words to that effect. The net result had been seven days in the clink, and on Giger's return to the company he had been placed in Old Bill's charge and was occupied in looking after the latrines."

Captain Arthur was kind to us. He stood and gazed at our pitiful ranks, gazed without speaking, and I saw in his eyes things of which no man speaks - the things that words would kill.

Captain Arthur was kind to us. He stood and gazed at our pitiful ranks, gazed without speaking, and I saw in his eyes things of which no man speaks - the things that words would kill.

Old Bill's feet shot from under him. His kilt flew up. He sat down hard on the greasy plank and skidded to the far end, bringing up heavily with the drums of ammunition crossed so that the strap was strangling him. As soon as he got air he denounced all wars, the Great War in particular, all battalions, the 42nd especially, all officers and present company not excepted.

Old Bill's feet shot from under him. His kilt flew up. He sat down hard on the greasy plank and skidded to the far end, bringing up heavily with the drums of ammunition crossed so that the strap was strangling him. As soon as he got air he denounced allwars, the Great War in particular, all battalions, the 42nd especially, all officers and present company not excepted.

Old Bill's feet shot from under him. His kilt flew up. He sat down hard on the greasy plank and skidded to the far end, bringing up heavily with the drums of ammunition crossed s that the strap was strangling him. As soon as he got air he denounced allwars, the Great War in particular, all battalions, the 42nd especially, all officers and present company not excepted.

"Commercial motion pictures were developed as a visual form of storytelling. Many of the films made during the silent and early sound periods are more pleasant to watch because the filmmakers were concerned with photography, rather than jerking a hand-held camera in all directions and cutting every half-second to hold the gaze of audiences who have developed mass attention-deficit disorder."

What a beauty! Just got my copy today and all other reading is now on hold!

”They didn’t like it. Like most prairie men, they had great belief in their abilities, but a total faith in their bad luck.”

“The acting profession,moreover, is not worthy of a man. This life of false appearance and of illusion is only for those with great talent, for those who, moreover, are determined to endow this calling, formerly compared to the antics of circus people, with a loftier reputation. For a man this is a demeaning occupation.”

"The philosophy of the Liberal party", Trudeau once said,"is very simple - say anything, think anything, or better still, do not think at all, but put us in power because it is we who can govern you best."

"While I was sitting there talking with Ginnie Sue, I'd even forgotten she was a whore. One thing about whoring: It put a chicken on the table."