The Truth of War
What is the Truth of War?
Everyone has heard the stories about the soldiers who have given their lives for our country, the brave men and women who have seen horrors beyond anything we could imagine. No matter how much the media tells us, no matter what army generals say, it will never compare to anything a soldier has experienced, so, what is the truth of war? The objective of this unit was to try to educate an average student about what really goes on behind enemy lines. To do this, we read "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Eric Maria Remarque and "Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut. Both of these award winning stories portray a soldiers view and experiences in the war with extremely vivid and intense ideas. After finishing these stories, we were faced with the challenge of writing our own story from a soldiers perspective. I chose to write about my great grandfather, who was a soldier in World War II. To go along with our stories, we made a visual piece portraying what the truth of war was to us. Underneath is my story, and images of the visual I chose to use.
My visual represents how I feel about war and the people who ultimately decide if there will be one or not. The hand stands for the fact that millions of brave men and women's life's are on the line because one person chose to participate in a deadly game called war. In the triangle are pictures of all of the different sorts of people that are affected by war and lastly is the quote, the quote reads"Because we were duped I tell you, duped as even yet we hardly realize; because we were misused, hideously misused. They told us it was for the Fatherland, but really meant the schemes of annexation of a greedy industry. They told us it was for Honor, and meant the quarrels and the will to power of a handful of ambitious diplomats and princes. - They told us it was for the Nation, and meant the need for activity on the part of out-of-work generals! ... Can't you see? They stuffed out the word Patriotism with all the twaddle of their fine phrases, with their desire for glory, their will to power, their false romanticism, their stupidity, their greed of business, and then paraded it before us as a shining ideal! And we thought they were sounding a bugle summoning us to a new, a more strenuous larger life. Millions of brave soldiers have died, and for what? A man sitting behind a gold plated desk on the hunt for more power? The ones whispering broken promises of magnificence seductively into valiant men and women’s ears? Do those leaders regret the loss of incredible men and women? The ones who found out they were lied to with the un-reversible consequence of death? It is a sick and twisted pattern that will keep repeating itself until the day humans exist no more." This was said by Clemet Atlee and I found it to be very true to what my personal beliefs on war are.
The Devil's Handiwork
I was only 20 years old when this mayhem started. The moment that I had found out about Pearl Harbor I knew what it would lead to. We had learned about the first one throughout our whole school career, from elementary up until high school, it was drilled into our heads what had happened, and what we needed to do to prevent it from happening again.
I had been listening to a program on the radio at the local drugstore with some friends. The DJ was playing songs like; “I’ll never smile by Tommy Dorsey, and, you always hurt the ones you love” by the Mills Brothers. It had been the perfect day, sunny, and crisp, and I was getting to spend time with my dearest friends. I had just ordered a hot chocolate and as soon as it was set down on the counter in front of me, it was already dripping with perspiration from the heat. Out of nowhere a screeching noise broke through the music flowing from the radio and an urgent voice poured through the room. “Attention, Pearl Harbor has been bombed by the Japanese, I repeat, Pearl Harbor has been bombed!” Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and looked on in shock. It was like time had lost all significance in the world, no one moved for what seemed like ages, save for the shallow breaths barely escaping from people’s lips. Finally, a struggled cry broke the silence in the room; it was a scary thing, not because it was the sound of sorrow, but because it was the first voice of pain that would come in a never ending cycle for the next six years. Without even thinking about what I was saying, I heard myself mutter “the second world war has begun…”
The truck my group was assigned to was slowly rumbling down the uneven dirt roads that led us to the camp that would teach us how to shoot, hide, and ultimately survive. I had initially decided to join the Marines when I heard President Theodore Roosevelt in his speech directed at congress stating that he wanted to go to war with Japan. So, as soon as recruiters started showing up in the area I was living in at the time (Rome, Georgia), I raced down to the nearest recruiting station. “Name?” “Arthur William Ford.” “Age?” “20.” “Any significant ailments” “None sir”. The intimidating army scout judgingly looked me up and down multiple times, making sure I was the strong, and healthy lad I was claiming to be. After inspecting me like a butcher would inspect a pig, the scout finally glanced up to me with strict eyes and said, “Welcome to the army.” He told me when I would be leaving and everything else I needed to know, and then he moved on to the next young man behind me.
Leaving the only place I had ever known was one of the strangest things that I have ever experienced. I didn’t want to accept that I was leaving behind my family, friends, everything and everyone I knew. It was challenging trying to block out what was happening, a blur full of tears, loving words, and hugs. My parent’s heartbroken voices echoed through my mind during the whole drive away on that rickety old truck, taking close to 100 other men and I away from home. It was scary, heading towards the possibility of a death sentence, but knowing there was a chance of never seeing my family again was petrifying.
Five weeks of training was all that we got, only 5 weeks to fit in 188 hours’ worth of material. Chief among them was 96 hours of weapons training, 56 hours of drill, interior guard, and other garrison subjects, 32 hours of field training, and only four hours of physical training. The years 1941 and 1942 were probably the worst times to be a recruit, seeing as the need for men was so bad that they shortened the training time to the shortest amount possible. Following the Japanese attacks of December 1941, the Marine Corps' authorized strength increased from 75,000 to 104,000 Marines. During the last month of peace in November 1941, 1,978 men enlisted. In December, enlistments jumped to 10,224. That number was then raised even more by 22,686 enlistments in January 1942. The following month saw 12,037 men enlisting. These huge numbers put an immense strain on the recruit depots. The training schedule was immediately reduced from seven to five weeks, and Headquarters of the Marine Corps, directed maximum effort into staffing the depots. The goal was to achieve the end-strength of 104,000 by the first of March 1942.
Before joining the Marines, I had thought I was very high and mighty and knew no wrong, but being here changed my perspective on everything entirely. The commanders will brutally slap you back into place if you step a centimeter out of line. At first it is hard to handle a red faced man screaming in your face with spit flying out of his mouth, but soon it becomes expected. It’s funny… at the time I had considered that to be hell, I went into war thinking this was going to be an exciting and idealistic escapade. I can’t believe that I was so naïve. My life before the war had been very sheltered and fortunate, my father, William Stuart Ford, was a store owner, and my mother, Betsy Smith Ford, was a school teacher. We had two incomes always coming into our home which meant that my brother and I were always being surprised with treats from my parents. Coming here was an extreme culture shock, I was meeting men who came from nothing, had nothing, and this was their only escape from poverty. Hearing their stories about being so impoverished had scared me… I was scared of the slightest things before going to the front line.
Five weeks flew by and before I knew it I was on another rickety old truck with 27 other men, heading to a base camp where we would reside until needed again. The camp was nothing unique, just some old tents with a couple of bunks in each. I was assigned to room with three other men, Charlie Hall (23 years old), Patrick Knopfler (25 years old), and Joseph Brenner (29 years old). For about two and a half weeks we just lounged around, and played cards or talked, but it was nothing like what I expected.
At an ungodly hour in the morning, a corporal roared up to our base on a motorcycle. Not knowing what was going on, the other men in my tent and I jumped out of bed and raced outside trying to figure out what was going on. When we realized it was a corporal and that he had very important news, Charlie, Patrick and I started calling out to the other men, telling them to hurry up and get to the center of camp. Once everyone was gathered, the corporal, Thomas Lupen, began to speak to us, informing what was about to happen. He said a lot of things like “you brave men” but what it came down to is that we were going to be relocated to the Central Pacific Front very soon; and that we were to pack everything we would need.
Nothing really happened at the beginning, for the most part we just sat around and played cards. Sitting there was terrible, hundreds upon hundreds of filthy men sitting side by side in the blazing heat with nowhere to go and nothing to do. I had never really appreciated the homely comforts of everything, but resting on rocks and dirt was so uncomfortable that sleep turned into a rare luxury, warm food turned into a warm memory, and for a while; other men turned into the devil. I was always a very sociable person, but being so close with that many men put a strain on my sanity. We had been sitting in a field for three days with nothing to do. Everyone started to get snappy and a couple of men were on the verge of fighting. It was a tough situation to handle and it was when I first started to question my signing up for this war; not because I had seen terrible things, but because war was nothing like I had expected it to be. My questioning was soon shut down by an attack from the Japanese.
It started with a bomb; one single bomb is all it took for me to start worrying about my life. As soon as that bomb was dropped, a hailstorm of bullets erupted from nowhere. I had been wandering around just outside of the trenches when it started and in a severe panic I ran for the biggest and broadest rock I could find for shelter. All around me was pure chaos; from my vantage point I could only see dirt flying up wherever an impact would hit it, but I could hear things that haunted me for years after. I heard men screaming earth shattering cries of pain, horses whinnying in fright, and the explosions of bombs and bullets blowing up the earth around me. With my back pressed up as tightly against a rock as it could go, I muttered silent prayers for safety and luck. All of my senses disappeared, I was seeing but I was blind, I was deaf but I could still hear, I touched but couldn’t feel. Hours later, the shelling deceased and I decided it would be okay to stand up and see what damage was done. It took about 10 minutes for me to get my body working again, I had been in the fetal position for about five hours and my body didn’t seem to want to get out of that. Finally, I was able to stand and I slowly turned around to see what damage had been done.
It was horrific. There were limbs scattered around everywhere I looked, men with blood pouring out of their stomachs, some with holes in their heads where bullets crushed through their skulls. There was a huge mound of dirt that was kicked up from a bomb in the trenches with about seven men that were buried to death underneath it. Some people were trying to drag themselves towards help with the few useful body parts they had left. There were beautiful horses struggling with bullet wounds, broken bones, or blown out eardrums. Before I knew it, I was throwing up everything I had in me.
At our camp, we had started with 27 men, we came back with 13. No one spoke, no one laughed, and no one really felt anything. It was our first battle, and it was something we would never recover from. Weeks later, Lieutenant Andrew Thorn came into our camp with the question of, “who is willing to relocate?” He was very vague about what he wanted so no one stood up to the offer. It was clear he wasn’t going to leave until someone volunteered to do so, so I decided that I would go to spare my friends from doing whatever it was he needed. Once I had gathered everything in my possession and said goodbye to the other men, the Lieutenant ushered me into an awaiting truck and began to question me.
“What’s your name son?”
“Arthur William Ford sir.”
“What made you volunteer?”
“A chance for a new experience.”
It went on like this for a while, but Andrew finally stopped questioning and began explaining. “As you know, the battle on the Central Pacific Front cost us hundreds of men. Your group was one of the ones with the most survivors, so we chose yours to take from. The general has been in need of a man who can drive him around, as well as learn to drive a tank. About a year after you relocate and get used to driving a tank, you and the general will be flying across the ocean to Germany, where you will get further information about what is to come.”
I took in this information with unbelievable excitement. I was finally getting the chance to go to where the real battles were happening, and hopefully have a chance to fight the Nazi’s in attempts to stop concentration camps. The drive from my original camp to the Generals location was fairly short. When we got there, he (the General) was waiting on the outskirts of his camp. He was a tall man, dark hair with a muscular build and seemed extremely intimidating until you got closer. Sparkling blue eyes will deep smile lines on the creases completely made intimidations go down the drain. George Marshall turned out to be one of three five-star generals during WWII, and for good reason. He was a kind and honest man, but led with an iron grip on sternness. He always seemed to have a 6th sense about what was going to happen in the future, and had told me many times that even though Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Fumimaro Konoe had stomped all over the year 1942, once the little guy grows up (1942) he will get his revenge on the power hungry rulers. George Marshall became my role model after three and a half years of working with him. He trained me to drive a tank with extreme patience and with that help I became one of the best tank drivers in the war. I’m not sure how I got so lucky, starting as a lowly soldier and ending up working by a five-star generals side.
Though I had only been in one battle, I had still seen the devils handiwork. My time in Germany had presented me with horrific sights, men with their limbs severed and blown off, people of Jewish origins starved and slowly dying, and suffering beyond anything I could have ever imagined. Being a soldier was extremely scarring and it changed my life. I saw things that no one should ever have to see and I have yet to tell them to my wife, Will-Nell, my parents, and my children, Stewart, George, and Sarah. I have yet to walk in my hallway and not be worried that someone is hiding around the corner, and it’s been 72 years since I last touched a gun. WWII changed millions of men and women alike and it will be in our hearts forever.
I had been listening to a program on the radio at the local drugstore with some friends. The DJ was playing songs like; “I’ll never smile by Tommy Dorsey, and, you always hurt the ones you love” by the Mills Brothers. It had been the perfect day, sunny, and crisp, and I was getting to spend time with my dearest friends. I had just ordered a hot chocolate and as soon as it was set down on the counter in front of me, it was already dripping with perspiration from the heat. Out of nowhere a screeching noise broke through the music flowing from the radio and an urgent voice poured through the room. “Attention, Pearl Harbor has been bombed by the Japanese, I repeat, Pearl Harbor has been bombed!” Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and looked on in shock. It was like time had lost all significance in the world, no one moved for what seemed like ages, save for the shallow breaths barely escaping from people’s lips. Finally, a struggled cry broke the silence in the room; it was a scary thing, not because it was the sound of sorrow, but because it was the first voice of pain that would come in a never ending cycle for the next six years. Without even thinking about what I was saying, I heard myself mutter “the second world war has begun…”
The truck my group was assigned to was slowly rumbling down the uneven dirt roads that led us to the camp that would teach us how to shoot, hide, and ultimately survive. I had initially decided to join the Marines when I heard President Theodore Roosevelt in his speech directed at congress stating that he wanted to go to war with Japan. So, as soon as recruiters started showing up in the area I was living in at the time (Rome, Georgia), I raced down to the nearest recruiting station. “Name?” “Arthur William Ford.” “Age?” “20.” “Any significant ailments” “None sir”. The intimidating army scout judgingly looked me up and down multiple times, making sure I was the strong, and healthy lad I was claiming to be. After inspecting me like a butcher would inspect a pig, the scout finally glanced up to me with strict eyes and said, “Welcome to the army.” He told me when I would be leaving and everything else I needed to know, and then he moved on to the next young man behind me.
Leaving the only place I had ever known was one of the strangest things that I have ever experienced. I didn’t want to accept that I was leaving behind my family, friends, everything and everyone I knew. It was challenging trying to block out what was happening, a blur full of tears, loving words, and hugs. My parent’s heartbroken voices echoed through my mind during the whole drive away on that rickety old truck, taking close to 100 other men and I away from home. It was scary, heading towards the possibility of a death sentence, but knowing there was a chance of never seeing my family again was petrifying.
Five weeks of training was all that we got, only 5 weeks to fit in 188 hours’ worth of material. Chief among them was 96 hours of weapons training, 56 hours of drill, interior guard, and other garrison subjects, 32 hours of field training, and only four hours of physical training. The years 1941 and 1942 were probably the worst times to be a recruit, seeing as the need for men was so bad that they shortened the training time to the shortest amount possible. Following the Japanese attacks of December 1941, the Marine Corps' authorized strength increased from 75,000 to 104,000 Marines. During the last month of peace in November 1941, 1,978 men enlisted. In December, enlistments jumped to 10,224. That number was then raised even more by 22,686 enlistments in January 1942. The following month saw 12,037 men enlisting. These huge numbers put an immense strain on the recruit depots. The training schedule was immediately reduced from seven to five weeks, and Headquarters of the Marine Corps, directed maximum effort into staffing the depots. The goal was to achieve the end-strength of 104,000 by the first of March 1942.
Before joining the Marines, I had thought I was very high and mighty and knew no wrong, but being here changed my perspective on everything entirely. The commanders will brutally slap you back into place if you step a centimeter out of line. At first it is hard to handle a red faced man screaming in your face with spit flying out of his mouth, but soon it becomes expected. It’s funny… at the time I had considered that to be hell, I went into war thinking this was going to be an exciting and idealistic escapade. I can’t believe that I was so naïve. My life before the war had been very sheltered and fortunate, my father, William Stuart Ford, was a store owner, and my mother, Betsy Smith Ford, was a school teacher. We had two incomes always coming into our home which meant that my brother and I were always being surprised with treats from my parents. Coming here was an extreme culture shock, I was meeting men who came from nothing, had nothing, and this was their only escape from poverty. Hearing their stories about being so impoverished had scared me… I was scared of the slightest things before going to the front line.
Five weeks flew by and before I knew it I was on another rickety old truck with 27 other men, heading to a base camp where we would reside until needed again. The camp was nothing unique, just some old tents with a couple of bunks in each. I was assigned to room with three other men, Charlie Hall (23 years old), Patrick Knopfler (25 years old), and Joseph Brenner (29 years old). For about two and a half weeks we just lounged around, and played cards or talked, but it was nothing like what I expected.
At an ungodly hour in the morning, a corporal roared up to our base on a motorcycle. Not knowing what was going on, the other men in my tent and I jumped out of bed and raced outside trying to figure out what was going on. When we realized it was a corporal and that he had very important news, Charlie, Patrick and I started calling out to the other men, telling them to hurry up and get to the center of camp. Once everyone was gathered, the corporal, Thomas Lupen, began to speak to us, informing what was about to happen. He said a lot of things like “you brave men” but what it came down to is that we were going to be relocated to the Central Pacific Front very soon; and that we were to pack everything we would need.
Nothing really happened at the beginning, for the most part we just sat around and played cards. Sitting there was terrible, hundreds upon hundreds of filthy men sitting side by side in the blazing heat with nowhere to go and nothing to do. I had never really appreciated the homely comforts of everything, but resting on rocks and dirt was so uncomfortable that sleep turned into a rare luxury, warm food turned into a warm memory, and for a while; other men turned into the devil. I was always a very sociable person, but being so close with that many men put a strain on my sanity. We had been sitting in a field for three days with nothing to do. Everyone started to get snappy and a couple of men were on the verge of fighting. It was a tough situation to handle and it was when I first started to question my signing up for this war; not because I had seen terrible things, but because war was nothing like I had expected it to be. My questioning was soon shut down by an attack from the Japanese.
It started with a bomb; one single bomb is all it took for me to start worrying about my life. As soon as that bomb was dropped, a hailstorm of bullets erupted from nowhere. I had been wandering around just outside of the trenches when it started and in a severe panic I ran for the biggest and broadest rock I could find for shelter. All around me was pure chaos; from my vantage point I could only see dirt flying up wherever an impact would hit it, but I could hear things that haunted me for years after. I heard men screaming earth shattering cries of pain, horses whinnying in fright, and the explosions of bombs and bullets blowing up the earth around me. With my back pressed up as tightly against a rock as it could go, I muttered silent prayers for safety and luck. All of my senses disappeared, I was seeing but I was blind, I was deaf but I could still hear, I touched but couldn’t feel. Hours later, the shelling deceased and I decided it would be okay to stand up and see what damage was done. It took about 10 minutes for me to get my body working again, I had been in the fetal position for about five hours and my body didn’t seem to want to get out of that. Finally, I was able to stand and I slowly turned around to see what damage had been done.
It was horrific. There were limbs scattered around everywhere I looked, men with blood pouring out of their stomachs, some with holes in their heads where bullets crushed through their skulls. There was a huge mound of dirt that was kicked up from a bomb in the trenches with about seven men that were buried to death underneath it. Some people were trying to drag themselves towards help with the few useful body parts they had left. There were beautiful horses struggling with bullet wounds, broken bones, or blown out eardrums. Before I knew it, I was throwing up everything I had in me.
At our camp, we had started with 27 men, we came back with 13. No one spoke, no one laughed, and no one really felt anything. It was our first battle, and it was something we would never recover from. Weeks later, Lieutenant Andrew Thorn came into our camp with the question of, “who is willing to relocate?” He was very vague about what he wanted so no one stood up to the offer. It was clear he wasn’t going to leave until someone volunteered to do so, so I decided that I would go to spare my friends from doing whatever it was he needed. Once I had gathered everything in my possession and said goodbye to the other men, the Lieutenant ushered me into an awaiting truck and began to question me.
“What’s your name son?”
“Arthur William Ford sir.”
“What made you volunteer?”
“A chance for a new experience.”
It went on like this for a while, but Andrew finally stopped questioning and began explaining. “As you know, the battle on the Central Pacific Front cost us hundreds of men. Your group was one of the ones with the most survivors, so we chose yours to take from. The general has been in need of a man who can drive him around, as well as learn to drive a tank. About a year after you relocate and get used to driving a tank, you and the general will be flying across the ocean to Germany, where you will get further information about what is to come.”
I took in this information with unbelievable excitement. I was finally getting the chance to go to where the real battles were happening, and hopefully have a chance to fight the Nazi’s in attempts to stop concentration camps. The drive from my original camp to the Generals location was fairly short. When we got there, he (the General) was waiting on the outskirts of his camp. He was a tall man, dark hair with a muscular build and seemed extremely intimidating until you got closer. Sparkling blue eyes will deep smile lines on the creases completely made intimidations go down the drain. George Marshall turned out to be one of three five-star generals during WWII, and for good reason. He was a kind and honest man, but led with an iron grip on sternness. He always seemed to have a 6th sense about what was going to happen in the future, and had told me many times that even though Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Fumimaro Konoe had stomped all over the year 1942, once the little guy grows up (1942) he will get his revenge on the power hungry rulers. George Marshall became my role model after three and a half years of working with him. He trained me to drive a tank with extreme patience and with that help I became one of the best tank drivers in the war. I’m not sure how I got so lucky, starting as a lowly soldier and ending up working by a five-star generals side.
Though I had only been in one battle, I had still seen the devils handiwork. My time in Germany had presented me with horrific sights, men with their limbs severed and blown off, people of Jewish origins starved and slowly dying, and suffering beyond anything I could have ever imagined. Being a soldier was extremely scarring and it changed my life. I saw things that no one should ever have to see and I have yet to tell them to my wife, Will-Nell, my parents, and my children, Stewart, George, and Sarah. I have yet to walk in my hallway and not be worried that someone is hiding around the corner, and it’s been 72 years since I last touched a gun. WWII changed millions of men and women alike and it will be in our hearts forever.