Not so much 'Saving Private Ryan' as saving Private
Ryan's skin. Whilst many Americans fought bravely any account of the
Ardennes debacle when the German Army counter-attacked would be incomplete
without telling of the blind panic, confusion and cowardice the German
counter attack produced.
One American major general who had so far never seen action had his division
taken away from him. He died soon afterwards of heart failure. Whether it
was induced or not we may never know.
On another occasion a colonel had handed his armoured unit's command to
another as soon as the attack began. He was last seen in a highly nervous
state hurrying to the rear 'for ammunition'.
All moves to lift morale were handicapped by the knowledge that whilst some
American soldiers were fighting for their lives another 20,000 or so were
absent without leave. These footloose brigands wandered about in gangs
stealing petrol, hijacking food trucks and trains on the way to the front,
and making fortunes on the black market. (Observer Magazine, December 21
1969).
A provost marshal in the Seine base area arrested one U.S. major. Before
being caught he had sent home $36,000 that he had made from black market
deals. The provost marshal said. "It's just like Chicago in the Al Capone
days!"
War Correspondents wrote nothing about such matters. Had they attempted to
the censor would have undoubtedly killed it. The war correspondents
themselves were equally footloose and at the fighting front notable by their
absence. Most were bunkered down in Brussels and according to one candid PR
officer correspondents they were known to take dinner in one of the
capital's better restaurants, stroll around the town, return to the
luxurious Canterbury Hotel, and there begin the stories for the folk back
home: "On the Western Front . . . . . "
OLD SOLDIERS' YARNS
Most World War 11 veterans, if they do brag of the part they played during
the war, never mention that they were drafted and were hardly volunteers.
They were in the armed forces for one reason alone: not to defeat Hitler or
for patriotic reasons but because they were press ganged into the armed
forces against their will.
There is no choice in war. Everyone goes into uniformed slavery to 'fight
for freedom.' Of the 16 million American servicemen who went into military
service during World War Two, less than 1/30 (600,000) actually volunteered.
And the majority of these did so only because they knew they would be
drafted shortly anyway and volunteered either for appearance's sake or to
get into some more desirable branch of the services."
THOROUGHLY PISSED OFF BY WAR
U.S. Servicemen soon discovered that bed-wetting earned an honorable
discharge; an unfortunate choice of words but there you go. In one Texas
training camp alone, after this ruse was discovered, the incidence of
bed-wetting shot up by 1200 percent. It was only stopped when the War
Department issued a circular removing it as a 'psychoneurotic discharge.'