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WHY ALL THE GORE TODAY?

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Contributed by: Dave Hughes on 9/29/2007

WHY ALL THE GORE?

My wife wanted to listen to the long new PBS series 'War' which is just starting. It has already laid out in detail, an endless series of battles with series of close ups of dead Americans on Omaha Beach, on Saipan, at Anzio, and a long string of other engagements. With all the actual gore of WWII. It seems to want to go out of its way to show the death and destruction.

Then I caught, early this Saturday morning, on what BBC public radio calls 'The Interview' - 30 minute interviews on Saturday mornings with noted people.
This morning's interview was of an American Army Sergeant David Bellavia who published a book "House to House" who fought with the 1st Division in the big battle of Fallujah in 2004.

Bellavia became noted because he managed to kill in hand to hand combat several insurgents in the house after 6 of them wounded others in his squad. And received a Silver Star for his deeds. The book is absolutely full of ultra graphic detail of the ultimate goriness of the fighting, from the feeling of gouging out an eye of his opponent with his finger, to finally cutting his throat with his knife to kill him, getting blood all over himself.

Now these are just two examples of what is now on television, over the Internet and radio, and fictionalized, in movies lately.

But why the gore? Why do women and children have to be subjected, when they ask about war today, or 'what did you do in war, daddy?' to the ugliest reality of combat? It is the Islamic insurgents who want you to see what a beheading looks like, what maimed American bodies look like after an IED goes off under a Bradley. Why do we insist on showing the same?

I was in as much up close and personal combat in the Korean War as anyone. (In 15 days I lost all six of my officers and 169 of my enlisted men killed or wounded in October of 1951, and had to personally kill an enemy soldier who jumped into my foxhole with me at night) while we were succeeding in defending a hill and seizing another from 1,200 Chinese soldiers in two back to back operations. I killed and saw killed scores of enemy and Americans in Vietnam.

But I did NOT share the grisly scenes that was accompanied by those times with my wife over the last 54 years we have been married, or with our children while they were growing up.

So what does this modern penchant for showing war's gore on the battlefield in your face (as distinct from afterwards when our men are being cared for) do for anyone? To show war for what it is? Is that all there is to war? If so, we have lost the sight of the forest for the trees. The means instead of the ends.

The US lost 400,000 men in World War II. But 8,000,000 others in uniform did NOT die, and in the end they prevailed to make the enemy states - Germany, Italy, and Japan - peaceful again. While I was too young for WWII, I saw many newsreels in our movie theater and newspaper pictures. But I do not remember ever seeing a single photograph or newsreel clip that showed dead American soldiers. Which would have frightened my mother out of her wits.

Is there some wan hope, that by showing the ugly side of war, everyone will just stop fighting?

Maybe you can tell me.

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Submitted By: Dave Hughes

posted on 9/29/2007 @ 5:41:34 PM

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If you have Multimedia or Quicktime you can listen to the BBC Interview yourself and decide whether you can stomach the gore http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/worldservice/meta/tx/interview?nbram=1&nbwm=1&size=au&lang=en-ws&bgc=003399

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