You Never Know Who’ll Get one

 

“They made war look stylish and reasonable, and fun”, which means that war is none of those things.

“Goodness me, the clock has struck-

Alackday, and fuck my luck.”

These two quotes really got me thinking.

Kurt Vonnegut served and saw misery, which is described in any war story all the way back to the description of Camilla’s axe spilling warm brains all over a soldier’s dying face in the Aeneid. So why does he have such an insistent and mad sense of humor? Is it a particular quirk of Vonnegut’s?

I searched around for examples of “strange military news” and found some interesting things.

                BAHRAIN
(March 21, 2009) The Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Hartford (SSN 768)
pulls into Mina Salman pier in Bahrain where U.S. Navy engineers and inspection
teams will assess and evaluate damage that resulted from a collision with the
amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans (LPD 18) in the Strait of Hormuz
March 20. Overall damage to both ships is being evaluated. The incident remains
under investigation. Hartford is deployed to the U.S. 5th fleet area of
responsibility to support maritime security operations. (U.S. Navy photo by
Cmdr. Jane Campbell/Released)

This incident, involving a couple of multi-million dollar submersibles crashing into each other, would be right at home in Slaughterhouse-Five. Let’s continue down the rabbit hole:

            Currently, the lightest
load carried, the "fighting load" for situations where the troops
were sneaking up on the enemy and might be involved in hand-to-hand combat, is
63 pounds. The "approach march load," for when infantry were moving
up to a position where they would shed some weight to achieve their
"fighting load", is 101 pounds. The heaviest load, 132 pounds, was
the emergency approach march load, where troops had to move through terrain too
difficult for vehicles. As in the past, the troops often ignored the rules and
regulations and dumped gear so they could move, or keep moving.

In Afghanistan, the problem is made worse by the high altitudes (up to 5,000 meters) the troops often operate at. The researchers found that in Afghanistan, even though the infantry were in excellent physical shape, troops would sweat nearly 20 ounces of fluid an hour while marching at high altitude in bright sunlight in moderate temperatures. That meant more weight, in water, had to be carried to keep these guys going.

That was from an article titled “Lose weight or Die”. It seems our soldiers are running around a bit like Roland Weary. Also, they’re often not too happy about it. Many soldiers dump gear for extra maneuverability, and cite injuries that could have been avoided if they were more agile and less weighed down. Continuing to my personal favorite:

 

In Window: "Suicidal Teens Welcome"

I cannot confirm whether this picture is real or not, but its creation is still somewhat shocking. Lastly:

"Female Airman Punished for Threesome
Stars and Stripes | Scott Schonauer | May 24, 2007
SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, Germany - A Spangdahlem-based airman was sentenced Monday to four months confinement for her part in a sexual act with two other airmen.

 

 

 

Airman 1st Class Ashley N. Rains pleaded guilty at a court-martial to two indecent acts charges.
She had faced rape and sodomy charges but admitted to the lesser charges as part of a plea deal."

Yup. You read that right.

Each of these bizarre fragments is in some way paralleled in Vonnegut’s novel. The random military collision costing millions is similar to Edgar derby’s shooting: it is unnecessary and meaningless, however costly in the extreme. The troops’ strange raiment is reminiscent of both Roland Weary’s too well equipped marching kit and of the comical getup Billy Pilgrim wears around the internment camps. Also, the notion of troops being in more danger because of their overloaded body armor and equipment is a very Vonnegut irony.  Finally, the story of the airmen and their illicit (and possibly criminal) threesome chalks right up next to “He had a tremendous wang, incidentally. You never know who’ll get one.”

Perhaps the madness of war is much more general than suggested in the more narrowed focus of WWI poets, who only describe one thing at a time, and almost always try and impart a sense of horror. Vonnegut and these stories are as ridiculous as another veteran’s Tom Bombadil and his yellow boots. War isn’t just a mad rush of death, it is mad in all its manifestations. Randomness, subjectivity, loss, and black humor are linked and rotating in a centrifuge. Billy Pilgrim can be “unstuck in time” because one doesn’t need chronology to get the feel of Vonnegut’s portrayal of war as a zeitgeist of the bizarre, violent, sexual, and unnecessary. The strange and outlandish tales Vonnegut inserts into Slaughterhouse-Five are right at home on the battlefield, and indeed that is certainly where Vonnegut draws his inspiration.

 

Sources:

“Lose Weight or Die”

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htinf/articles/20090324.aspx

 

“The Tension”

http://thetension.blogspot.com/2009/03/photo-essay-uss-hartford-and-uss-new.html

 

“Female Airman Punished for Threesome”

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,136750,00.html

 

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~ by mercut1o on April 2, 2009.