Your Favorite Wars

vietnam war and the war of the ring

  On 8/17/2009 at 3:07 PM, idrn said:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

 

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! -- An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under I green sea, I saw him drowning.

 

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

 

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

ahhh Tennyson. What a great poem, and how important it was in shaping those times. I almost imagine him to be like a 19th century British Bob Dylan.

  On 8/17/2009 at 8:37 AM, Godwin Austen said:

  On 8/17/2009 at 6:53 AM, Overand said:

So I was thinking lately about how every now and then mankind sees fit to line up and kill each other in big gory hordes. Sometimes these excursions tend to be more interesting than others. What are your favorite wars and why?

 

WWII, this is like the Schindler's List of wars, everyone loves it. I do too.

 

Cold War - most IDM war

 

Napoleonic wars. Dude knew how to fuck shit up. Also the closest anyone has come to conquering the world in the last couple centuries.

 

The Mongol Conquests. Another case of one dude trying to rule the world.

 

The current Iraq War is pretty good, I'd say. if only because it'll end up being the most thoroughly recorded war in history. Until the next one of course.

 

What are your favorite bloody batches from the history books?

can please anyone explain me, how the hell can you prefer one war over the other? have you been there to compare them first hand? did you have fun fighting? or it is just so much fun to read about plots and spies and technology from safe and warm sofa?

 

war in iraq is 'good'?! how 'good' can a war be? are you some kind of neo-nazi pro-war patriot? are you fucking retarded?

I can prefer one war over the other for various reasons; depth of history, amount of technological innovation involved, whether or not I agree with any of the sides involved. The Iraq war is like the troubled antihero of wars. It was started by rallying people's best intentions through lies and exploitation of a national tragedy. Then they deposed one of the 20th centuries greater assholes and somehow managed to make the country worse off because of it. It's rich history, dude.

  On 8/17/2009 at 9:50 AM, Obel said:

 

 

 

My favourite war is WW1, pure underdog. Trench warfare was so morbid and futile - A totally unappreciated war. More people died from sickness and infection in the trench than actual combat, which is awesome.

 

 

WWI is pretty badass, anything that gives rise to German expressionism is cool in my books. I don't think any war story better illustrates the stupidity/complexity of war/humanity than that of the Christmas truce between those fighting in the trenches. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce

  On 8/17/2009 at 4:58 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  On 8/17/2009 at 3:07 PM, idrn said:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

 

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! -- An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under I green sea, I saw him drowning.

 

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

 

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

 

 

ahhh Tennyson. What a great poem, and how important it was in shaping those times. I almost imagine him to be like a 19th century British Bob Dylan.

I think you've got your wires crossed mate

  On 8/17/2009 at 1:42 PM, Squee said:

Second Persian invasion of Greece, World War II

That. Plus the battles during Augustus' reign. Agrippa was awesome.

  On 8/17/2009 at 1:55 PM, Babar said:

The Sengoku era is a pretty wicked era in Japan History. It starts with the Onin wars : warlords were fighting for Shogun Ashikaga succession. This later was writing ppetry while Kyoto was burning around him. Sengoku era roughly ends with the sekigahara battle which involved around 200 000 men (biggest medieval war ever -swords guys swords !-, as a point of comparison, the biggest medieval european battle only involved 60000).

For anyone interested in european medieval history, i highly suggest to have a look at medieval japan history, quite the same very entertaining stuff actually.

 

 

+Joan Of Arc rules.

I don't know much about Japanese history, but it's always interested me. I might look into this. Do you know of any good documentaries of Japanese wars?

Russian winter fight (wwII)

...and whole eastern front as it was happening righ fucking here as well...

my favorite is the war in Kosovo because it exposes all the democrats for the war mongering douches they really are.

all wars are sad poisonous beasts

most fascinating is the war on drugs

i didn't realize we could talk about war on concepts, if that's the case obviously my favorite is the war on terror. the most preposterous phrase of modern times (maybe besides 'enhanced interrogation techniques' or 'weapons of mass destruction', two newspeak phrases) that somehow has become an acceptable paradigm among a the majority of Americans.

wilfred owen is my fav war poet, props idrn

  On 8/17/2009 at 9:22 PM, Awepittance said:

i didn't realize we could talk about war on concepts,

watmm has taught me to think outside the OP

have you guys ever seen the movie mongol? you cant watch that and then tell me its not your favorite war

revolutionary war!

Edwin Starr.

  On 8/17/2009 at 10:40 PM, OneToThirtySix said:

Edwin Starr.

The Tempatations.

Civil War. Bro against bro.

christmas truce is awesome

ww1 is fascinating to me, mostly because it was utterly useless. this can be seen by acts such as the christmas truce.

fucking war.

guys what about GWAR? they're basically war with a G on the front.

shit youre right, Tennyson did Charge of the Light Brigade...ok, yeah i was mixed up there

Dulce is a great poem nonetheless.

  On 8/17/2009 at 11:07 PM, sneaksta303 said:

Civil War. Bro against bro.

lol

Vietnam. The jungle, man, the jungle.

Also, anyone who cannot see the dark and terrible beauty in war, I do not trust.

Dark and terrible beauty in war lol what a load of shit.

War is brutal, there is nothing beautiful about it.

The one that interests me the most is the Korean War, because it was started 50 years before it actually started (thanks to the US assuring Korea of it's status as independant and then turning around and saying to Japan that they could take Korea no problem), it involved some of the most brutal fighting ever, and the two nations are technically still at war.

Also Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea (1592-1598) were amazing, due to the rise of the Korean Admiral Yi Sun-Shin and his amazing naval victories over the Japanese. He whipped their ass all over the place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseon_naval_campaigns_of_1592

I don't like war or violence at all and i do not agree one bit that "violence is human nature".

On a side note, i always thought that the term "The Fighting Quakers" was very funny and silly*. It is a term used in some Quaker history, and there is a friends school who's athletics mascot is called the "fighting quaker".

*