They Will Rise Again From the Tundra

From the top of the Red Cross Hospital in Hiroshima looking northwest. Frame buildings recently erected. 1945*

I’m taking a class on New Journalism, and our reading assignment this week was John Hersey’s famous article, published in The New Yorker on August 31, 1946, simply titled “Hiroshima”.  (You can access the article here, but it’s behind a paywall.)  Hersey’s piece  is a truly harrowing tale told from the perspective of a handful of citizens who lived through the bombing—their actions in the direct aftermath, and their struggles a year after.  Hersey’s prose is matter-of-fact:  he does not proselytize; he does not interpret; he simply tells the story and stays out of the way.

One passage in particular struck me:  Mr. Tanimoto, a Methodist pastor who has been ferrying the wounded and dying across a river for hours in a small punt, using a bamboo pole in place of an oar, … Read more

“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.” Gen. George S. Patton

I was stumbling around the internet when I happened across the full text of Gen. George Patton’s famous speech to the Third Army.  My memory is a bit fuzzy, but up until about fifteen minutes ago, my only knowledge of this oratory marvel came from anecdotes and the film Patton starring George C. Scott.

In truth, it was nothing I didn’t expect.  Patton crammed enough violent imagery and profanity into that address as humanly possible and spoke with the hyperbolic sense of patriotism one expects from a general in the United States Army.  Don’t misconstrue my words, please.  There isn’t anything wrong with patriotism, and indeed, it is to be commended when applied rationally, but patriotic sentiment was monopolized long ago by a contingent of … Read more