CHRIS HEDGES: 'What Every Person Should Know About War'
If you know of a young person considering a career in the military buy this book for them before they sign any paperwork.
If you want to be 100% safe during war, become a member of Congress and just vote to send other peoples’ kids off to be traumatized, mutilated and die.
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (2/26/25)
One of my earliest childhood memories is of a US Marine combat veteran. A man who had fought in several major Pacific battles. His son was an elementary school buddy of mine and had showed me his father’s battered and stained — securely locked — Marine footlocker in a corner of the basement.
“My Dad said they cut off the ears of J*ps and wore them like necklaces,” my friend said.
We were both intrigued to know what was in that old footlocker. Could there be a necklace of ears?
I was morbidly intrigued. A day or so later his father was sitting silently on the back patio after work, as he usually did, with a rather vacant look in his eyes. His hair was still cut Marine Corp short. His beefy right hand was wrapped around a full monogrammed whiskey glass. My curiosity overcame my hesitancy and any sense of manners.
In a quick burst I asked, “Did you guys really cut the ears off J*ps, when you were in the war?”
He looked like he was hit on the back with a board. His eyes locked onto mine and I was frozen. Then, it was clear he made a decision. For what reason I’m not sure. Maybe to warn some future draftee? He began speaking slowly — deliberately. Clearly enunciating every word to let them sink into my puddin’ head.
“Yeah, we did. We used our bayonets to cut them off. We’d soak them in helmets filled with salt water for a day so they wouldn’t rot,” he noted, adding with hand motions. “We’d use the sharp point of the bayonet to poke a hole through for the string to make the necklace. We did it after every battle.”
He fell silent. He raised his eyes from me and gazed off into the distance. Maybe there were tears? I couldn’t tell, but it felt like maybe.
I nervously swallowed, “Uh, okay.” And we scuttled away from the patio.
A year or so later we moved across town and I never saw the family again, but there were similar things seen and heard from the fathers of my boomer friends.
Decades later in my work as a psychotherapist, I understood that what I had witnessed on that long ago summer day was Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). And the same thing happened in counseling sessions with several veterans I counseled from the Iraq and Afghan wars.
One vet mentioned in a flat monotone how on foot patrol in a deserted Iraqi village that had been bombed and burned by American jets, he was nervously scanning the buildings and rooftops for possible snipers. As he cautiously stepped forward he heard and felt a crunching beneath one of his boots.
“I felt it reverberate right up my leg,” he recalled.
He looked down and saw he had stepped on the charred rib cage of a small child half covered in the mud.
He had that same long ago gaze of my friend’s father.
For many combat veterans, the wars never really end. The patrols and bombings, sniper fire, rape and gore, crimes and inhumanity are ongoing to varying degrees and effect.
What every person should know
I recently read Chris Hedges’ book, What Every Person Should Know About War. Having covered wars for twenty years and even being held captive, Hedges has experienced the reality of war up close and personal. He saw colleagues killed and lived under daily bombardment. In collaboration with several other writers and veterans, What Every Person Should Know About War is a concise, matter-of-fact, question/answer introduction to the brutal reality of war.
A timely read as we head off to yet another doomed, criminal Middle East war in Iran, and possible civil war at home.
How long will the war affect me?
Maybe your whole life. In a 2001 survey of World War II and Korean War veterans aged 59 to 89, 19 percent showed significant psychological distress in relation to their war experiences. Many still had trouble discussing their experiences. Other studies have shown lingering effects of trauma in World War II veterans 50 years after the war, and one revealed effects persisting 75 years after World War I.
(pp. 113-114)
The reality of death and wounding on the battlefield is far different from the delusional John Wayne Hollywood and video game war porn we have been marinated in since childhood.
Is blood loss the only way I can die during war?
No, just the most common. Even if you have enough blood, you may not be able to get enough oxygen into it if your throat is crushed, or your lung is punctured. Additionally, your brain can stop functioning if you are struck or shot in the head. Or you could die slowly of an infected wound.” (p. 96)
After you are killed on the battlefield in any one of the obscene and degrading ways humankind and the cleverly evil corporate Military Industrial Complex (MIC) has concocted, then what happens?
What will my body look like after I die?
Your face will lose its color a minute after your heartbeat stops. Your eyes will lose their shine after about five minutes. They will look as if they have a gray film over them. Your eyeballs will flatten slightly. Your body will have the flaccid feel of a slab of meat. (p.102)
Sometimes the greatest threat in battle is not from the other side.
Where am I most vulnerable to friendly fire?
Most friendly fire injuries in recent wars have occurred because tanks and vehicles were improperly targeted. Seventy-seven percent of all combat vehicles lost in the Gulf War were destroyed by friendly fire. (p.86)
Beyond wounding and death on the battlefield there are other realities that all militaries — yes, including the US — relish.
What are some of the common forms of physical torture?
Some of the most common include use of electric shocks, long beatings (especially or the genitals and soles of the feet), violent sexual assault and rape, burning, choking and immersion in excrement. (p. 94)
Now there is one way to greatly reduce the risk of death or injury in war.
If I am a high-ranking officer will I be more likely to survive?
Maybe. During 10 years of war in Vietnam, one general and eight full colonels died in combat. As one study commissioned by the military concluded, “In Vietnam … the officer corps simply did not die in sufficient numbers or in the presence of their men often enough.” (p. 85)
If you want to be 100% safe during war, become a member of Congress and just vote to send other peoples’ kids off to be traumatized, mutilated and die.
How it all gets worse
As horrible as the effects of the war are on the bodies, minds and souls of adult soldiers, as I read the book my thoughts kept going to the infants, toddlers and children of Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria, where the US and Israel wage their brutal, obscene genocides. Completely defenseless, these children are living daily what breaks and kills trained adult soldiers equipped with weapons and protective gear.
How dangerous is war for civilians?
Very dangerous. Between 1900 and 1990, 43 million soldiers died in wars. During the same period 62 million civilians were killed. More than 34 million civilians died in World War II. One million died in North Korea. Hundreds of thousands were killed in South Korea, and 200,000 to 400,000 in Vietnam. In the wars of the 1990s, civilian deaths constituted between 75 and 90 percent of war deaths. (p. 7)
As recently noted by a UN official, “Gaza is home to the largest number of amputee children in modern history.”
We have done that.
We are doing that now.
We and Israel.
We are so obscene.
If I meet a young person thinking of going into the military I will buy this book for them and, if they are open to it, will share what I have heard and learned from veterans.
Finally, I just want to note that all answers in What Every Person Should Know About War are full footnoted.
TARGETED: Ukraine Drone Hunts & Almost Kills Me
Patrick Lancaster (3/24/25)
In my latest video report, I bring you straight to the frontlines of the Russia-Ukraine war, where a Ukrainian kamikaze drone nearly took my life during a combat operation in Russia’s Kursk region. This was one of the closest calls I’ve had while reporting from the battlefield—and that’s saying something after years of covering warzones.
The footage captures the heart-pounding moment a Ukrainian FPV (First-Person View) drone locked onto our position as I rode alongside Russian Akhmat special forces during a civilian evacuation mission (With 5 elderly civilians inside the truck).
As soon as we spotted the drone overhead, chaos erupted—shouts, profesional military actions and the undeniable sound of death stalking from above. But in the end we were saved by the actions of the Russian soldiers from "Akhmat" Special Forces. Russian military has a saying that when you survive a near death experience that is your second birthday.
17-minute video
Check Out Patrick Lancaster’s Substack from the front line of Ukraine here.
A Message & Warning To Genocide-Complicit Western Corporate Media
1-minute video
When MAGA Finally Sees Through Trump’s BS! Watch Till End
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (3/26/25)
Too many snobbish liberals and leftys will wrinkle up their smug noses and mock this disillusioned Trump voter: “Cry me a river, you voted for the guy.”
But listen to him carefully and empathize in how he was betrayed as much as the progressive left has been by warmongering corporate tools like Obama/Biden.
The issue is not about Democrat vs Republican or Left vs Right. It is about — and only ever about — TOP vs BOTTOM, and if we hope to survive the fascist putsch raping our nation, people need to unite and fight not for the right or left, but for the common good. The people are not served and protected by funneling more money to the billionaires nor by imposing woke culture police and language censorship on everyone.
If we hope to survive the fascist regime it will only be by rejecting the politics of manipulated distraction and come together on class politics. The rich want to own and destroy us and we are the only ones who can save us..
We have all been betrayed by both political parties and the professional political class and the last thing they want to see is people coming together for the common good. That is what most terrifies the greedy bastards.
Resist
Persist
Don’t be complicit
4-minute video
BOMBSHELL: Luigi Mangione Prosecutor Has "Deliberately" Withheld Critical Evidence FOR MONTHS, Lawyer Alleges
Status Coup (3/25/25)
Jordan Chariton reports on a major new court filing from defense attorneys in the state of New York for Luigi Mangione, the alleged shooter of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. In the 12-page filing, Mangione's attorneys allege NY District Attorney Alvin Bragg and state prosecutors have been deliberately withholding evidence—for months—that they are legally obligated to provide to the defense.
Status Coup has LED THE WAY covering this critically important story. We are looking to EXPAND. Support us for as low as $5 bucks a month: https://statuscoup.com/join/
23-minute video
OOPS! Cops May Have Screwed The Pooch For Luigi Prosecutors — Justice in America is better spelled as “Just-US”, beginning from the street and going right up through the corrupt, cancerous bowels of Congress and the moral desert of Wall Street and coming home to burp up at the bought-n-paid-for Supreme Court. The trial of alleged United Healthcare executive Brian Thompson shooter Luiggi Mangione was destined to be dramatic, but now with the defense counsel’s revelation of alleged unconstitutional behavior by arresting police, things are going to be even more interesting. … Link to story
LOTS OF PEOPLE WANT THIS! Greenlander’s Hilarious Anti-MAGA Hat Goes Viral…
A hat for the entire world, beginning with the Middle East.
Chris Hedges has given so much to the world. He tells it like it is, from experience.
I often wonder what my father was like before he went to War. 2WW
Not a particularly kind man and he would never talk about his experience. We all do need to understand that there is NO 'up-side' to war. IF you go to war you are not being brave just stupid.