thank you, sir hoh. as one birthed in 1941, striving to comprehend the unrelenting, unbridled savagery, covert and visibly erumpent for 8 decades by the US empire, it is beyond my ability to express how unalloyed my gratitude to you is for your humanitarian intellect and your unfailing, inexhaustible pro-activism in your honourable attempts to delegitimize the war criminal politicians who have seized control of our government, as well as the minds and hearts of our gullible electorate.
Glad to hear this, I will be watching... I reviewed this documentary last year. It's powerful and a vital glimpse into the mechanics and consequences of the American war machine.
Thank you for this book list and for putting this information out there so the public can learn those critical thinking skills that are no longer being taught in American schools (at any level). Let's keep military history from "rhyming" over and over again!
Reflection so attached to the failures of man to disseminate communicate prior to spilling so much blood of the innocent. Such a basic skill of listening is ignored when a difference of opinion from another who is 99.99 % the same DNA as yourself. We have come so far, yet in reality only baby steps.
You want books? Here is a very small selection from my library.
THE ILIAD, Homer
GOODBYE TO ALL THAT, Robert Graves (World War I)
HUMAN SMOKE - The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
A STRANGER TO MYSELF - The Inhumanity of War: Russia, 1942-1944, Willy Peter Reese (diary of a German soldier who never came back).
LIFE AND FATE, Vasily Grossman (novel by a Soviet journalist about WW II). It may remind readers of Tolstoy’s WAR AND PEACE which some individuals also might find well worth reading.
KILL EVERYTHING THAT MOVES - the real American War in Vietnam, Nick Turse.
DULCE ET DECORUM EST, poem by British WW I casualty Wilfred Owen. I always ended my lecture about WW I with this poem.
And yes, I think Life and Fate fits the comparison to war in peace. Several years ago, there was an excellent Russian television series adaption of the book. It was on Amazon here in the US but no longer.
And lest we forget Vietnam: Phillip Caputo's "A Rumor of War." I have a nephew who is now a certified, fully-trained Army Ranger killing machine, a graduate of The Citadel. His justification for enlisting was based on his #600 ranking on some multiplayer online war game ("That's 600 in the whole world, Uncle Bill!"). His reason was a bit more to the point: his mother - my sister - said, "He just wants to kill people who hate America." No one in the family saw reason to question any of this. Before he left home, I handed him a copy of "A Rumor of War" as a going away present. He looked at it, then unceremoniously dropped it into the kitchen trash compactor. I've little doubt any of the titles you listed would have received any better treatment. Ah, well.
As a writer, I'm a great believer that there are books that need to be written, whether there is an audience for them or not. As someone who has often been accused of being "too bloody cosmic for (my) own good," those thoughts need to be put out there, all the same.
Best wishes from an expatriate in windswept Holland.
thank you, sir hoh. as one birthed in 1941, striving to comprehend the unrelenting, unbridled savagery, covert and visibly erumpent for 8 decades by the US empire, it is beyond my ability to express how unalloyed my gratitude to you is for your humanitarian intellect and your unfailing, inexhaustible pro-activism in your honourable attempts to delegitimize the war criminal politicians who have seized control of our government, as well as the minds and hearts of our gullible electorate.
Thank you Jeanie.
Glad to hear this, I will be watching... I reviewed this documentary last year. It's powerful and a vital glimpse into the mechanics and consequences of the American war machine.
https://issuechronicle.substack.com/p/what-americas-veterans-want-you-to
Thanks Lenny! For some reason I was no longer following your substack.
welcome back lol
Thank you for this book list and for putting this information out there so the public can learn those critical thinking skills that are no longer being taught in American schools (at any level). Let's keep military history from "rhyming" over and over again!
Reflection so attached to the failures of man to disseminate communicate prior to spilling so much blood of the innocent. Such a basic skill of listening is ignored when a difference of opinion from another who is 99.99 % the same DNA as yourself. We have come so far, yet in reality only baby steps.
I would add anything by the late, great Robert Fisk.
Thank you, as always, for your commentary, Matt. You are good man.
That is a good suggestion :)
You want books? Here is a very small selection from my library.
THE ILIAD, Homer
GOODBYE TO ALL THAT, Robert Graves (World War I)
HUMAN SMOKE - The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
A STRANGER TO MYSELF - The Inhumanity of War: Russia, 1942-1944, Willy Peter Reese (diary of a German soldier who never came back).
LIFE AND FATE, Vasily Grossman (novel by a Soviet journalist about WW II). It may remind readers of Tolstoy’s WAR AND PEACE which some individuals also might find well worth reading.
KILL EVERYTHING THAT MOVES - the real American War in Vietnam, Nick Turse.
DULCE ET DECORUM EST, poem by British WW I casualty Wilfred Owen. I always ended my lecture about WW I with this poem.
Thank you Karl! I have not read Reese’s diary.
And yes, I think Life and Fate fits the comparison to war in peace. Several years ago, there was an excellent Russian television series adaption of the book. It was on Amazon here in the US but no longer.
Amazon Prime has War and Peace. I think it is the Russian version with English subtitles.
Thanks. I've chosen two books for later this year.
At a tangent, but these documentaries game me an appreciation' for the reality of war, from the citizen perspective:
Donbass (Ukraine_Dir Anne-Laure Bonnet 2016) !
A House Made of Splinters (Ukraine 2022)
Sabaya (Iraq and Syria 2021)
Deminer a.k.a. Hurt Locker Hero (Iraq 2017)
5 Broken Cameras (Palestine 2012)
Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone (2025)
The Look of Silence (Indonesia 2014)
And lest we forget Vietnam: Phillip Caputo's "A Rumor of War." I have a nephew who is now a certified, fully-trained Army Ranger killing machine, a graduate of The Citadel. His justification for enlisting was based on his #600 ranking on some multiplayer online war game ("That's 600 in the whole world, Uncle Bill!"). His reason was a bit more to the point: his mother - my sister - said, "He just wants to kill people who hate America." No one in the family saw reason to question any of this. Before he left home, I handed him a copy of "A Rumor of War" as a going away present. He looked at it, then unceremoniously dropped it into the kitchen trash compactor. I've little doubt any of the titles you listed would have received any better treatment. Ah, well.
As a writer, I'm a great believer that there are books that need to be written, whether there is an audience for them or not. As someone who has often been accused of being "too bloody cosmic for (my) own good," those thoughts need to be put out there, all the same.
Best wishes from an expatriate in windswept Holland.