09-30-2007, 08:23 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-30-2007, 08:28 AM by jefflgarrison.)
If you want to take it one step further, what about awards to officers during the war? They were under strict order to achieve their objectives no matter the cost or they would be relieved of command and face the SMERSH interrogation.
The men they commanded paid for the awards to their commanders, if the goal was achieved, with their lives and blood, many times needlessly.
What was Zhukov's comment to Eisnehower? When we come to a minefield, we attack as if there was no minefield. Heck, I don't consider myself a coward but I wouldn't want to have to make the choice between being shot for being a coward or being blown apart and being a hero.
Having recently finished "Stalingrad" (Bevor), "Fall of Berlin 1945" (Bevor) and currently halfway through "Gulag" (Applebaum) I realize that not only war is Hell! Living in Russia during communism was a close as we can come to it on earth.
The men they commanded paid for the awards to their commanders, if the goal was achieved, with their lives and blood, many times needlessly.
What was Zhukov's comment to Eisnehower? When we come to a minefield, we attack as if there was no minefield. Heck, I don't consider myself a coward but I wouldn't want to have to make the choice between being shot for being a coward or being blown apart and being a hero.
Having recently finished "Stalingrad" (Bevor), "Fall of Berlin 1945" (Bevor) and currently halfway through "Gulag" (Applebaum) I realize that not only war is Hell! Living in Russia during communism was a close as we can come to it on earth.
