Do you think we are "glorifing" war?

QUOTE: Band of brothers is just a BS movie series. It is so far off, that I couldnt even watch it. The scene where they are near the swiss alps in rommel's I believe it was, house, and there was all of that wine, well, to bad that is restored. That place was blown up practically at the time of the war. My Grandfather was there, and the place was in shambles.

WWIISolider,

Memebers of my family have fought in each and every war this country has had since the time of the Revolution... We haven't always been good at it but we have always been there... As for the 101st in General and the 1/506th PIR in particular the Band of Brothers did a great job of telling their story. Like you I had family members that were there... My father landed on D+1(with the 106th Inf... I think) and fought until Feb 1945 when a German mortor rounded exploded and blew out a rather large chunck of his left hip and kidney... His Brother was driving the landing craft that put him on the beach... Another uncle is portrayed in the Band of Brothers and he Jumped into Normandy on D-Day and faught with the 506th PIR until the end of the war... While I am sure that your Grandfather "was there" I am just as sure that he wasn't "there" with the 506th when they fought in the Ardenes, jumped during Market Garden, or when Georings house was taken... My uncle was... And in his words, "There was one he11 of a party that day." While he doesn't talk of it often he does talk about what happened and when he does it is in the generaly vauge terms that I have found 99% of those who have been up close and personal with the beast use... When he was contacted to be a part of Band of Brothers he jumped at the chance, and as far as his concerned they did him and everyone else prtrayed in the movie justice.

Now back to the original topic of this post
I saw a couple of shooting wars in my 22 years in the Army and through it all I have modeled. I do not think that it glorifies war in anyway... It tells a story about the men and machines that have shaped the world we live in far more then any politician ever can or will.

Tom

When I build a model, I think of it as a 3D photograph. Another way to put it, this may be kinda off, was in a book I read. In Shep Paine's "How to Build Dioramas", he says, "when you make a diorama, you have to see yourself as a director directing a single stationary scene in a movie". I do not think that I am glorifying war when I build a model, but more remembering those that served.

I build models to better undersand military history, and as a form of remembrance of the men who fought in those wars but nost as to glorify it.

I just hope that a couple generations later people will still remember WW 2 up till now and not just think that its just some stupid crap you have to learn in history, I had Ancient History this year and some of my class mates thought this. I sure hope they dont think this way about Previous wars like WW II or Vietnam.

I've often thought about this topic and wondered should I be building models of killing machines. As someone said a lot of men are just "into" machines and military stuff has a special attraction, don't know why. The Nazis certainly glorified war and everybody in the world seem to have heard of Panzer, Tiger, Stuka etc. Just a thought, is the German propaganda from 60/70 years ago still working, even in a subtle way? Everybody into armour seems to love the German stuff, look at all the sites about Tigers alone. My grand-uncle survived WW1 and only once talked about the war, he mentioned his foot going through something and it was a rotting corpse. Any glory in that?
Picking up my first Tiger next week! Regards John.

I had the same question a few weeks back (I started the topic).

You can read it here, if you'd like additional perspectives.

http://www.finescale.com/fsm/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=20899

I personally don't feel like I'm glorifying war. I'm simply fascinated by the equipment and technology behind it, sort of like how kids are fascinated by construction equipment.

I'm also in awe of the sacrifice soldiers make in the name of their country and for their brothers in arms. We should all learn to be so giving.

Off topic: WWII Soldier - I have the Band of Brothers book, and the pictures of Major Winters and Captain Nixon without helmets show haircuts that are awfully similar to what's shown in the movie. Also, how are you able to tell that the jeeps were riding past 35mph?

Sorry for the hijack, couldn't help myself.

Nat

I was mainly refering to the series M.A.S.H. when I said that.

I feel that we glorify in some ways what the soldiers did for us. It is a different type of recognition than doing it because we think that shooting people up is cool...