Veterans: The French in Algeria

An interesting historical documentary by Al-Jazeera on their war in Algeria. It is sobering to hear of French military conscripts who were sent to fight in Algeria to preserve French rule in the former colony similar to US conscripts sent to fight in the Vietnam war. Also, the atrocities committed by both sides of the conflict reminds us of the brutality that war brings out amongst the combatants and the suffering. Imagine 1 million Algerians are thought to have perished in the 8 year war.

HBO Mini-series: The Pacific

You can tell by now my interest in war-theme films and I recently caught the excellent HBO series, "The Pacific" which tells the stories of three marines who fought in the various campaigns during World War II with the United States Marine Corps.

Youtube has quite a few of the battles scenes uploaded as well as the official (and unofficial content).



Having served in the Singapore Armed Forces for 2.5 years in an operational unit as well as completing my 10 years reservist cycle of annual in-camp training (and two tours of operational duties), I can relate to what the marines went through in the Pacific theatre of operations. They talked a lot about being wet and it is really one of the worst things that you can experience as a soldier. To have your clothes and especially your socks and boots soaked in water and to have your skin wrinkle like a prune and become sensitive and painful is something I went through during field exercises lasting 2-3 days.

I cannot imagine how I could survive to be in wet clothes and feet for 30 days or even 60 days at a stretch! Would probably suffer foot rot which was common for soldiers who fought in South-East Asia and in the Pacific where torrential rains were common.

With rain comes mud and my previous experiences in Area D with an armour unit as well as digging foxholes and trenches in the infantry also exposed me to the dirt, wetness and generally miserable conditions of trying to carry out operations in such conditions.

Even my generation would find it challenging to survive the conditions the marines went through as depicted in the film, I wonder how our current generation would handle it?

Hopefully, we never get to find out as the devastation, death and destruction wrought by wars have such a huge human cost that it is unthinkable to go through one again in this day and age.

I believe war films have a role to teach us about the past. To portray the human costs of using violence to settle our differences or to distribute resources and territory.

For those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

Majullah Singapura.