Last week, I binge watched the Pacific on hotstar. Once I realized that the series is heavily inspired by the book With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, I obsessively read the book as well. I am a defence and aviation enthusiast, so I keep watching these shows and read a lot of books.
The TV Show has a lot of gore. Limbs falling off, soldiers dying left and right, living and fighting around the dead bodies of other soldiers. All this gore is probably real – this is how war really is.
The gore does not become very apparent in the book, but it does capture the fears, the physical and psychological hardships and trauma that a soldier has to endure.
Surviving even a single campaign is hard. If my understanding is right, the war planners planned for attrition rates of 1/3 in the Pacific theatre and as much as 1/2 in some campaigns and scenarios. That’s a lot of wounded and killed.
The life of a soldier is hard. It’s hard for any of us to look at the kind of gore they face – not just the enemy but own friends, civilians – including children. If you think about modern protracted wars – Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, North East of India – these would definitely be hard and have a dehumanizing effect on the soldiers and combatants. That just makes things worse.
Understandably, the trauma and brutalization faced by non-combatant civilians who live in such areas is going to be just as bad, if not worse.
Wars should end swiftly. They are not worth dragging. Wishful thinking maybe.
Chaitanya Vasantarao 