zlacker

>>david9+(OP)
History books can tell you facts that happened, but they can never truly tell you how it feels.

I feel we're riding a knife's edge and there's a hurricane brewing in the gulf of absurdity.

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Incidentally, I feel like this is why it is so hard to actually learn from history. You can read about the 1918 'Spanish' Flu, but you think "we're smarter now". etc.

>>csours+kk
Something I like to remind myself of is that all past wars, even ones thousands of years ago, took place in as vibrant colors and fluid detail as we experience today, not in grainy black and white photos or paintings.

Also, if your grandpa likes telling war stories, it's only because he survived.

>>nancym+Jr
A lot of war stories get embellished and no one is going to challenge it.

There's the story about the guy who says he was the hardest working man in Vietnam, and then when pressed about what he did, he states he was a trucker to the great surprise of anyone listening.

When asked why he thought that, he says "well I was the only one."

>>mothba+vt
If you're talking about the ones who drove supply trucks during the war years, the hardest working men were women.

https://vietnamnews.vn/sunday/features/947180/female-drivers...

>>Richar+RA
The story wasn't actually about the trucker being hard working (or not), though I'm sure he was. He wasn't actually trying to make people believe he literally was the hardest working.

The joke is that everyone else he went to war with was claiming to be something else, so he must have delivered all the supplies himself.

The response is interesting to me, because having fought in a war, though I am not a US veteran -- I instantly got it. And the place I heard it from was more veteran dominated, and everyone instantly understood/appreciated the joke.

>>mothba+8B
I didn’t get it until you explained it. It makes a lot of sense - people who have actually gone to war know of stolen valor and embellishments - you can sniff them immediately. People who have never been and don’t hang around military types much have much less of this kind of context