Slaughterhouse 5.

[poliphilo]

Kurt Vonnegut belonged to my parents generation. My parents were born in 1921. Mr Vonnegut was born in 1922. I wonder if my parents ever read Slaughterhouse 5? I doubt it. 

My father spent the war defusing German bombs- which was incredibly brave of him. I asked him once if he'd ever fired a gun. And he said, yes, he'd fired a Tommy gun- but only on a firing range.

My father and I went to a firing range once when I was a teenager. The man in charge said he'd knock me sensless if I pointed the gun at anyone- for which I hated and still hate him. He didn't say that to my father so my father thought he was within his rights to jiggle a hand-gun around like he was Wild Bill Hickock and the gun went off while he was doing it and the bullet bounced off the concrete roof. Afterwards we told one another what fun we'd had. 

But we never went back.

My mother was a driver during the war. She drove "B" list celebrities around for some ministry or other.  One of her "gentlemen" was Christopher Hassall. I believe he was a writer or publisher or something like that. 

My mother held onto her wartime uniform. It wound up in my dressing-up box. I used to go out on the streets wearing her WRAC jacket and cap with a toy six-shooter strapped to my waist.

I know my mother enjoyed her war. Pretty much. I don't know whether my father did and I can't ask him now because he's dead.

Mr Vonnegut is dead too but I'm grateful to him for writing about the war before he died because now- at long last (why didn't I read this book earlier?)- I know what it was really like.

Comments

[oakmouse]

My mom was born in 1921, dad in 1922. He's still living; she's long gone. Neither of them ever read Slaughterhouse Five, although Dad may have read some Vonnegut somewhere along the line. He doesn't do fiction much, barring Tolkien.

Dad was in officer training school during the war, and was due to go off and lead troops in the Pacific theater. If not for mom having told him to marry her right now or it was All Over, I would probably never have been born; over 75% of the guys he knew in the program died in the war. He married her, and in so doing got kicked out of the program, thereby ending up being a Marine Corps air traffic controller in Hawaii for the duration. When I was a kid he used his Ka-bar (service knife) for garden chores. I used to look at the emblem on it and ask him about his wartime experience, but up until a couple of months ago he would never say anything. I know a lot of WWII vets who are like that; nothing they want to think or talk about less than that experience.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Vonnegut is interesting on why vets don't like speaking about their wartime experiences. He says it's not so much because of the horror, the horror, but because civilians brought up on fictional heroics just aren't ready to hear about the absurdity of life in the services. He also makes the point that most wars are fought not by the grizzled likes of John Wayne and Lee Marvin but by children.

[oakmouse]

I think Vonnegut is exactly right. The very few stories Dad would ever tell were scandalous (and hilarious) tales of the goings-on that the fellows got up to on base when they were bored. He was 19 when he joined, and 23 when the war ended; almost everyone he knew was in the same age range. They acted like a bunch of college kids on the loose, which in the case of his unit is more or less what they were.

Also, of course, there's what seems to be a generational thing; to quote a friend's father, who *did* deal with the horror as a prison camp internee and who won't talk much about any aspect of his wartime experiences, "Why dwell on it? There's no need to go back there." I've noticed that a lot of men of that age group aren't quick to talk about anything except humorous reminiscences; the unpleasant stories, even those unrelated to war, are almost treated as being socially inappropriate to discuss.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My grandfather- who missed WWI by a whisker- always refused to talk about his childhood- using just that line. I wish I knew why. All I know for sure is that his father died around the time he was born and that my great grandmother (to whom he was greatly attached) brought up the family single-handed.