johnstanton

... and yet I sense an alignment in Solaris with such techniques as practiced by master percussionist Nana Vasconcelos.

A re-tooling from analog to digital to be sure, but nevertheless, the work of Martinez-the-percussionist is evident. .

It's not hard to notice that the term "hero" appears overused, without much sense of proportionality.

For example, a soldier takes fire and is randomly shot and killed, and his friends, family and media will invariably deploy the term. A comrade might stay forward alone to provide covering fire while his platoon strategically withdraws, carrying their wounded. He too may be labelled a hero. Another might fall on a grenade thrown into a foxhole, in order to minimize the casualties, and they too could be labelled a hero.

But it seems to me that the term becomes diluted and therefore superficial and meaningless if it's just deployed willy nilly for each of these three very different scenarios.

If you recall, in Junger's War, he has this discussion, which he ends with a description of a historic Fire Chief, who characterized "heroism" as something that occurs when people sign-up to be fire fighters, cops or soldiers, and that everything else beyond that is simply doing the job.

What kinds of conclusions do active duty soldiers come to when discussing what constitutes a hero?

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One of the themes that Sebastian Junger explores in War is the age-old issue of European armies, documented up till now from the time of Roman legionnaires, and no doubt the armies of Hannibal and Agamemnon prior to that, where the ranks are largely populated by the poor, the disaffected - those escaping something or hoping for something more, and certainly having nothing left to lose.

The narrative is that those with the least to lose are encouraged to choose a perilous path essentially to ensure the prosperity of the wealthy, who are so focused on their own self-enrichment that they barely have any consciousness of anyone else.

Junger describes young, small-town men with little education or means, trained and shaped to be effective in a hilltop fire base, who, if they survive to return home, are jettisoned by an apparently uncaring society, and left to fend for themselves, with no real means to transition the enormous gulf beneath their feet.

Thus has it been with every army, after every war, forever.

I'm not pointing fingers at the U.S. military here, because, again, this is an age-old issue, one that still exists today certainly in the U.S., in Canada, and in Britain, and perhaps to a degree in the other NATO states (who however may have more sophisticated social supports).

It sometimes feels as though we have learned nothing about war and its consequences for our soldiers, over the last two thousand years.

The age old notion of you-broke-it, you-own-it surely applies. There is no way that governments can justify homeless veterans with PTSD. At a minimum, every veteran should be on the military payroll while they transition at a reasonable rate to civilian life. This should include retraining, education, and incentives for businesses hiring vets.

The cost of war is more than guns and ammo, and we have to start budgeting for the real cost...

Do veterans have discussions on this theme? What is their prognosis? Given the seemingly inadequate supports afterwards, do they feel its been worth it?

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... that is reassuring.

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