The closing scene of the film features the German soldier, played by Richard Thomas, in a trench, alone at 10:30 a.m. November 11, 1918, thirty minutes before the armistice is to take effect at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. The soldier, a highly sensitive young man with a talent for drawing and a love of nature, has endured four years of horrendous bloodshed all around him in conditions that must have been grossly offensive to his character and sensibilities.
He has a piece of paper and a pencil in his hands. He hears a bird singing. A bird singing on a battlefield is unique but the guns are silent so the bird is not. He stands up to search for the bird, ready to sketch this welcome re-introduction of nature into his life.
We hear a shot. There is a small, red hole in the side of the soldier’s head as he falls to the ground. The last frame in the film is a simulated telegraph being typed: “all quiet on the western front.”
Comparatively speaking, the telegram is accurate.
I used the film teaching the World War One part of my Advanced Placement U.S. History class for years. It was a compact depiction of that war in which 19th century tactics using 20th century weapons produced large casualty counts. It helped me make the point that the forces of colonialism and nationalism were unleashed, to be sustained through World War Two, the Vietnam War, and many other wars of “national liberation.”
For the students and for me, it is the image of the soldier being shot at a point so close to the end of the fighting that remains vivid.
The scene repeats for me every Veteran’s Day, every 11th day of the 11th month. I also think about the millions of soldiers over time who have engaged in actions that require them to think differently than they might in normal life, to focus on survival, killing another human being, if necessary, one on the other side who is probably very much like themselves, only dressed in a different uniform and loyal to a different country or set of ideas.
In Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut has one of his characters complain about how he has had to learn how to do whatever it takes to survive, including killing others, and is then expected to return home to be a sensitive, caring, passionate husband and lover.
Years ago, we knew a couple whose marriage had, at that point, survived the man’s breaking his wife’s collarbone. He had been in Vietnam as a Green Beret. One day she surprised him from behind. Before he could stop himself, his training and instinct kicked in, and he whirled around to attack her.
In the movie, Frantz, the fiancé of a now-dead German solider visits his grave every day to refresh the flowers. One day, as she approaches the gravesite, she sees a strange man standing at the grave, deep in reflection. The man leaves, and the woman wonders who he is. Before long, she discovers that he is the French soldier who killed her fiancé. That dramatic tension fuels the rest of an excellent movie.
Veteran’s Day this year has had me thinking about the expectation that Vonnegut describes. The men, and now women, who have been in combat, seen comrades killed, perhaps been wounded themselves, have survived the “hell” General Sherman called war, return to civilian life to face challenges that are not visible to others.
It is significant to me that we hear frequently about veterans who have been in combat and do not want to talk about that experience in their lives. How can one make sense of hell?
Only in our lifetimes, People of a Certain Age, has medical science identified and treated Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Really? Haven’t generations of returning soldiers had to cope with PTSD without anyone recognizing its real effects on people or any significant treatment?
Our national response to the service of veterans over time has been variously supportive. Until the idea of PTSD came along, there was a history of referring to some veterans as having been “shell-shocked,” and that was not always said in a sympathetic manner. There have been numerous Marches on Washington by veterans groups seeking, at first, any pension, and then pensions at reasonable levels. We have only recently come to grips with the challenges faced by the Veterans Administration operating hospitals. A sizeable number of homeless people in our community are veterans.
Americans tended not to welcome Vietnam veterans home with celebratory parades. It was as though folks blamed the soldiers for the war.
Even the entertainment industry has needed to adjust. Remember the war movies of the 1950s and 60s? Contrast those myths about heroic deeds with the war movies of the Vietnam era (“The Deer Hunter,” “Coming Home”), and the current scene. There seems to be a greater understanding of the fact that General Sherman was right.
Casualty counts, dollars spent, territories defended and won or lost; these are among the obvious costs of war. This 11th day of the 11th month I was grateful to the veterans of combat for their bearing the unseen costs.
Daniel E. White
November 13, 2017