Post by Taylorholic78 on Jul 29, 2005 7:48:40 GMT -5
* from www.trusttheprocess.com
Throughout the course of 1998 John (the artist formerly known as Nigel) expressed many thoughts, opinions, ideas and insights (or just the ramblings of a madman to some!) through a feature on this website called The Nigel Page. We thought we would bring them all back for those who might have missed them.
August 28, 1998
Did everyone see "Saving Private Ryan" yet? There ain't nothing I can add to what has already been said, just please see it.
Since I was a little boy I have been aware of War. The glory and the pain, but mostly misunderstanding. My father is a veteran of WW2, but it is only recently that I have been able to get him to say anything about the experience. It frightened my mother I think, just bringing it up, him having to remember it. She never wanted it talked about, so I grew up confused and afraid for what really might have gone down with Dad.
Truths trickled by me, year by year: he was a prisoner, he served in Africa, he was made to walk thousands of miles by his captors, being one of a very small percentage who survived. When he was a prisoner all he ever thought about was food. But this is recent news. As a kid I knew nothing.
However, growing up in England in the sixties I saw so many war movies (my first Birthday trip to the cinema my friends and I saw "The Dambusters" and "633 Squadron".) I couldn't help but get excited by the possibility for adventure. By the age of ten I wanted to be a pilot, and preferably fly Spitfires, but my lack of perfect vision ruled that out. (I got my first pair of glasses in first grade, aged five.)
As a teenager I made model tanks and aeroplanes, painted tin soldiers in fancy uniforms from the Napoleonic Wars (I learnt to mix talcum powder in the paint to create a suitably smooth cloth effect.) But as I got more into music and teenage nihilism the planes were set fire to and thrown out of the window. By the age of eighteen I was a hardline anti-war pacifist, and I stuck with this fashionable POV for years. The Gulf War was a joke, we all knew, as was the Falkland Islands. How could anyone take patriotism seriously, what was my Dad thinking?...
Well, older and wiser I still want to understand my Dad better, and through him, me .... I started talking more to him, dragging information out of him. It has been hard. the subject is such a sensitive one he would only have to start to say, "Well....", and I would be choking back long overdue tears.
You see I have to weep real tears for heroes like my Dad because, although the credibility of our recent wars are a little thin, I will be forever grateful that patriotism wasn't PC in the 1940's, and all those young men and women just got down and fought because they all realized Hitler and his crew were crazy, evil men and had to be stopped - else our generation would have all been speaking German at school.
I don't glorify war anymore, but I don't criticize those who serve (in any war) either. I just have a whole load of repect for those who gave, those who fought and those who believed.
Driving from San Diego to Yucaipa we passed an air force museum. like a kid I had to stop and check out the images that still fire me up, and make me wonder how I would respond to the call-up...
Throughout the course of 1998 John (the artist formerly known as Nigel) expressed many thoughts, opinions, ideas and insights (or just the ramblings of a madman to some!) through a feature on this website called The Nigel Page. We thought we would bring them all back for those who might have missed them.
August 28, 1998
Did everyone see "Saving Private Ryan" yet? There ain't nothing I can add to what has already been said, just please see it.
Since I was a little boy I have been aware of War. The glory and the pain, but mostly misunderstanding. My father is a veteran of WW2, but it is only recently that I have been able to get him to say anything about the experience. It frightened my mother I think, just bringing it up, him having to remember it. She never wanted it talked about, so I grew up confused and afraid for what really might have gone down with Dad.
Truths trickled by me, year by year: he was a prisoner, he served in Africa, he was made to walk thousands of miles by his captors, being one of a very small percentage who survived. When he was a prisoner all he ever thought about was food. But this is recent news. As a kid I knew nothing.
However, growing up in England in the sixties I saw so many war movies (my first Birthday trip to the cinema my friends and I saw "The Dambusters" and "633 Squadron".) I couldn't help but get excited by the possibility for adventure. By the age of ten I wanted to be a pilot, and preferably fly Spitfires, but my lack of perfect vision ruled that out. (I got my first pair of glasses in first grade, aged five.)
As a teenager I made model tanks and aeroplanes, painted tin soldiers in fancy uniforms from the Napoleonic Wars (I learnt to mix talcum powder in the paint to create a suitably smooth cloth effect.) But as I got more into music and teenage nihilism the planes were set fire to and thrown out of the window. By the age of eighteen I was a hardline anti-war pacifist, and I stuck with this fashionable POV for years. The Gulf War was a joke, we all knew, as was the Falkland Islands. How could anyone take patriotism seriously, what was my Dad thinking?...
Well, older and wiser I still want to understand my Dad better, and through him, me .... I started talking more to him, dragging information out of him. It has been hard. the subject is such a sensitive one he would only have to start to say, "Well....", and I would be choking back long overdue tears.
You see I have to weep real tears for heroes like my Dad because, although the credibility of our recent wars are a little thin, I will be forever grateful that patriotism wasn't PC in the 1940's, and all those young men and women just got down and fought because they all realized Hitler and his crew were crazy, evil men and had to be stopped - else our generation would have all been speaking German at school.
I don't glorify war anymore, but I don't criticize those who serve (in any war) either. I just have a whole load of repect for those who gave, those who fought and those who believed.
Driving from San Diego to Yucaipa we passed an air force museum. like a kid I had to stop and check out the images that still fire me up, and make me wonder how I would respond to the call-up...
