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The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Category Archives: Violence

Heroes Never Rust #76: Dodgin’ D-Day

14 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Heroes Never Rust, Violence, War

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Garth Ennis, War Story: D-Day Dodgers

Heroes Never Rust #76 by Sean Ironman

Dodgin’ D-Day

Garth Ennis’s and John Higgins’s War Story: D-Day Dodgers follows Second Lieutenant Ross, a British soldier joining up with B Company in Italy. The Western Front has begun with Normandy and the Allied Forces are gaining ground in France. The Russians are driving Germans back to Germany. But, the war in Italy is slow and tedious. They are the forgotten soldiers. Newspaper headlines back home talk about the Western Front, and most of the supplies and soldiers are given to that effort. The leaders in the Italy campaign need men, need supplies, so they come up with a dangerous mission to earn headlines, a suicide mission. The men know the mission is a suicide run, but they do it anyway. This being a Garth Ennis comic, the brutality of war is on full display as everyone is killed. The target is barely discussed, only that it’s a daylight attack. The target doesn’t matter. The army wants the headlines back home, so, impatiently, they make a crazy move.

D Day Dodgers

These soldiers are called D-Day Dodgers because public perception at home is that the war in Italy is a cake walk and that the war in France is the tough front. Lady Astor, the first woman to sit as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons, supposedly called the men in Italy D-Day Dodgers because they were avoiding the “real war.” A song called “The Ballad of the D-Day Dodgers” was composed as a response to Lady Astor’s remarks. This song is given in the comic in the final section as the corpses of the men readers have grown attached to are shown.

How much of our actions are controlled by what we want versus what others think?

These soldiers know they are marching toward their death. They discuss it. The idea isn’t buried deep down and they are trying to fool themselves. In the mission’s planning meeting, the lieutenant is told after the mission he will be promoted to Major. When Ross congratulates him, he says, “I’m going to be a corpse.” The lieutenant explains to Ross that everyone will die because they have to advance across open ground in broad daylight. They’ll be killed before they’ve gone ten yards. On the day of battle, they arm themselves and they set out. The lieutenant gives Ross his Thompson because Ross forgot to request one. When Ross goes to say what will he do without his Thompson, the lieutenant responds, “For Christ’s sake, David, it doesn’t matter now! It doesn’t matter, can’t you see that?” On one hand, I want to say that these men are brave. They are given an impossible job, and they still try. They still go out there knowing it will be the last thing they ever do. Another part of me thinks they are cowards. They know it’s not the right thing to do, but they stay within the confines of their job duties and they march. Sometimes, when a person breaks orders and defies the institution, that person is considered brave, considered a hero. Yet, sometimes, when someone understands their responsibilities and goes to their death, that act is considered brave. Where’s the line?

DodgersChurch

Is it suicide? They know this act will kill them and they still perform the act. Or do they need to pull the trigger on their own gun, their own bullet needing to tear through their brain? And if it is suicide, is it wrong? Suicide can be a heroic act, can it not? Or do they have a responsibility to live? Do they have a responsibility to fight back against an institution trying to control them, an institution that thinks so little of them?

They are men caught between larger forces. The British military cares little for their lives. The Italian and German forces want their blood to soak into soil. The public back home, their neighbors, coworkers, friends, think they are sitting out the war in paradise. Like the lieutenant said, it doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters. Perhaps there’s a comfort they find in marching toward their death. At least, they know when they will die, how they will die. It’s the easy battle. They know what they have to do. Maybe it doesn’t matter if the British military is wrong, or that the public is wrong, or that the soldiers should stand up for their lives. Perhaps the soldiers marching to Hell is their fuck you to the public back home. They fought the hard fight and they lost. They didn’t have it easy. They had a job to do and they put their lives on the line. What could the public say then?

Dodgers

That brings me back to my earlier question: How much of our actions are controlled by what we want versus what others think? How much of me is me and how much of me is what you think of me? The older I get the less I think of the idea of individualism. I don’t think it exists. I am what society has made me. I am not independent or self-reliant. Perhaps some people would say that of course I am because I moved out to Arkansas from Florida alone, that I live alone. But, that’s not really independent, isn’t it? I moved from one community to another. The community affects me, shapes me. And the community of these men, these soldiers, these D-Day Dodgers, shaped them. Would they have died without the actions and thoughts of their community? Well, yes, just not there in Italy. As I revise what I hope to be my first book, I keep coming back to a line I wrote, that sometimes it seems that we are affected more by what we don’t have control over than by what we do. That life is a series of reactions, instead of actions. The more I read, the more I live, the more I come to believe what I wrote.

_______

Photo by John King

Photo by John King

Sean Ironman (Episode 102) earned his MFA at the University of Central Florida. Currently, he teaches creative nonfiction and digital media at the University of Central Arkansas as a visiting professor. His work can be read in The Writer’s Chronicle, Redivider, and Breakers: A Comics Anthology, among others.

Heroes Never Rust #48: War at Home

02 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Heroes Never Rust, Violence

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Alan Moore, Saving Private Ryan, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Violence

Heroes Never Rust #48 by Sean Ironman

War at Home

This morning, I watched the opening battle scene of Saving Private Ryan. My internet was down and I decided to check out what DVDs I had while I ate breakfast. I don’t know why I chose Saving Private Ryan. It’s been years since I’ve seen the film. I only watched the first twenty minutes or so. I left off a couple of minutes after Tom Hanks and his crew make it off the beach and start obliterating Nazis in retreat. I was fourteen when the movie was released and I thought the battle scenes were the best part. Explosions. Limbs blown off. A Nazi throwing his hands up and surrendering just to be gunned down. It was good action and that’s what I was looking for. But I’m old now and tired. Today when I watched the film, it was horrific. Not just because people were dying. Not because I understand that real people had to go through this. Before I turned it off and went to start my work for the day, a few Nazis began to run away. About three of them were in their trenches, not firing, just running. Running to safety. Running home. Running from death. And then, about two dozen U.S. soldiers, who are above the retreaters on solid ground, gun them down. As a kid, I probably cheered when that happened. Take that Nazis! But watching it now, there was something so animalistic about it. I understand these same Nazis were killing American soldiers just a few minutes earlier. But I felt the scene showed what war does to a person, how it changes a person, how it destroys everything.

Untitled 1

In the conclusion to volume one of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, war has come. Professor Moriarty’s airship bombs Limehouse, which is engulfed in flames by page two. In the opening, Moriarty says in regards to the cavorite, “This wonderful, celestial material…It’s given me the sky, this element that I was surely born for. Ah, Sergeant, does your soul thrill as mine does to these seas of cloud, to this God-like perspective? To this God-like power?” Moriarty is an evil son-of-a-bitch. He even comments on the “countless tiny lives” below before commencing the bombing. He must kill thousands this issue. And for what? So he can defeat a rival crime lord? As the neighborhood is burning to the ground, I no longer see Kevin O’Neill’s beautiful artwork. Even though it’s fiction, I think about all those people who were sitting down to dinner, who were getting ready for bed after a long day working construction. They have no stake in what’s happening. And now, they’re dead.

Untitled 2

When the Chinese crime lord, The Doctor, sees the destruction, he orders his troops to attack. They fly at Moriarty’s airship with their own personal flying devices. I feel bad for them. What do they get out of this? They fly to their death, and from what we see later, it is a gruesome death. Nemo and Mr. Hyde lay out what looks to be hundreds of men. In the end, when the league wins, and of course they win, men fall to their deaths. And, again, for what? Because two crime lords can’t get along? What’s a crime lord any way, other than an asshole? What’s he a lord of? We’re smart people. How does someone lord over us? Why would anyone follow these mad men? They can’t pay well. The hours must suck. Who’s dream in life is it to work for a crime lord? To kill for someone else? I say if The Doctor and Moriarty can’t get along, then let them fight, but leave everyone else out of it. They can kill each other all they want, but London would be safe. The battle is made worse because people follow the villains. The villains themselves can do barely any damage. It’s the numbers of men, the numbers of bombs. Moriarty didn’t make those bombs, or his airship. He didn’t load those guns, sharpen those swords. He told someone else to do it, and someone else did as they were told. Why?

In the television show Game of Thrones, Varys poses a riddle to Tyrion. I couldn’t find the quote for the show, but riddle in the books is: “In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it,’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it,’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do it,’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me – who lives and who dies?” The sellsword has the power over the three men. He can kill them all or just walk away. Yet, people go on and pretend the other men have the power, and most people do what others tell them.

Untitled 3

At the end of volume one, the league triumphs. Moriarty is beaten. London is saved. But it all seems so anticlimactic. It was all for nothing. And I don’t mean that as a criticism of Moore’s script. That’s just he way things are. A couple of crazy, power-hungry men cause destruction, and then we’re left to clean things up.

Maybe I’m thinking too hard about things. Maybe I should just look at the pretty pictures and be in awe of how the league fights their way through the masses of soldiers to win the battle. I can say that it’s pretty cool, and I enjoy the comic greatly. But maybe I’m just tired. Tired of seeing new mass shootings on the news. Tired of soldiers killing people. Even tired of people who do work they don’t love just because they’re following what other people tell them to do. No one can tell us what to do. I think from time to time about superheroes in our own world. If they would be helpful or not. But we wouldn’t really need them if we just did what we know is right. The league of extraordinary gentlemen would have no purpose. Maybe if the league didn’t have to fight these mindless battles, Mina could fight for equal rights of women. Nemo can fight against England’s treatment of India. But I guess the important things will have to wait. A little orb that makes things float seems to be much more important.

___________

Sean Ironman

Sean Ironman (Episode 102) is an MFA candidate at the University of Central Florida, where he also serves as Managing Editor of The Florida Review and as President of the Graduate Writers’ Association. His art has appeared online at River Teeth. His writing can be read in Breakers: An Anthology of Comics and Redivider.

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