asking vets about war stories

[don_johnson]

alright, my history teacher was special forces in vietnam, and i really would like to hear his stories/accounts. now i know that alot of veterans are very sensitive about talking about the war and things of that nature, but my teacher seems kind of different. now, you should know a little about my teacher before you yell at me for even thinking about asking him about the war. he is a big sarcastic guy, always making wisecracks. he has even made a joke about seeing his buddy step on a landmine, saying "he should have been more careful where he was stepping, so he went boom". stuff like that. and whenever his war expierences have come up in the classroom, he has freely walking about them, he has even talked about things like being shot 3 times.

i guess what im trying to get across here is that i am very interested in hearing firsthand accounts from my teacher about his memories of vietnam, as they can be hard to come by. i think he would tell me about them, but on the other hand, i would feel terrible if i asked him, and he was like "dont ask me about that again" because i understand why people dont wanna talk about those kinds of things.

i am asking your opinion on whether or not i should inquire about his war stories or not, and how i should go about asking him
thanks

 

[mortiz]

Actually I think you'll find conversely War Vets actually want to talk about their experiences 99% of the time.

Obviously they won't always go into all the gory details if they've seen some pretty bad stuff, but where's the use in keeping it all bottled up?

 

[don_johnson]

oh really, i always figured that when asked, they would get emotional and i would feel bad for asking them. i just wanted to make sure before i ran around asking people for war stories. i mean im familiar with the textbook/history channel views of vietnam, but would find it really interesting to hear about it from a personal level

 

[Vigilante]

My grandfather is a WW2 vet, he hates talking about the war. He wasn't a front line soldier though, mainly becuase his college education saved him from that. 6th Marine division in Okinawa.

 

[don_johnson]

Perhaps if you wait until the end of the year... ? Then you'd have nothing to lose even if he responded badly.

i was definitely thinking about that. that way i could just slip outta school, and hope he would forget about it by next year

 

[Calanen]

I'd say ask him - the only thing he can do is say, he does not want to talk about it. Be respectful, and say, I want to know what it was like because I think things like this are an important part of our history and it would be good for me to talk to someone who was there about it.

But don't *ever* ask a soldier about how he killed someone or whether he has. If he wants to tell you about that, he will.

 

[bliink]

just say "is it alright with you if i ask you about what it was like in the war?" or something like that.

 

[MarcoPollo]

My grandpa was a weapons transporter in WWII and he loves talking about it even though he nearly died about 100 times because he was transporting explosives and ammo through hostile territory and ocassionaly crossfire.

 

[Dan]

I worked on a boat with a guy who was a commando in WWII. He was one of those people going behind enemy lines and cutting throats and setting booby-traps and what not. He was kind of grumpy.

 

[ACLeroK212]

Our high school janitor, who was a mechanic in Vietnam, once talked about the war with our literature class. Even though he did get pretty emotional and you could tell some stuff was pretty hard to talk about, especially when it was about his friends and comrades, it was definitely something he wanted to share with us.

Even if your teacher doesn't want to talk about it, as long as your respectful in asking, I hardly think you'll get a negative reaction from him.

 

[The Monkey]

The reallt interesting ones are the WWII vets. Although there're not so many left now...

 

[Shamrock]

The reallt interesting ones are the WWII vets. Although there're not so many left now...

That is why every WWII vet should write down all of his war stories, and then once they are on their deathbed, they should hand someone their book so everyone has some knowledge of what it was like first hand. But, I don't think you will come by many vets wanting to write down their stories these days.

Donald Johnson, I would suggest asking him if he used knives and swords and what not. Then stand up in the middle of class and challenge him to a sword fight.

 

[Shamrock]

youll find that older people love to share their experiences, specially vets. B/c alot of times lessons can be learned from what they say. And they know this, they have all the wisdom :/

They = teh l337 h@x0|2!!??111?!1

 

[Ennui]

Some of them don't mind talking about it and some do.

I talked to a soldier who was in the second wave (five minutes after the first wave, which took 95% casualties) that took like 80% casualties on D-Day, Normandy, on Omaha Beach. He was in the place of the soldier in the stereotypical world war II game and we talked for like an hour. He was captured on D-Day+6 and spend the next two years as a German prisoner of war.

My history teacher last year talked about his college professor with bad Vietnam flashbacks; sometimes, he would hear something reminiscent of the war, go blank to the world, and just start screaming. That same history teacher is going to Poland for a week soon with his grandfather, who was a resistance member in Warsaw for the entire war, at age 13.