Notice about the Vietnam story and some views on military works (Problems and Warnings) · 12:43am Jan 12th, 2014
I'm writing some more on it right now, and fleshing out more chapters and plot details; I just want to point some things out real quickly. If you don't want to read about why I wanted to take a different approach to this writing, my personal views on some military works (not just of fanfiction, but in general), and basically just me explaining some personal views, please feel free to skip No. 1) and continue to number 2).; you probably won't miss anything. I just need to get a few things out.
1). One of the biggest reasons I wrote this was to tell a more...psychological military story. One thing I noticed was that a good 70-80% of the war stories I've ever read were very...how should I put it...Clancy esque, maybe? Ok, basically the ones I saw put a lot of detail not just into the action, but also into the specific tactics and equipment (I.E., rattling off what kind of guns there were and how they were used); now this isn't a bad thing, I've enjoyed most of the ones I've read.
The problem I've had is that, they don't explain the psychology and effect of a conflict on a person's brain. I'd read a good scene about how some soldier killed this and that and didn't really break under pressure or anything; now this is good, I like it; a well-trained soldier isn't supposed to crack or worry or get philosophical in a fight, they have to go into that kind of machine mode where it's kill or be killed. That was good representation. The problem I had was that the fight had no real affect; they never spoke or showed any kind of thought on the act of killing another intelligent being, enemy or not, or about how gruesome the scene was. There's absolutely zero psychological effect, and if there is, it's never mentioned again.
This comes to another problem I've seen in that if the trooper is either, A: with a larger unit, or B: was part of a larger unit, then they seem to not really get hurt all that much. If someone were to, let's say...just send a 4-man fireteam to Equestria, I'd be willing to bet that fireteam isn't going to lose a single man; at least not until the end. It feels like people are afraid of killing their characters off (which I can somewhat relate to). Thankfully, this particular 'invincibility' problem isn't near as rampant. If one of their friends is killed off, then if anything the protagonist soldier should be even more scarred. Many stories do bring this sort of regret up, but it never really becomes as...influential as it should be. I'm glad some works care to show it, but it seems to be a bit toned down.
And the last is the conception of fate; how some things are out of our reach. That's why I wanted to write this. I wanted to show a major war from the perspective of a normal soldier; from how he would tell it. Someone who wouldn't go on about equipment or strategy; someone who only worried about the immediate situation, doing what he had to do, and getting his friends home, how an average 'grunt' would see a battle. I wanted to show how even on the most important situations, he couldn't do anything, and people die because of it. And most importantly, I wanted to show how both killing and being killed can take a serious psychological toll on a man. I wanted the tone to be less of Red Storm Rising and more akin to All Quiet on the Western Front.
And, I guess this last part is going to be nothing but me bantering, so here goes; I'm getting extremely tired of a couple of military personality clichés. Specifically-
1): They are a mega marine badass who can never fail, and who's attitude matches up with it. (I'm guessing you know what I'm talking about.)
2): They are basically a robot who follow every order without question. (Specifically, I'm not saying they should dis-obey, but some authors don't even give the reader the protagonist's opinion or thoughts on said order, good or bad. Basically just 'go kill this', and he kills it, and that's it; no real details on what they thought of the action).
3): They swear more than an immature 14 year old who watched a South Park marathon. (Yes, I understand that being under stress makes people say things. No, I do not have anything against swearing. But, do you have to add it into every sentence?)
That's basically it. I'm getting tired of protagonists who have the personality of Duke Nukem, because that train of thought is never good. I'm tired of seeing soldiers following every order without caring one way or the other; have them say something about how good it is, or get them to worry about a certain aspect of it. And probably most personal and above all, I'm tired of this excuse that 'war makes you swear' and giving every...single...trooper the vocabulary of a middle-schooler; there's so much of it, used during combat and peace, all simply because they're soldiers; I don't care if they are, that doesn't mean real soldiers do it that much or that often, and war or not, it makes them look rather unprofessional. At least try to follow Patton's policy of 'Eloquent Profanity' and not just say the same thing ten times over.
Wow...sorry for the length.
IMPORTANT 2). If you did read the above, then you might see this coming; I just want to warn all the readers right now.
This is going to be a dark story, very dark; I've even considered rating it 'Mature', but the rating rules are rather murky. People are going to go through some painful things, they're going to see horrible stuff, and their attitudes will change accordingly. This is going to touch heavily on serious psychological problems, depression, and other heavy stuff. Now it's not going to get unreasonably dark, but realistic to war dark; which is still rather brutal. I don't want anyone getting hurt or scarred by this; so if you are not used to reading heavier, darker, sadder and more shocking works, you may want to be careful. I'm guessing all of you reading it already know about these kinds of things, but I just want to make sure. I don't want to hurt anyone.
Thank you for the heads up. Also, another cliche that you missed is the soldier killing a Timberwolf with their bare hands within a few chapters.
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Well, it's not just with works here but military work in general. The latest story I read was Larry Bond's Red Phoenix. It was ok, but I cringed a few times and felt kind of left-down at the end, and I didn't know why.
Then I realized that it was because I saw like 60-70% of the events coming from a mile away; it reminded me, not in a good way, of Red Storm Rising.
I try to tackle PTSD as best I can but PTSD is the hardest thing a writer can tackle because war affects people differently some lash out, others close themselves off, others act indifferently.
I say this look at World War I soldiers spent days, weeks, months even years just sitting there waiting for orders to go over the top on a trench raid or a major attack. All that time they spent worrying if they lifted their head up just a centimeter too high they'd be picked off by a sniper, living in constant fear of a sudden artillery barage or gas attack, not knowing when of if they'd be hit by a shell from an artillery attack and if it would kill them instantally or wound them from the concusion or shrapnel, living in fear that the enemy was tunneling under their trenches to plant mines with no way to stop them until they set the mine off and even then you don't know if you'll die instantally or be burried alive, living in squalard condiditions not knowing when a trench wall would collapse and if it would reveal a decaying corpse of bury you. Same with Vietnam it was hunter and the hunted you could spend days, weeks, or months out in the jungle and not make contact, living in fear of an ambush or booby trap and unsure who you can trust. In a way more soldiers went mad simply by waiting then actually going into combat