Posted by
William D. Dannenmaier on Sunday, May 16, 2010 9:33:58 AM
Ray Barker and I irritated some in our squad when we were scouts, in combat, in Korea. We joked too much. Scouts had three types of patrols into no-man’s land and enemy territory: three man patrols, squad patrols and fight patrols when we led an infantry platoon out looking for an enemy. The joking Ray and I engaged in must not have bothered our squad leader, Stan O’Connor: we were always the two he took on three man patrols. On the other hand, maybe he was just trying to get rid of us. I still remember Ray laughing and saying if he ever saw a Chinese mass attack he was going to call our Regimental Headquarters and say, “Hello, Kingpost? This is Barker. I’m down south in Pusan boarding a boat for Japan. The Chinese are attacking up where you are.” It wasn’t a week later that we did have a mass attack. It lasted all night into the morning. The next afternoon Ray and I accompanied Stan to an abandoned bunker about 150 yards in front of the front line, just south of the point of the Chinese attacks, in order to see better what the Chinese were doing. We remained there for the next three nights of attacks.
Ray and I were not the only ones who joked. Van Ripper, a scout in another squad, was watching one time when my squad was in a squabble out front against a superior force and trying to get back as fast as possible. When he next saw me, Van argued I owed him $10. He had bet a friend that I wouldn’t get back alive (carrying the radio I was easy to spot) and he lost. His argument was that I had cost him the money and I should repay it. This debate went on for a few weeks, until we tired of it.
We laughed about the guys who were injured swimming, which we weren’t supposed to do in the river between us and the enemy, and about one of our squad who got a bayonet driven through his boot and foot one day in a game of “dare.” We joked about how he was going to explain to the people in the back how it happened – telling the truth would have been a court martial offense.
Laughter was common when we weren’t working and occasionally when we were. It was generally accepted that only fearful people were afraid to laugh.
I thought of those days on a recent visit to our Census headquarters in Jackson. I had been driving about collecting census data from 7:30 in the morning until I tired at 3:30. Arriving home, I received a telephone call saying that if I didn’t drive to Jackson immediately to give a new set of fingerprints, I wouldn’t get paid. So, Sheila and I took off on the hundred and twenty mile drive to Jackson. Arriving, the fingerprint men said they hadn’t expected me until the next day, the person who telephoned was wrong. Finished, chatting with those men and the secretary, I said I should have come in and said I was a nineteen year old female Islamic terrorist come to clean out the place. A tall distinguished looking man had entered. He gave me a stern look and said I was in a FederalBuilding; he could have me arrested for such a comment. He probably wouldn’t have understood my thoughts in response to his demeanor and words. In combat, we never trusted the “tough” guys with stern, authoritarian looks. Few got “up front,” and most were relocated to safe areas as quickly as possible.
During the heart of the Second World War, when we were losing on all fronts, the newspapers and radio made constant fun of Hitler, Emperor Hirohito and other known leaders of the nations we were fighting. They were mocked in words and pictures.
Hidden among the many trivial and worthless “research” articles produced by college professors there were several produced in the forties that showed that humor was the best way to control and modify public opinion. It is simply true that laughter dispels fear. If you can laugh, you can win. If you can make your enemy afraid of you, to the point that he can’t laugh at you, you have won.
This is what disturbs me about our current approach to combat Islamic terrorism. There is no laughter at its proponents. You don’t dare suggest that Muslims are conducting the terrorism. Our media are afraid to criticize a religion that produces terrorists by the hundreds around the world. Our President avoids the use of the word “terrorism” preferring terms like “man made disasters.” I’m sorry, but the Islamic terrorists are winning.
Think of the fun reporters could have had with the Muslim terrorist with a bomb hidden in his underwear. I’ll bet that if the next creators of “man made disasters” were held up for public ridicule and then publicly executed, fewer youths and young people would be interested in joining their predecessors. Being a hero and a martyr is one thing, being an object of jokes is another.