Paul Fussell.....

[The Annoyed Man]

The late Paul Fussell, the well known historian and expert on Word Wars One and Two, was a close family friend of ours growing up. He and my dad attended college together before entering the military during WW2, Paul into the Army, and my dad into the Marine Corps. Paul was a young inexperienced 2nd Lt leading a platoon of seasoned combat veterans toward Germany before he was wounded in Alsace. My dad was a young inexperienced 2nd Lt leading a platoon of seasoned combat veterans into Cushman's Pocket on Iwo Jima where he too was wounded.

We spent time at the beach with the Fussells, and ate Thanksgiving dinners together in the San Gabriel Mountains, and camped in the desert together, and to this day his widow is partners with my mother in the ownership of an ancient french farmhouse in the Poitou-Charentes region of France.

Anyway, my wife emailed me a link to this article written by Larry Wilson of the Pasadena Star News. It is funny to me, because Larry is also a long time family friend and high school classmate of my brother's, and if he had ever wanted to know what Paul Fussell was like, he could have just asked one of us. He must not have known of our inter-family connection.........which is also funny, because one of the "fellow tequila-swilling bums" he mentions in his article was almost certainly my brother. I last saw Larry just this past January at my brother's wedding.

Anyway, Paul died six days ago, and I thought this was interesting. Those of you who are WW2 buffs will know who Paul was.

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/wilson/ ... urce=email

[fannypacker]

As a WW 2 history buff, I have read books written by him and I am surprised there was no notice of his death in the local paper.

[jimlongley]

I was given "The Boys' Crusade" a few years ago for a birthday and was quite interested in the perspective presented.

My maternal grandfather was in his 50s when WWII started, and a Major (destined to become a Brigadier General) in the Quartermaster Corps. My father was inducted into the Army as a volunteer in the late 1930s, in his late 20s, and eventually served as an officer, but never in a troop leading or combat role. My uncle graduated West Point in 1936 and served in WWII, eventually as a Colonel.

What little I heard in "war stories" among the prior generations of my family (and my paternal grandfather, West Point 1902, served in France in WWI) rarely mentioned any combat, and were usually about logistical nightmares and SNAFUs, such as when a group of people under my grandfather's command on New Guinea went sightseeing in a plane and crashed, or when a water cart (that my other grandfather's supply company was supplying) was hit in WWI and flooded part of a trench and a soldier was drowned, so my perspective was somewhat skewed. I did, quite regularly, get lectures on the realities of war, I think to dampen my hawkish enthusiasm, but they were usually couched in terms that made me aware that they had seen the elephant and I had not, and I was just to therefore pay attention.

Now it's time to go back and reread.