Word: belden
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Reporter Jack Belden goes off the deep end when he states that "our men do not believe they are fighting for anything. Not one in a hundred has any deep-seated political belief" (TIME, Sept...
Since TIME and LIFE Correspondent Jack Belden (Retreat with Stilwell) saw his first battle outside Peiping in 1937, he has reported war in Burma, India, North Africa, Malta, Sicily, Italy, been wounded at Salerno, recovered to get in the thick of the current European invasion. Still Time to Die is mostly expert, on-the-spot description of the battles he has seen. But it rises a notch above other able war reporting through Correspondent Belden's provocative summing up of what he has learned in his seven war-filled years. Some of the prime lessons...
...battle. . . . No one ever knows what happened." Before the firing stops, the "lying legend" starts on its way to the public. On the Sicilian beachhead it looked at one time as though the U.S. ist Division might be driven into the sea and the whole invasion fail. When Belden went to G-2 for information, "an exceptionally intelligent lieutenant colonel" simply handed him "the bare telephone conversations and orders of that day." Said he: "This is the only thing that contains any truth. . . . We are making out a report now, but it is already so different from what happened that...
Uncertainty is the quality that most distinguishes a battle from any other kind of activity. It is also the most harrowing agony a soldier can endure. Belden believes that the U.S. soldier is the best trained he has ever seen, "but no one seems to have taken the proper trouble to introduce [him] to the uncertainty of war. . . . Men study maps and practice jumping off landing boats; but when . . . a Salerno comes along, they fly out of their boats into the uncertain darkness ahead and refuse to jump, or jump ashore and [then] jump back . . . and have to be exhorted...
...Physical courage exercises almost no influence on the outcome of a war"-because it "generally exists in such equal quantities on both sides." But the higher courage that springs from deep beliefs is invaluable. Belden believes that the U.S. soldier is "brave, daring and resourceful," but fatalistic. "Our men do not believe they are fighting for anything. Not one in a hundred has any deep-seated political belief...