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Memories of War: Was World War I a Heroic Crusade or a Traumatic Nightmare?
| Article
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11041 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1993 |
4,300 Words |
| Author
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Peter C. Rollins
Peter C. Rollins is Regents Professor of English and
American/Film Studies at Oklahoma State University. A Vietnam
veteran, he has served as state commander of the Military
Order of the World Wars--Eastern Oklahoma Chapter and as
president, Cimarron Chapter of Retired Officers of America. He
edits the scholarly journal Film & History (http://h-
net2.msu.edu/-filmhis/). His recent books include Hollywood's
World War I (Popular Press) and Hollywood's Indian (University
Press of Kentucky). |
On August 30, 1993, a number of the nearly 48,000 living American veterans of World War I convened near Chicago to reflect on their experiences and heritage. Most stand in awe of the changes accelerated by the Great War. Winston Roche, a 94-year-old citizen of Dallas, reflected on the panorama: "We made America a world power. We saw America from the days of horses and mules, handguns, a few machine guns, and a few outdated field-pieces, all the way to jet fighters and the moon landing. We have lived in a wonderful generation of American history."
The experience of battle gave many a new perspective on life. Speaking for many veterans from the Civil War to Vietnam, 93-year-old Orvill Rummell observed, "It put a different value on what you did, how you did it, how you enjoyed what you got, how you lived each day." But not every veteran emerged from the war in philosophical calm. An Oklahoma veteran spoke to me about his sense of long-term guilt. As a machine gunner, he had killed hundreds of young German soldiers. Answering in faltering tones as if the experience had happened yesterday, this veteran sat on the edge of his bed, crying throughout our interview. On the eve of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Armistice, he was worried about the fate of his eternal soul.
Among the literature, films, and war memorials connected with World War I, there are two contradictory ways of remembering the Great War. Veterans, monuments, and movies have promoted the heroic version and have celebrated the unselfish service of our fighting men; in contrast, some veterans, artists, writers, and filmmakers have argued that the war needlessly sacrificed the youth of a generation. Even today, both angles of vision survive.
'He fights for you'
In the 1920s, Hollywood contributed to the heroic image. King Vidor's The Big Parade (1925) was the first financially successful film about the conflict. The famous battle scenes reenacted American actions in the Argonne forest. The title does not refer to a military ceremony, but to the ineluctable march of America's troops to victory on the Western Front. When the doughboys fight and die in this film, they do so as democratic heroes for their nation's cause.
In Wings (1927), William Wellman followed the evolution of two aviators from their first days of flight training. Wellman had been a pilot in the war and sought to make the Army Air Corps look every bit as romantic as the Army infantry had in The Big
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