post-war

its often the case that when i am meant to be writing a paper (on devolution in scotland, if you care) that i get distracted and fall into thinking about something much more pertinent to the human condition.

there is an m ward song called 'post war'. we can listen to it together.




3,4 or 5 days ago i was in bastogne and foy, belgium. site of the battle of the bulge in world war 2. i think the line 'put a dollar in the machine and youll remember when' more or less serves as a thesis for what im going to be talking on, but of course im not guaranteed to finish on this thesis and in fact you should no expect it.

of course there are millions of battlefields on earth, in fact we might make a statement that the entire earth is one and ill let you make that case, so long as you let me focus in on the ardennes singularly (more or less). bastogne is the archetypal war site experience, for a tourist. you go, you see, you leave. it influences you for a day, no more. the violence has been removed entirely. yes there is a large monument, a sherman in the town square, now named mcaullife square after the 101st airbornes leader who refused to surrender the town, uttered NUTS, and tied up the entire german offensive, giving patton time to make it to the front. in fact, basically everything in town is named from a derivation of either macaullife or nuts or screaming eagle and it is tacky, quite. it is possible to make it through the town, looking hard for signs of the battle only to come up with nothing authentic. and this is the world's exposure to one of the most significant battles of the 20th century? yeah basically. you can buy a t-shirt though.

foy is a different story. within sight of bastogne, in the trees south of this hamlet was where easy company, (band of brothers) were stationed. and its here where something surreal happens. we (my belgian friend and i) walked from bastogne towards foy. it took 10 minutes to get there-that is 10 minutes from the city center of bastogne to the front. 10 minutes in any direction would have you reach the front, the germans were really that close in.

we were following a dirt track, created in the war and rarely used since, though it still remains a well worn track to follow. this was what the jeeps used to carry the dead and wounded from the front back to bastogne, and the little supplies that remained from bastogne up to the front. the track ends in the woodline, and its there that a recently erected and rarely visited monument, even given all their attention, to easy company. we went into the treeline, and then everything changed. rows and rows of foxholes, not deep enough to be used today, but at first glance you might not think that they were 55 winters old. i can think of no eerier moment in my life than that first sight of those foxholes. i know i stopped breathing and im not sure when i started again, and in all honesty all i wanted to do then and there was puke. ive been to places, from standing on the steps of the lincoln monument to the corner where jack the ripper cut someone up, and never have i felt as strongly affected as when i stood in those trees.

from out of the other end of the treeline, the hamlet of foy emerges, the company advanced on town as the siege was breaking. we followed the line that they took into the town, a half mile over exposed fields, though i found it impossible to imagine mg42 bullets flying beside me and artillery landing nearly on me, but maybe they were in the same trancelike state that i was in, i wouldnt be able to say.

foy has grown, now maybe it has 15 buildings instead of 9 and the road through it has grown substantially. nonetheless it is all that bastogne is not. every building from that stood in 1944 is still covered, absolutely covered rather, with bullet holes. i couldnt help but think that the man who's footsteps i was following in had been cut down 55 years ago. that feeling was inescapable and has not yet left.

what will happen when those foxholes fill in (50 years? maybe?) and those 9 houses are torn down as bastogne continues to grow? there will quite literally be nothing left. and there really is no answer, no choice but to let it fade, to dig the foxholes would be desecration. to shoot the new buildings would be,well, maybe not such a bad idea... but i digress. my views on monkey wrenching are well known. in essence, bastogne wins. i draw a similar parallel to the american revolution, was it in kings mountain or yorktown that the revolution was won? and what has become of yorktown today? there is a theme park and suburban encroachment. in kings mountain at least you can walk around unhindered.

it frightens me what has departed, and will soon depart our collective consciousness, if i can use that word and get away with it.

did i take a single picture? never, and how could you?





it is true though this. a characterization of war affects me, leads me to the site of the war, and then that actually changes me. existence wins.