Member Review The Red Badge of Courage

I found it hard to read, not so much due to it being a"downer," but the dialogue seemed a bit too much. Modern attempts to get a dialect on paper err on the side of "less is more." The guy who really brings me down is Ambrose Bierce.
The one that really cracks me up is the soldier near the end reproducing the officer´s stuffed shirt dialogue: ¨Ahem... Ahem... Who was that young soldier..." etc. Less than successfully reproduced in the Audie Murphy movie, but I´ll give them a tip of the hat for trying.
This is my very favorite piece of writing in the book, that always comes to mind whenever I think of ¨The Red Badge of Courage:¨ ¨There was rustling and muttering among the men. They displayed a feverish desire to have every possible cartridge ready to their hands. The boxes were pulled around into various positions, and adjusted with great care. It was as if seven hundred new bonnets were being tried on.¨ Like reenactors at a powder burner.
 
Thanks [Bruce Vail] for the reference to the "Real Clear History" reference, nice short essay... In many annotated editions of the Red Badge of Courage are both essays and historical perspectives of the work... For a full book on the subject see Perry Lentz's Private Fleming at Chancellorsville; The Red Badge of Courage and the Civil War (2006, University of Missouri Press)... G...
 
Wow. That is so interesting!
I assume everyone knew that Bill Mauldin was also in the movie and a good friend of Audie Murphy. Bill also produced the “Willie and Joe” cartoons for the Stars and Stripes newspaper and won a Pulitzer Prize.
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The above cartoon is one of my favorites.
 
The one that really cracks me up is the soldier near the end reproducing the officer´s stuffed shirt dialogue: ¨Ahem... Ahem... Who was that young soldier..." etc. Less than successfully reproduced in the Audie Murphy movie, but I´ll give them a tip of the hat for trying.
This is my very favorite piece of writing in the book, that always comes to mind whenever I think of ¨The Red Badge of Courage:¨ ¨There was rustling and muttering among the men. They displayed a feverish desire to have every possible cartridge ready to their hands. The boxes were pulled around into various positions, and adjusted with great care. It was as if seven hundred new bonnets were being tried on.¨ Like reenactors at a powder burner.
Yeah, Crane almost gets credit for inventing the modern novel, and much of it is good. As a kid I had the Classics Illustrated version of it, and since the second part of the comic dealt with Reconstruction I told my parents this: "There were two Civil Wars. The North won the first one and we won the second." My dad probably rolled his eyes, but I do remember he let me know I got it wrong.
 
I assume everyone knew that Bill Mauldin was also in the movie and a good friend of Audie Murphy. Bill also produced the “Willie and Joe” cartoons for the Stars and Stripes newspaper and won a Pulitzer Prize.
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The above cartoon is one of my favorites.
My grandmother's book case had this in it, as well as Sad Sack, and I spent many an hour with both of them. One of my favorites is when Willie and Joe had a pistol pointed at a rat, with the caption, "Careful Joe, sometimes they charges when they're wounded."
 
One of my favorites is when Willie and Joe . . .
I have an original copy of the book”This darn tree leaks”.

This is one of my favorite that reflects the Italian Campaign.

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BTW, every enlisted Italian Army soldier had a star on his collar representing the King of Italy.
 
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I have an original copy of the book”This darn tree leaks”.

This is one of my favorite that reflects the Italian Campaign.

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BTW, every enlisted Italian Army soldier had a star on his collar representing the King of Italy.
Glad y’all mentioned Bill Mauldin....I have one of Daddy’s favorite books that his sister inscribed to him after he got home the from Pacific:

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I never really looked at it until right now. It is wonderful! This one cracked me up 😂😂:
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Glad y’all mentioned Bill Mauldin....I have one of Daddy’s favorite books that his sister inscribed to him after he got home the from Pacific:

View attachment 399544
I never really looked at it until right now. It is wonderful! This one cracked me up 😂😂:
View attachment 399545
@farrargirl, do you mean the Pacific during WWII? My dad was a pharmacist's mate on the USS Crescent City. One of their assignments was at Guadalcanal in August of 1942.
 
Glad y’all mentioned Bill Mauldin....I have one of Daddy’s favorite books that his sister inscribed to him after he got home the from Pacific:

View attachment 399544
I never really looked at it until right now. It is wonderful! This one cracked me up 😂😂:
View attachment 399545
My copy came from my father as well - very humorous cartoons and interesting narrative. Though some of his cartoons predated, most Willie and Joe cartoons were printed in the Stars and Stripes soldiers paper. Have to believe Mauldin made quite a contribution to the soldier's morale. Perhaps unsuprisingly, General George S. Patton called him an "unpatriotic anarchist" for his cartoons as they didn't show appropriate levels of 'spit and polish'. Patton wanted to ban Stars and Stripes from his command, but General Eisenhower instructed Patton to leave Mauldin alone; he felt the cartoons gave the soldiers an outlet for their frustrations. "Stars and Stripes is the soldiers' paper," he told him, "and we won't interfere."

In addition to 'Up Front' there is this compendium: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002DMJTZA/?tag=civilwartalkc-20
 
Glad y’all mentioned Bill Mauldin....I have one of Daddy’s favorite books that his sister inscribed to him after he got home the from Pacific:

View attachment 399544
I never really looked at it until right now. It is wonderful! This one cracked me up 😂😂:
View attachment 399545
Our HS had a copy on the shelves. I memorized every caption when I was 15...
 
Have to believe Mauldin made quite a contribution to the soldier's morale. Perhaps unsuprisingly, General George S. Patton called him an "unpatriotic anarchist" for his cartoons as they didn't show appropriate levels of 'spit and polish'. Patton wanted to ban Stars and Stripes from his command, but General Eisenhower instructed Patton to leave Mauldin alone; he felt the cartoons gave the soldiers an outlet for their frustrations.
Cool. The Museum for the 45th Infantry Division is located in Oklahoma City (I think I got it right). Its been 30 years since Ive been there but it has a room (or wing) dedicated to Bill Mauldin— his life, his art and his books.
 
Cool. The Museum for the 45th Infantry Division is located in Oklahoma City (I think I got it right). Its been 30 years since Ive been there but it has a room (or wing) dedicated to Bill Mauldin— his life, his art and his books.
Good to know about this - thanks! Shows the regard he was held in. If I'm ever in OK city I'll check it out.
While morale is not quantifiable in hard numbers and statistics, morale is a huge factor in attitude and performance. Mauldin's contributions in this regard were immensely positive and possibly as or more important to the troops than other discussion points that receive more attention.

As an aside, when watching Hollywood movies with veterans in these roles, after what they'd seen and been through I've often wondered how they felt about and approached their roles in military movies.
 
@farrargirl, do you mean the Pacific during WWII? My dad was a pharmacist's mate on the USS Crescent City. One of their assignments was at Guadalcanal in August of 1942.
Yep. The good ole WWll. He was sooo proud of serving. He was with the 13th Army Air Force . 44th Squadron, and was primarily in Luzon, New Guines,Manila, Philippines until the war was over.
Shamelessly, I will post this pic of him in New Guinea 😁....
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I sure do miss him...
 
My copy came from my father as well - very humorous cartoons and interesting narrative. Though some of his cartoons predated, most Willie and Joe cartoons were printed in the Stars and Stripes soldiers paper. Have to believe Mauldin made quite a contribution to the soldier's morale. Perhaps unsuprisingly, General George S. Patton called him an "unpatriotic anarchist" for his cartoons as they didn't show appropriate levels of 'spit and polish'. Patton wanted to ban Stars and Stripes from his command, but General Eisenhower instructed Patton to leave Mauldin alone; he felt the cartoons gave the soldiers an outlet for their frustrations. "Stars and Stripes is the soldiers' paper," he told him, "and we won't interfere."

In addition to 'Up Front' there is this compendium: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002DMJTZA/?tag=civilwartalkc-20
Great background! Thank goodness old Ike understood the invaluable contribution of humor in a war zone.
 
Crane listened to the veterans but as noted he had no personal experience himself. He did have college football tho. He based the dialogue on many of the young men he knew who played the game, teammates, braggers, quiet ones, not wanting to embarrass themselves or let a teammate down. He combined the two different but similar two things very well
 
Crane listened to the veterans but as noted he had no personal experience himself. He did have college football tho. He based the dialogue on many of the young men he knew who played the game, teammates, braggers, quiet ones, not wanting to embarrass themselves or let a teammate down. He combined the two different but similar two things very well
Crane was a war correspondent during two very vicious conflicts, so he did have first hand knowledge of the horrors of war.
 
I watched the movie before I read the book and loved it! Audie Murphy became one of my new favorite actors. The movie was pretty short though, and the book helped explain some things!
This was yet another case of a film being ruined by studio heads who took the product away from its maker (in this case director John Houston) and re-cutting or editing it to fit a time slot or other usually inappropriate motives. As I recall reading somewhere, it was thought it would be a flop anyway, so shorten it so it would fit on a bill as half of a double feature.
 
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