Thread: Old Timey Photograph for Veterans Day

I'm three minutes late (12:03am) for Veterans Day. But, just ran into an interesting old photograph...

The caption is...

Washington, D.C., 1919. "First Division, American Expeditionary Forces. Miscellaneous views of parade." Harris & Ewing glass negative.

It's a Shorpy photograph...

Victory Parade: 1919 | Shorpy Historic Photo Archive

I enjoy these old photos.Thanks for posting.I've started some threads on vintage photos and the response was less than hoped.It seems that there isn't that much interest.

I marveled that they brought the wounded boys right down to the street on their stretchers.I was also thinking that there were more than likely a bunch of straight razors in their kits being 1919!

Originally Posted by aroliver59

... I've started some threads on vintage photos and the response was less than hoped.

I'm an "anything old" kind of person... history, geology, archaeology. The same for photographs. These Shorpy.com pictures especially, due to their unbelievable resolution, draw me in. What is that man reading? What is the man behind him looking at?

For others who aren't as "backwards" as myself, and possibly you AROliver, they're just interesting instead of fascinating? (Maybe, the difference between someone who would or would not spend a week at Smithsonian.)

Here's what this picture says to me, summarizing what I've learned about battle stress... (no battle experience, guys) ...

In WW II, they found that after a set number of hours of battle conditions, soldiers started to break down. It was almost a magic number. There didn't have to be bullets flying around. Just the possibility at any moment that a bullet might take your life. The British especially started tracking these hours and rotating troops, etc, to not push their troops over the maximum (if possible.)

Fast forward to Viet Nam. As a gross overgeneralization, with the helicopter it became much easier to insert a soldier into combat. So, guess what? This "magic number" of combat condition hours was reached much more quickly than in World War II. (Speaking generally.)

"They only have a 12 month assignment; my uncle fought for 3 years in WW II."

The statistics speak clearly to the damage caused to our soldiers by Viet Nam. And, when you think about the conditions in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, are they better?

When I look at this photograph, I think about the fact that we have asked these young men to die. And, if not die, then with few exceptions to return forever changed.

I work for the Veterans Administration by the way. And, I feel that our country is starting to take seriously these "soldiers on the street."

Shorpy is one of my favourite sites along with Pathefilms (I think that's what it's called) there you can see old trams (streetcars?) even ones run by steam! Washington DC seems to be a fascinating city.So many of Shorpy photos are from there.
Thanks for posting.