of US marines who have to fireartillery shells without personal observationsof the mortality that they have caused and are distressingly most dire. Among the problems about which many of them will complain,is the appearance of their victims as imaginary ghosts. Catastrophes that the marines have caused but never seen drive them insane,marooned in profound mental waters, far from landlubbers’ coasts. The complications caused by current combats clearly do not differ vastlyfrom those in Hamlet’s rotten state of Denmark, where they were extremely ghastly. A few gun-crew members were eventually given diagnoses of P.T.S.D., but to the crews that didn’t make much sense.

Source: New York Times November 09, 2023 19:58 UTC