[lit-ideas] Re: Just like the Marines, but much nastier
- From: David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2014 15:46:37 -0700
On Apr 8, 2014, at 2:50 PM, Lawrence Helm wrote:
> I ran across a JL sort of passage on page 6 of The Fall of the Roman Empire
> by Peter Heather:
> All the time you were being told how special you were, how special your
> friends were, what an elite force you belonged to. Just like the Marines,
> but much nastier.”
>
>
> That last sentence puzzles me. To begin with if the Roman legionairies were
> “just like the Marines” then they couldn’t be “much nastier.” Secondly, why
> is this British historian writing about the American Marines? Or is he? Do
> the British Marines have a reputation like the Americans? I hadn’t heard
> that. Lastly, upon what does he base a conclusion that the Roman
> legionnaires were nastier than the American Marines?
>
I can tell you only that in graduate school I knew a colonel in the American
Marines who went out of his way to explain to me how much he admired the Royal
Marines. Could be that he was merely being polite, but he did say it on
several occasions. I said I knew very little about them.
By nastier I wonder if he's talking about war when there was no code of conduct
and it was, for example, O.K. to garrote, disembowel, etc. prisoners?
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
Other related posts:
