I was chatting with a WW2 guy once about Guadalcanal. I asked him what he knew about the campaign as a whole.

"I was there, dammit!" he said.

I tactfully made the point that he was just a very small part of a big campaign and that it probably wasn't until 25 years later on TV documentaries that he learned anything more than scuttlebut about the campaign as a whole.

After giving a moment's though, he agreed with me. "Never looked at it that way," he said. "You're probably right. Huh."

One of Napoleon's troops was once asked what he saw in Russia. "The pack of the guy in front of me," he replied.

Has it occurred to any of you that we, the home front, learn more about what's going on in the field faster than the troops that are actually on scene these days?

WE have more info than thr troops!

I'd just bet that guys from our various wars (Since WW2) have learned more about what they had done long after the fact because of TV, the internet etc.

Just another Piccolo comment.

Yup, I was on a ship that was involved in bombing Libya back in the mid 80's.  Some of the F14TARPS had some really neat video of the attacks.  Our CO told the ships personnel he was going to get permission from Washington to show us some of these videos on the ships TV station.  He told us, several days later, that the video was classified and we couldn't see them.  A few weeks later the ships TV station got video through AFRTS, showing these videos being broadcast to the public at large.  Our CO was so pissed that the general public was getting this stuff before even the people involved.  The rest of the cruise we got first shot at all videos.  Karl.

Yup.  same deal in the gulf.  We didn't see any of the "cool" TV stuff that everyone was seeing back home.  didn't know where we were going, and were only told that we would problably take some casualties.  Well...  turns out we didn't even get any wounded (just barely, Thank GOD).  The nice thing about being in a blackhawk helo alot is you do get to see some stuff...