Battle-scarred skull found at Culloden

[figheadair]

From today's BC Website - Battle-scarred skull found at Culloden 3D scanned.

In all the romanticisation of the '45 and similar events it's often easy to forget the reality of events on individuals of the period.

[James Hood]

The horror which was Culloden is depicted in haunting nano-view by that skull. Thank you for the link.

Lifelong experience and study of history leaves in this soul, NO doubt, NO battle has ANY romance associated with its beyond-horrific actuality.

Whether one treads the hallowed ground of Gettysburg; grips the periscope handles of USS Cobia in its museum-setting; touches The Wall and reads the names; views the cliffs of Dover, imagining Luftwaffe bombers coming to England and young men scrambling into cockpits of Hurricanes and Spitfires to stop them; touches a sword used by a Scots Grey at Waterloo; shudders at a photo of Tommies in a WW I trench; sees an Afghanistan vet with an artificial limb; steps on the stones of Fort St. Elmo, "feeling" with the Knights of St. John, that desperate summer of 1565...

...or still lives with their own personal memories of "those times"...

...there is no "romance," there.

Recommended reading: The Face Of Battle, John Keegan
The Universal Soldier, Windrow, Wilkinson and Embleton

Eternal honour, prayers and thanks to all who served in the cause of freedom.

[Profane James]

Well said sir.

[figheadair]

Keegan's The Face of Battle is truly an excellent read, as is his Mark of Command.

[tripleblessed]

My family has a long tradition of serving, but not talking about it. At nine or ten I read a history of the US Marine
Corps, and thought for a while that's where I'd serve. With continued reading, and a concerted unwillingness of
my relatives to share much, I realized it wasn't about glory. Service, sacrifice, honor, standing up for your beliefs,
yes. Glory, not so much. Nam changed my understanding completely, and the stories I got doing counseling and
healing with those that got back to the world but didn't quite make it home were horrific. All too often I was seeing
their memories before they told them, and no one should be asked to go where they had been.

My cousin Billy never was willing to talk about how he got his three silver Stars, Six Bronze Stars (with V), purple
hearts, or the rest on his chest. What was apparent was that he was regularly visited by the kids he wasn't able
to send back home to their mothers, and those memories ate him up. He kept thinking he should found a way
to save them. Agent Orange finally gave him relief.

[SeumasA]

...or still lives with their own personal memories of "those times"...

...there is no "romance," there.

Recommended reading: The Face Of Battle, John Keegan
The Universal Soldier, Windrow, Wilkinson and Embleton

Eternal honour, prayers and thanks to all who served in the cause of freedom.

You're absolutely right that there is no romance. Sadly, I learned first-hand as a boy that it's not just individuals who suffer from post-traumatic stress. Many times it's the entire family that suffers.