[video]

[velocette]

[Not much bothers him, and he doesn't seem distraught now either...but some of the "amused behind the glass" aspect has vanished.]

Bleu is in a coma. I don't know if she has any friends. Or enemies, or anyone else who'd care, on board--but if she does, you have a right to know.

If she does have enemies, well, she's not being left unguarded, so no one do anything heroic or stupid.



[Private to Harvey]

Where are you?

Comments

[punched_hitler]

[He laughs, softly, although it's not necessarily because he finds that funny so much as true.] Yeah. It is.

But those of us that try to be decent heroes never seem to mind. [He gets the feeling you understand, so he says it like he's including you in that statement - because he is.]

I guess the only thing for it is to pick yourself up and keep going. Stick to what you believe in, and people will either respect that, or they won't. But at least you'll be able to respect yourself.

[velocette]

[He smiles; there's a mental stack up of traits that he personally considers 'decent' (never such black and white terms as 'good' or 'bad'). He's adding a few, these days.]

Maybe it's a symptom of my war being unpopular, of the soldiers mostly being dragged from home and made to fight, but even the officers who came back don't bring back their beliefs. Maybe they'll find them again, find new ones, but I guess I never thought of your time as being all that different to mine. I think I was wrong.

Honestly, does it seem very different to you than it was?

[punched_hitler]

[He thinks for a minute - specifically about the guys he's talked to, that fought in your war. The thing is... he rarely talks to any of them about the war. Most of them refuse to talk about it altogether, and he respects that choice.]

I guess it depends. I think it's more the people than the time, you know?

We had a draft, too. I met plenty of guys who didn't want to be someplace I signed away my life just for a chance to get to. And I've met plenty of guys, since, who were never the same.

But I don't think anyone that comes back from a war is ever really the same. I think that's the hardest part for the rest of the world to understand. And I think that's stayed the same, whether you're talking 1945 or 2014.

[velocette]

[He's quiet a moment.]

After the liberation of Auschwitz, Dachau, I think everyone in my generation assumes that you all knew at the beginning what the Nazis were doing. But you didn't at first, no one really did, did they? There are protests and often they turn violent over Vietnam...no one ever talks about the opposition to your War. In fact it's been polished up so much that unless you really dig, you'd never know that our side made mistakes, too.

But I think you're right...some bits are always the same through history. People break the same ways, no matter that year it is.

...I suppose some of them heal the same way, too.

[punched_hitler]

[He shakes his head - and he doesn't look happy about it.] No. We didn't. All we knew was that the Nazis seemed intent on bullying their way across Europe, and the Japanese didn't seem much better on the other side of things.

We had plenty of people who disagreed. But I guess that's America, isn't it? People have the right to disagree, and be heard about it. [He can respect that, even if he wasn't one of them.] But either way... we made plenty of mistakes.

[He made plenty of them, too.]

Maybe that's just what makes us human, in a way. The way we break, and the way we can be put back together. Although... [He smiles, but it's not got much mirth.] There was a lot we didn't talk about, in my - uh, day. A lot that I think got glossed over, or misunderstood. I think that's gotten better, and that's a good thing.

[Even if he hasn't quite caught up on that, because while he understands things like PTSD, logically... he still thinks about them a little differently.]