#are we the luckiest bastards alive to have these two working in media or what

[zingaplanet]

The double trouble blessing us with unending content: The Overlap live debate is back and out tomorrow!

This time it's just them two!

P.S. How is it possible that they're spending EVERY SINGLE DAY of this season ending week together, might I add, VOLUNTARILY?? And people say they're not obsessed with each other???

[praximeter]

Inventing idioms for fun and (no) profit

From Minka on AO3:

I do have a question tho... Is ”dash to the shed” or ”dead and straight to hell or straight to hell and dead” actually an idiom that has been used? Because that sounds legit but I couldnt find anything by googling it? (I’m sorry if this sounds rude I’m definitely not trying to be rude or offensive I’m just curious as to where you got that from)

Answering on Tumblr because I’ve gotten this question a couple times!

The quote in question comes from Bucky’s entry on May 12, 1944, when he’s talking to some greenhorn soldiers during preparation for the upcoming D-Day invasion. He gets asked what beach landings are like, and says:

“There’s only two ways you can go,” I said finally, because how do you describe it to guys who haven’t seen it for themselves? – “dead and straight to hell, or straight into hell and dead.”  

I then tacked on the following footnote to that entry:

During the Vietnam War, soldiers embarking on a patrol would often say to one another: “Time to dash to the shed, boys!”, a morbid reference to this piece of advice. “Dead And Straight to Hell” (“DASH”) or Straight to Hell And Dead” (“SHED”). The phrase has since become a common American idiom equivalent to “between a rock and a hard place.”

The answer is -- no, this is not a real idiom. I made it up for the story! I suppose it’s possible somebody somewhere said “dead and straight to hell, or straight into hell and dead” at some point but it’s nothing I came across in reading or research.

There are several other examples of quotes from The Night War becoming culturally significant, though, such as (more beneath the cut):

There are several quotations or phrases that entered the popular lexicon after the publication of The Night War. Here are six examples:

[1] “The Men in Charge Ain’t the Men Who Charge”

October 27, 1944

It’s not the guys holding the rifle that declare war, is it? I like Ike but I didn’t see him at Omaha Beach, not Patton Clark or Bradley neither. I’ve listened to a hell of a lot of fireside chats in my life but never across a campfire in a foxhole with the guy that signed my draft card. I figure it’s a pretty good bet old Adolf never defended a pillbox with Hans or Fritz and it’s a fact that Uncle Joe didn’t starve at Leningrad. Democratic fascist communist, it doesn’t make any difference—the men in charge are never the men who charge.

Footnote:

“The Men In Charge Ain’t The Men Who Charge”, a variation on this sentiment by Barnes, became a popular slogan during the height of the Vietnam War protests and appeared on signs and clothing. The phrase made a reappearance in the 2003 Iraq War protests in a slightly more modern and inclusive form, “The Ones In Charge Ain’t The Ones Who Charge.”

[2] “Hand to God you’ll be ready for krauts”

Phrases from the “Uncle Sam’s Very Favorite Draftee” song written by Private Rossi (“October 21, 1943″) are commonly quoted in basic training and throughout the armed forces, in particular the phrase “Hand to God you’ll be ready for krauts,” which is often said about hardass NCOs.

[3] Re: Mark Clark

One of the most common descriptions for General Mark Clark comes from The Night War, in particular the entry on January 27, 1944 in which Barnes quotes his friend Harry Miller, who died at Venafro:

Harry had a joke: “Infantry cry, “Home! Home! Home!”, and Clark hears “Rome! Rome! Rome!”

[4] “Somebody call Ike!”

“Somebody call Ike” was a common exclamation throughout the Korean War and the Vietnam War for moments when a soldier experienced extraordinary good luck. Though it declined in popularity after the Vietnam War, it does often appear in fictional media set during the time period. The phrase comes from another quote by Barnes’s friend Harry Miller:

In Italy Aldo Carter was always complaining about the plan failing and Harry said once, “Carter, just expect the opposite of what you want to happen, and plan for that,” and Aldo went, “and what if the opposite of what I want to happen doesn’t happen?” and Harry goes, “then somebody call Ike, you’re the luckiest bastard in Italy and you’re now in command of Fifth Army.”

[5] “Never in history has it been mothers who started a war.”

Barnes’s rumination on the role of women and mothers in warfare has oft been quoted, even in scholarly works. The phrase comes from his February 22, 1944 entry:

To think how many mothers just like her (though not as sweet or as kind—how could they be?) are doing the same thing—not just home but here in England and in France and in Russia and even in Germany—dutifully writing letters to sons who may never get them, pluck-ing those piano wires and endlessly waiting, just waiting, for it to be plucked on the other end, thousands and thousands of miles away. Never in history has it been mothers who started a war.

[6] “...It is still loud.”

Barnes’s June 7, 1944 entry, in which he describes his chaotic and overwhelmed thoughts in the aftermath of D-Day, is one of the most quoted sections of the entire book. In 1993, award-winning playwright and Vietnam War veteran Jermaine Hall incorporated the entry into a spoken word poem performed by the main character in his acclaimed play “Is Is Still Loud.”

All of us alive Steve shot in the thigh but OK somehow thank fucking Christ we are in a church with about 45 other guys the whole place quiet as Borough Park on a Friday night  just guys breathing except I think in our heads it is still loud. All any of us can possibly be hearing are the guns the 88s the way sand is under your boots when it’s red through ears ringing men screaming the buzzsaws hitting the sand like each bullet’s a lightning strike and the sand sprays up like when a guy gets hit in an artery.