五千年(敝帚自珍)

主题:【原创】老兵们永远不会死,他们只是随风消逝 -- 萨苏

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        • 家园 燕兄教训的是!确实不应该因人废言。只是这篇演讲有些不同,

          这个演讲是他在1951年4月19日被解职后在国会大厦发表的《老兵不死》,当时他是因为在朝鲜战争中的一系列的失败的军事及政治行动受到解职并调查时作的这个演讲。

          用这句话的人很多,只是不知道有多少人看过原文。我贴一下,没时间翻译了,回头再说吧。

          文章很好,被视为名篇。只是文中对中国的态度确实有商榷之处。而且充满了自怨自艾和自我辩解的东西,如果只用一句话而不及其余的话,个人觉得不是很妥当。

          Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, and Distinguished Members of the Congress:

          I stand on this rostrum with a sense of deep humility and great pride - humility in the wake of those great architects of our history who have stood here before me, pride in the reflection that this home of legislative debate represents human liberty in the purest form yet devised.

          Here are centered the hopes and aspirations and faith of the entire human race.

          I do not stand here as advocate for any partisan cause, for the issues are fundamental and reach quite beyond the realm of partisan considerations. They must be resolved on the highest plane of national interest if our course is to prove sound and our future protected.

          I trust, therefore, that you will do me the justice of receiving that which I have to say as solely expressing the considered viewpoint of a fellow American.

          I address you with neither rancor nor bitterness in the fading twilight of life, with but one purpose in mind: to serve my country.

          The issues are global, and so interlocked that to consider the problems of one sector oblivious to those of another is to court disaster for the whole. While Asia is commonly referred to as the gateway to Europe, it is no less true that Europe is the gateway to Asia, and the broad influence of the one cannot fail to have its impact upon the other.

          There are those who claim our strength is inadequate to protect on both fronts, that we cannot divide our effort. I can think of no greater expression of defeatism.

          If a potential enemy can divide his strength on two fronts, it is for us to counter his efforts. The Communist threat is a global one. Its successful advance in one sector threatens the destruction of every other sector. You cannot appease or otherwise surrender to communism in Asia without simultaneously undermining our efforts to halt its advance in Europe.

          Beyond pointing out these general truisms, I shall confine my discussion to the general areas of Asia...

          While I was not consulted prior to the President's decision to intervene in support of the Republic of Korea, that decision, from a military standpoint, proved a sound one.

          As I say, it proved a sound one, as we hurled back the invader and decimated his forces. Our victory was complete, and our objectives within reach, when Red China intervened with numerically superior ground forces.

          This created a new war and an entirely new situation, a situation not contemplated when our forces were committed against the North Korean invaders; a situation which called for new decisions in the diplomatic sphere to permit the realistic adjustment of military strategy. Such decisions have not been forthcoming.

          While no man in his right mind would advocate sending our ground forces into continental China, and such was never given a thought, the new situation did urgently demand a drastic revision of strategic planning if our political aim was to defeat this new enemy as we had defeated the old.

          Apart from the military need, as I saw it, to neutralize the sanctuary protection given the enemy north of the Yalu, I felt that military necessity in the conduct of the war made necessary --

          (1) The intensification of our economic blockade against China.

          (2) The imposition of a naval blockade against the China coast.

          (3) Removal of restrictions on air reconnaissance of China's coastal area and of Manchuria.(指满洲国)

          (4) Removal of restrictions on the forces of the republic of China on Formosa,(台湾) with logistical support to contribute to their effective operations against the [COLOR=blue]Chinese mainland. [/COLOR]

          For entertaining these views, all professionally designed to support our forces committed to Korea and to bring hostilities to an end with the least possible delay and at a saving of countless American and Allied lives, I have been severely criticized in lay circles, principally abroad, despite my understanding that from a military standpoint the above views have been fully shared in the past by practically every military leader concerned with the Korean campaign, including our own Joint Chiefs of Staff.

          I called for reinforcements, but was informed that reinforcements were not available.

          I made clear that if not permitted to destroy the enemy built-up bases north of the Yalu, if not permitted to utilize the friendly Chinese force of some six hundred thousand men on Formosa(台湾), if not permitted to blockade the China coast to prevent the Chinese Reds from getting succor from without, and if there were to be no hope of major reinforcements, the position of the command from the military standpoint forbade victory.

          We could hold in Korea by constant maneuver and at an approximate area where our supply-line advantages were in balance with the supply-line disadvantages of the enemy, but we could hope at best for only an indecisive campaign with its terrible and constant attrition upon our forces if the enemy utilized his full military potential.

          I have constantly called for the new political decisions essential to a solution.

          Efforts have been made to distort my position. It has been said in effect that I was a warmonger. Nothing could be further from the truth.

          I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting.

          I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.

          Indeed, on the second day of September, 1945, just following the surrender of the Japanese nation on the battleship Missouri, I formally cautioned as follows: "Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods through the ages have been attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between nations. From the very start workable methods were found in so far as individual citizens were concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger international scope have never been successful.

          "Military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war now blocks out this alternative. We have had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system, our Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence, an improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature, and all material and cultural developments of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh." But once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War's very object is victory, not prolonged indecision.

          In war there is no substitute for victory.

          There are some who for varying reasons would appease Red China. They are blind to history's clear lesson, for history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war. It points to no single instance where this end has justified that means, where appeasement had led to more than a sham peace.

          我回头会把全文翻译出来,但是以上我标出来的东西应该可以说明这篇文章的目的以及作者对中国看法了,别的地方用他的话也就罢了,但是纪念抗美援朝的士兵用他的话是不是合适?个人感觉可能需要斟酌一下?当然只是我个人的想法罢了。

          • 家园 原文我没读过,谢谢侯爷。

            译文的全文我是读过的。

            老萨收集那些回忆录,抗日的老兵故事多些,志愿军的不多。前面的抗日故事,引老麦似无不妥,后面的抗美援朝要是也引述这句话,则是有些反讽的意味,容易让人觉得是在挖苦老麦,反而把怀念志愿军英烈的意义给冲淡了。

            • 家园 燕兄这么叫岂不是折杀我了!使不得,使不得!

              您如果有中文的翻译件能不能就帮忙贴一下,我在网上找不着中文的,才贴了英文的。如果您有中文的我就不用翻译了。

              水平太低怕吓坏了大伙。

              • 家园 都封了侯了,还怕啥呀?

                我看的是台湾出的繁体字竖排版的《麦克阿瑟将军传》,里面自然是竭尽阿谀之能的吹捧,这句话因为早有所闻,所以还记得,当时他的这个长篇讲话可是没心情看完,一目十行掠过。

          • 家园 演讲的下半段,发贴有字数限制,分开了!

            Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only alternative. Why, my soldiers asked of me, surrender military advantages to an enemy in the field? I could not answer.

            Some may say to avoid spread of the conflict into an all-out war with China. Others, to avoid Soviet intervention. Neither explanation seems valid, for China is already engaging with the maximum power it can commit, and the Soviet will not necessarily mesh its actions with our moves. Like a cobra, any new enemy will more likely strike whenever it feels that the relativity in military or other potential is in its favor on a worldwide basis.

            The tragedy of Korea is further heightened by the fact that its military action is confined to its territorial limits. It condemns that nation, which it is our purpose to save, to suffer the devastating impact of full naval and air bombardment while the enemy's sanctuaries are fully protected from such attack and devastation.

            Of the nations of the world, Korea alone, up to now, is the sole one which has risked its all against communism. The magnificence of the courage and fortitude of the Korean people defies description. They have chosen to risk death rather than slavery. Their last words to me were: "Don't scuttle the Pacific."

            I have just left your fighting sons in Korea. They have met all tests there, and I can report to you without reservation that they are splendid in every way.

            It was my constant effort to preserve them and end this savage conflict honorably and with the least loss of time and a minimum sacrifice of life. Its growing bloodshed has caused me the deepest anguish and anxiety. Those gallant men will remain often in my thoughts and in my prayers always.

            I am closing my fifty-two years of military service. When I joined the army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all my boyish hopes and dreams.

            The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barracks ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

            And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Good-by.

    • 家园 热爱我们的军人们!!
    • 家园 出书吧!一定买!还要传给儿子看!
    • 家园 老麦这话本来是好的

      可自从水木上有个家伙说孙元良(这老头儿还赢得了长腿将军、飞将军等一系列……荣誉称号,还是让我们对其命硬表示一下尊敬吧)的时候把这话改成

      Old soldier never die, he just run away.(原文是fade away)之后,我就觉得这个话味道变了,唉。

      还是献花给老兵们!

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