How and why wars are lied about
Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2026 10:06 pm
I’m from a military family.
Both my grandfathers fought and were wounded in WW1.
My father and two Uncles fought in WW2.
I grew up on army camps.
In my early adolescence I hung out with young soldiers and regularly engaged in serious alcohol-drinking sessions with them.
Most of these soldiers served in combat situations while I knew them.
I also served in the Cadets and so did specialised ‘arduous training’ exercises (mock battle training), etc.
What has that got to do with anything? As it is neither a unique nor unusual background.
Why its relevant is that I have first-hand experience of soldier mentality.
Also I’ve been witness to stuff that comes out and is said from combat-experienced soldiers while under the effect of alcohol.
I have also known and heard long narrations from those they were in combat against!
This site is mostly about discussing a particular, huge, world war and people's experiences during it.
If you didn’t already know it, learn this:
people routinely LIE about their ‘war’ experiences, for NUMEROUS REASONS!!
If they were civilians and see themselves as victims then their tales are NOT up for being debated or cross-examined.
If they were involved in combat (or not) they might lie for just bravado / bragging!
They might lie to cover for crimes or cowardice!
In most cases it is usually to make their ordeals and actions seem better, more dangerous, than they actually were.
In my experience decent, honest people DO NOT brag about war. They usually don’t like to talk about it.
Often its the one’s who have questionable motives who do the most talking!
Also… in case there are some here who didn’t already know this, get ready for this revelation:
governments and military High Command also ROUTINELY LIE about wars and battles!!!!
They do it to protect reputations of friends, colleagues, brothers-in-arms, their regiments, their country; to cover up war-crimes; to create ‘heroes’ for their gullible publics; and to hide mistakes, errors, stupid or wicked decisions and actions.
I feel like this is worth saying as so many posts and comments here do not seem to be taking this reality into consideration.
Here’s just one relatively recent example: UK’s war to retain possession of some tiny islands thousand’s of miles away that OBVIOUSLY don’t belong them.
Both my grandfathers fought and were wounded in WW1.
My father and two Uncles fought in WW2.
I grew up on army camps.
In my early adolescence I hung out with young soldiers and regularly engaged in serious alcohol-drinking sessions with them.
Most of these soldiers served in combat situations while I knew them.
I also served in the Cadets and so did specialised ‘arduous training’ exercises (mock battle training), etc.
What has that got to do with anything? As it is neither a unique nor unusual background.
Why its relevant is that I have first-hand experience of soldier mentality.
Also I’ve been witness to stuff that comes out and is said from combat-experienced soldiers while under the effect of alcohol.
I have also known and heard long narrations from those they were in combat against!
This site is mostly about discussing a particular, huge, world war and people's experiences during it.
If you didn’t already know it, learn this:
people routinely LIE about their ‘war’ experiences, for NUMEROUS REASONS!!
If they were civilians and see themselves as victims then their tales are NOT up for being debated or cross-examined.
If they were involved in combat (or not) they might lie for just bravado / bragging!
They might lie to cover for crimes or cowardice!
In most cases it is usually to make their ordeals and actions seem better, more dangerous, than they actually were.
In my experience decent, honest people DO NOT brag about war. They usually don’t like to talk about it.
Often its the one’s who have questionable motives who do the most talking!
Also… in case there are some here who didn’t already know this, get ready for this revelation:
governments and military High Command also ROUTINELY LIE about wars and battles!!!!
They do it to protect reputations of friends, colleagues, brothers-in-arms, their regiments, their country; to cover up war-crimes; to create ‘heroes’ for their gullible publics; and to hide mistakes, errors, stupid or wicked decisions and actions.
I feel like this is worth saying as so many posts and comments here do not seem to be taking this reality into consideration.
Here’s just one relatively recent example: UK’s war to retain possession of some tiny islands thousand’s of miles away that OBVIOUSLY don’t belong them.
Not mentioned in despatches:
the history and mythology of the Battle of Goose Green
by Spencer Fitz-Gibbon.
… the British chief of the general staff himself, General Sir Edwin Bramall, sent a message to 2 Para saying: “the battalion has executed a feat of arms and gallantry probably unsurpassed in the glorious history of the British Army.”
Ten years later Field Marshal Lord Bramall reiterated his praise for 2 Para's 'heroic' victory, increasing the size of the enemy force from over ‘double' to 'quite three times 2 Para's number’ (Washington p16).
Major-General Edward Fursdon, defence correspondent of the Daily Telegraph at the time of the war, has described the battle thus:
“…having bitterly outfought successive lines of excellently prepared Argentine positions...”(Fursdon p10)
And thus has the battle for Darwin and Goose Green passed into British military history. It is certainly how it has been recorded in the post-operations reports and other army documents, and all the published accounts that I have come across.
So from the point of view of either military theory or simple curiosity, the most obvious question prompted seems to be: how on earth did 2 Para manage to win such a spectacular victory against such grave odds?
Or did they?
Was Goose Green really a 'feat of arms and gallantry probably unsurpassed in the glorious history of the British army'?
And did 2 Para really attack 'at least two, and possibly three, battalions', and outfight 'successive lines of excellently prepared Argentine positions'?
No.
Unfortunately a great deal of nonsense has been written about Goose Green.
The above statements and many more like them were grossly inaccurate, but have become accepted as fact in most quarters this side of Ascension Island.
The present study seeks to examine the battle with a more critical eye than previous published accounts and army reports have done.
…I have been told by a recent chief of the general staff, who was sent a draft of [this account], that I seemed 'to have fallen into the modern practice of wanting to decry everything'.
Sometimes one may feel that the utmost rot may be written about the British army, as long as it is complimentary rot, but that serious criticism, however strongly substantiated by thorough research, is somehow indecent.
Fortunately, however, not all military personnel are suspicious of the truth, and many if not most of the 150 people I interviewed while researching the Falklands campaign have been forthcoming with the kind of material which doesn't often find its way into official histories and reports.
One senior officer who served in the Falklands admitted to me that ever since the war he has helped maintain a facade, helped perpetuate a myth about his unit's experience for the sake of the regiment's reputation.
And one of his colleagues, eyewitness to a controversial incident during the land campaign, admitted that he has often deliberately misled researchers with half-truths. (He added that he hadn't told me any half-truths. I half believe him.)
I have also heard confessions from NCOs that they lied to their superiors when a certain event was being investigated, rather than risk their unit's reputation being sullied.
This attitude is not exclusive to 2 Para; and when it is added to the high degree of partisanship commonly displayed in writing by army officers and military historians, it is hardly surprising that researchers content with skimming the surface of that campaign have all, without fail, managed to contribute more to the inspiring annals of military legend than to history.
