“War is Hell,” as the saying goes. Surfing in wartime?
Well, Trident is fortunate enough to not have been on the front lines of late. The front lines of an actual war at least, we certainly face surf battles with clueless kooks regularly but bravely. Nevertheless we can’t imagine war to be vanilla ice cream or cold beers on a summer afternoon or something.
Nor do we wish to make light of the suffering the horrifying scenario of war many millions have to face. War never ends. Or more specifically, one war ends and another begins. Wars often overlap each other too, just to add to the fun. Great stuff mankind. You really think humanity would’ve learned better over the last few thousand years or so. Sadly though, as Trident is wont to say, “the only thing history teaches us is that it never teaches us anything.”
So profound, all from a humble surf humour website. Anyway, let’s delve further.
Modern surfing aligns with modern war.
Modern surfing’s birth can roughly be aligned with the advent of modern war in the early twentieth century. I betcha you never thought about that unlikely parallel now, did ja? Quite odd really. Modern war being machinery and trenches, modern surfing being tanned swimmers standing on wooden boards on waves. We won’t be going into excessive detail about either as both have been covered elsewhere ad nauseaum. However, we will mention the World War 2 American GI’s in the Pacific theatre of war. No doubt they encountered some perfect tropical reef setups. Probably without knowing what pig-dogging a barrel was. But they knew about other kinds of barrels – oh yes – whether shooting from their own, or facing down an enemy’s barrel. Of a gun obviously. A barrel of beer would be far preferred.
Nevertheless, surfing was still rather niche around then.
However, the 50’s and 60s saw surfing explode. As did incendiaries, as war never ends. As we’ve said.
The Vietnam war would’ve had hundreds, if not thousands – if not more American surfers drafted into a hugely unpopular conflict. (Ed’s note: Aren’t all conflicts kinda unpopular?) Indeed, said surf-crazed draftees may have been more enthusiastic about that war if the waves of Vietnam weren’t so kak. ‘Coz, let’s face it – the surf of Vietnam is fairly kak ja. That despite the famous scenes in Apocalypse Now and the character of Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore being a surfing fanatic. Vietnam was never an uncrowded pre-1970’s Bali. And more’s the sorrow. “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” indeed.
Good waves are called bombs. Any connection there?!
Fast forward several decades, war becomes even more unpleasant. If that was even possible. Greed, twisted ideology, megalomania, the industrial military complex, bullying on an Armageddon like scale, assassinations, terrorism – all kinds of assorted large scale nastiness starts wars. Not because of conflicts like Kelly vs Andy or Futures vs FCS.
But the crazy thing is, and we’d like you, dear reader – to think about this more than we’ll actually write about it. Because even during some of the most horrific human conflicts out there, people still surf. In weird places like Lebanon, right next door to one of the most dividing conflicts in human history. In Liberia, and Sierra Leone – even in fabled Indo itself not so long ago. In Sri Lanka, in Mozambique, in Angola. Some of the world’s most wave rich regions are also some of the world’s most dangerous war zones. Or at least unstable. Or have inherent human hazards, like Australians and such.
Even in our country of course. Although the war here is basic decency and common sense versus armies of imbeciles. Who may actually be in the minority, but they certainly are the most vocal among us.
