Incredible investments of time, energy, expertise, money, engineering, and human life were made by both Allies and Axis in the bombing war. Germany’s early bombing “blitz” on residential London led directly to development of the first cruise missile (the V-1 “flying bomb”) and the first Continental Ballistic Missile (the V-2) that revisited destruction on London late in the war. Even the first combat-used jet aircraft, in Britain the Gloucester Meteor used to bring down the V-1s and in Germany the ME 262 configured as a bomber by Hitler’s direct order, were tossed into the bombardment game. The U.S. and Britain put together huge fleets of 4 engine heavy bombers so they could wipe enormous acreage out of cities on a 24/7 basis. Infrastructure in heavily bombed areas became essentially nonexistent. The human costs were enormous. Millions of civilians killed, maimed, or rendered homeless. The bomber crews, front-line job with the shortest life expectancy of them all. The bombing war was bad-ass.
But here’s the weird thing about it. Thorough analysis of macroeconomic data, industry output, productivity, transport, materials supply, population distribution and many other factors by which military “benefits” (in terms of degrading the opponent’s efforts to wage war) can be estimated show little or no effect of bombing until the very final few weeks of the war when the outcome was a done deal in any case [1]. In other words, the incredible investment of money, materials, and human lives made absolutely no meaningful difference. The war didn’t end sooner. Weapons production didn’t suffer. The body counts certainly went up, but everybody of marginally fighting age were out of the cities fighting the slogging infantry and armor battles. The taxpayers and the young people sent to war in their name bought nothing but death via “strategic” bombing.
This kind of threshold—where resources are available and expended, but yield no beneficial return—is a constant concern in patients (like me) who have terminal malignancies but at least a little time left in this life. The easiest path for the decision team—patient, family, doctors—is almost always to pursue some medical intervention. The patient has hope, the family is content that “something is being done”, and the docs are practicing medicine. It’s a win/win/win until you step back and look at the big picture. Which has a fat bull’s eye right where the “action to no effect” threshold sits.
I was in and out of the hospital for the past month or so, largely in recovery from the “side effects” of chemotherapy. When I was at my very sickest (is that a word?) a couple of weeks ago, I really thought I was too weak to continue. I started debating with the doctors whether we had reached me zero return point. I was actually quite surprised—and encouraged—by their insistence that we weren’t close. Their perspective was consistent with their prior thinking—that I could buy enough good time by investing in the chemotherapy. That we weren’t wasting time, money, expertise, or even my discomfort. We were still getting good returns.
What sold me, frankly, was the few days I had between getting out of the hospital after recovering from the first round of chemo and going back in yesterday for the second. I actually felt really good. Pain low, discomfort low, fluid leakage low, bleeding stopped. The only bummer was in an effort to replace my feeding tube hardware. It turned out the surgeon couldn’t slip the replacement copy down my throat—there is some kind of “blockage” grown into my throat. The surgeon says he can’t tell what it is—could be scar tissue, could be tumor, either way it precluded full replacement of the feeding infrastructure. But they replaced my Lowe’s plumbing with a more official looking medical tube kit, and the inner structure is functioning fine, so everybody’s happy.
Especially me. At least for the moment. If this round of chemo hammers me as hard as the prior, I may change my mind again. I was a really, really hurtin’ dude. Those of you to whom I owe email or other communications, I truly appreciate your patience. Your messages are each a dose of medicine at least as effective as any of my many pharmaceuticals. I love you all, and I’m glad you’re here for me. I’m fighting to be here as long as possible. Live ‘em while you got ‘em, because they are NOT forever. Thanks, everyone!
PS—now that I’m home perched on my hospital-style bed in front of the TV, I’m realizing again the primary benefit of working to get enough calories in to restore some of my former weight. The incentive is the pain in my butt when I’m sitting down. For nearly 6 decades, my hip skeleton was well cushioned by layers of lipid. Now they’re cushioned by nothing. Zip. Zero. Ouch. Over and out for this week, my friends!
[1] Overy, Richard. 2013. The Bombing War. Allen Lane, London. At Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Bombing-War-Europe-1939-1945/dp/0713995610/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409436011&sr=1-1&keywords=the+bombing+war
I’m giving you the citation for the UK edition of Overy’s monumental study. His US publisher cut nearly a third out of the book by excising the analysis of Axis bombing. I figure if you’re gonna make the investment to get through a honking encyclopedia like this, you might as well go all the way. If you prefer the more slim and trim version, it’ll come up when you punch into Amazon.
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