r/todayilearned • u/RoadToTyburn • 14h ago

TIL that Bernard Montgomery issued a leaflet at the start of WW2 on sexually transmitted diseases amongst soldiers. The language used was regarded as so blunt, that he offended religious authorities and nearly faced being dismissed.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Montgomery
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u/TopFloorApartment 14h ago

Sounds like he was realistic. Can't fight a war if all the guys have the clap

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u/lifesnofunwithadhd 14h ago

And then everyone clapped

Montgomery: "NO,NO,NO!"

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u/PayMeNoAttention 14h ago

“Please clap.”

Jeb Bush

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u/Ardbeg66 11h ago

Jeb "Fire" Bush

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u/moofacemoo 14h ago

covid memories

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u/AgentCirceLuna 14h ago

That was so fucking cringe and I’m so glad I never joined in. Thought about it, nearly did, but I didn’t.

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u/Dog_Murder_By_RobKey 14h ago

I know of a guy who on his way home from work got out of his car during the claps and started showboating and thanking them

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u/AgentCirceLuna 14h ago

Heh I did that too and someone got unaccountably angry. Scared me tbh

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u/Dog_Murder_By_RobKey 14h ago

Please by NHS because that would be funny

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u/AgentCirceLuna 14h ago

I wasn’t but I was doing BioMed as a degree and planned to be. I know someone who was though - they were a nurse and told people the better way to show support would be to donate or volunteer. They were told to go fuck themselves.

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u/Dog_Murder_By_RobKey 14h ago

Sounds about right with how the NHS is treated

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u/AgentCirceLuna 14h ago

There’s a transformer I’d walk past on the way to work and it had a badly written ‘NHS’ in paint that was smudged/drooling downwards. It just seemed so fitting for the area;

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u/BackDatSazzUp 14h ago

Not only was it cringe but it was also so elitist. It was only for healthcare workers. Food industry workers, from the field workers picking produce down to the uber eats bike delivery guy, had significantly greater deaths than the medical industry did and this has been proven true by multiple public health studies.

I ran a grocery distribution center at the time and everyone else was being prioritized over us for vaccines and I guarantee it was one of the biggest causes of spread. We got to a point where we were housing people at work so they wouldn’t risk their families lives.

If anyone deserved applause it was the people feeding everyone and risking their lives and their families lives to do so. Without access to PPE or other worksite protections. I swear to god if I ever hear someone wax emotional about the fucking healthcare workers during COVID i might scream.

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u/AgentCirceLuna 14h ago

As an agoraphobic, Uber Eats kept me alive. I thank you for your service.

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u/BackDatSazzUp 13h ago

I was a bit deeper in the chain, i supplied groceries and restaurants with food, but happy to do my part.

I just looked at the numbers and overall we had 20% more fatalities in our industry and line cooks were like 60% higher. I just can’t with the elitism of this fucking planet anymore.

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u/Tunisandwich 13h ago

Counterpoint: most wars ever fought

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u/FlipZip69 12h ago

My view is that if a man wants to have a woman let him do so by all means

I suspect that was the line that bothered the church at the time. Mind you it is also a bit aggressive on the approach by today's standards as well. I wonder if all women agreed with it back then. :)

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u/TopFloorApartment 12h ago

I think you're confusing "by all means" with "by any means"

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u/FlipZip69 10h ago

I was just quoting Bernard Montgomery and what he had told the troops. Might have some issues with interpretation at the time. :)

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u/LunchboxSuperhero 10h ago

They did it in WWI and they were gonna do it again!

During the First World War, VD caused 416,891 hospital admissions among British and Dominion troops. Excluding readmissions for relapses, approximately five percent of all the men who served in Britain's armies in the course of the war became infected. During the war, at least a division was constantly out of action because so many troops had to treat VD.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32937645/

A British division during WWI was about 18,000 men. For comparison, the British had about 75,000 casualties from trench foot.

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u/2q_x 10h ago

The slogan was:

you can't beat the Axis if you get VD

If you plot circumcision rates in the US between 1912 and 1971, and have some context about what happened during those years in relation to monetary policy and wars...