Lest We Forget

warpus

Sommerswerd asked me to change this
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It's Remembrance Day

1Jt7UFx.jpg


Didn't see a thread for it

I don't have much to say, just wanted people to take some time to think about our fallen heroes, who make our materialistic lives full of freedom possible.
 
November 11 is the one thing you can count on the British and French agreeing.

In USA it is not as big an event, since we have a Spring day to honor the fallen. November 11 is for the still living. It's a good day to eat out. Many restaurants have free meals for veterans and others who served.

J
 
WW1 commemoration of the fallen is virtually non-existent in Greece. WW2 is hugely more prominent. Partly also due to WW1 Greece being by all means tactically brought into the war (afaik out of legitimate fear that Macedonia would be given to any other side in the war which was with the winners in the end), unlike in WW2 when it was neutral until Italy pretty much demanded to annex.

WW1 casualties here also were far FAR fewer, for obvious reasons (no occupation, for starters, and not direct combat with main sides of the war).

Also it was very close to other main events of war, eg the Balkan wars and the Greek-Turkish war.
 
I watched the Parliament Hill ceremonies (something I do every year). The estimate is that there were approximately 35,000 people there this year.
 
R.I.P to the veterans and special gratitude to the heroes who fought against Nazis.
 
Like I said, this day is not meant to focus on one particular war. Let's not make this political!

Sort of strange given the reason these veterans died is purely political. The pictures you went out of your way to post referred to specific wars so to try and quell any discussion about veterans in this thread if it doesn't amount to little more than "veterans are cool people" seems... counterproductive. What's the purpose of this thread? Are we here just to clap our virtual hands and move on?
 
Who's quelling discussion?

In a lot of places around the planet veterans are respectfully remembered each year. Sure, the wars they fought in were often wrapped in politics and other ideals, but that's not what's important here. What's important is the sacrifices made and that we remember the horrors of war so that they never happen again.

That's what this day is about. We can't forget. If we forget, many more will die in the future unnecessarily.
 
Who's quelling discussion?

In a lot of places around the planet veterans are respectfully remembered each year. Sure, the wars they fought in were often wrapped in politics and other ideals, but that's not what's important here. What's important is the sacrifices made and that we remember the horrors of war so that they never happen again.

That's what this day is about. We can't forget. If we forget, many more will die in the future unnecessarily.

Thus far your reply to every comment in this thread can be paraphrased to, "That's nice but I don't want to hear about that. Talk about something else." I can multi-quote them if it'd help.

Nobody in the thread has said veterans shouldn't be remembered or that they've developed amnesia about the loss of life. :dunno: It's why I asked what you want this thread to be about since anything more than simply "RIP" is getting shut down immediately.
 
Like I said, this day is not meant to focus on one particular war. Let's not make this political!
I have no intention to make this political. It would be disrespectful to those people.
Just noted that WW2 is of special importance to me.
 
I do see what you mean.

In the first instance it seemed to me that Kyriakos perhaps sees the day as revolving around WW1 - since Canada played such a large role in that conflict and a lot of our celebrations will revolve around that particular conflict and associated imagery. I didn't want him to think that the day focuses on any particular conflict as such, even if one of the images I posted spells this out - maybe he didn't read it. And I could have been wrong in my interpretation of what he meant with his post, but I did not mean sound dismissive of his points.

The second one... Someone was bound to come in here and say "and also those who fought against the Soviets" and .. well, you know where that is bound to go. The emphasis here shouldn't be "Those Nazis, they were such bad guys", it's moreso supposed to be "I hope that sort of war never happens again, look how it affected people on both sides."

Yeah, maybe I'm being a bit harsh here. I'm a bit tired today and might have misinterpreted some of the posts. Points taken.
 
I guess the problem is that some forms of honouring the war dead and living veterans, without remembering context, can fall back into the tropes of heroism and noble but worthwhile sacrifice in war that the Great War somehow failed to permanently disabuse us of.

Anyway here's a poem.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.


Rememberance Day was and always should be about the still-thwarted but relevant-as-ever sense of "never again". The worst possible thing we can do with such a solemn occasion is to sleepwalk back into allowing respect for those who fought and died to become glorification or militarism.

Lest we forget.
 
Great. It's that time of year again when everyone pretends to care about veterans and what we have done for our respective nations. Then, once the day is done, our governments and the people we fought for can go back to crapping all over us.
 
We put my grandfather in the ground today. He did not serve, despite wanting to, but he did help to convince a trio of escaped German POWs to turn themselves in.
 
Great. It's that time of year again when everyone pretends to care about veterans and what we have done for our respective nations. Then, once the day is done, our governments and the people we fought for can go back to crapping all over us.

If it makes you feel any better, I never thank veterans. They'd probably just take offense, and for all I know, they had a desk job in peacetime.

Regarding the message of "Lest we forget": I do not think that people can forget something they never learned in the first place. That is to say, those who personally experienced the suffering of war firsthand will never forget. Those who are close to someone who did might keep the lessons of war in mind a little better. But people who have never experienced it? They never learned those lessons at all. Generally speaking, each generation has to learn its own lessons because it cannot or will not learn the lessons of previous generations. I'm pretty sure that another major war will shake the world within a few decades.
 
I do see what you mean.

In the first instance it seemed to me that Kyriakos perhaps sees the day as revolving around WW1 - since Canada played such a large role in that conflict and a lot of our celebrations will revolve around that particular conflict and associated imagery. I didn't want him to think that the day focuses on any particular conflict as such, even if one of the images I posted spells this out - maybe he didn't read it. And I could have been wrong in my interpretation of what he meant with his post, but I did not mean sound dismissive of his points.

The second one... Someone was bound to come in here and say "and also those who fought against the Soviets" and .. well, you know where that is bound to go. The emphasis here shouldn't be "Those Nazis, they were such bad guys", it's moreso supposed to be "I hope that sort of war never happens again, look how it affected people on both sides."

Yeah, maybe I'm being a bit harsh here. I'm a bit tired today and might have misinterpreted some of the posts. Points taken.
World War I has a different meaning for me. The Spanish flu was literally going around the world, and my great-grandmother was one of the people who died. She left a husband and three children: my great-aunt, who was 13 and had to take over raising her younger siblings; my grandmother, who was 8 (she's the grandmother who raised me); and my great-uncle, who was still a toddler. My great-grandfather never remarried, and I've wondered over the years how things might have turned out differently if my great-grandmother had lived.
 
Remembrance is easy. Action is harder but more meaningful. What have you done to further the cause of peace today?
 
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