A chat with my future wife...

**Seamus Fermanagh** · 04-21-2009, 14:26

Originally Posted by Wakizashi

The only place that I've ever cried because of someone's sacrifice was when I visited the final resting place of my Grandfather at Bilibid Prison (He was in the Bataan Death March), Cell #238. He died three weeks prior to the McArthur's re-invasion.

However correct our strategic decision to abandon the Phillipines in early 1942, it is still cause for sadness. Those who we left there as an abandoned "rear guard" paid a horrific price. I am sorry for your family's loss.

**Vuk** · 04-21-2009, 16:33

We real men don't cry. We just allow ourselves to lose voluntary control of our tear glands for a few moments before reassuming control. :P

EDIT: Sorry to be so immature on such a solemn thread. :P Humor is my escape from despair. :P

**Meneldil** · 04-21-2009, 22:03

I cry not because some men gave their life for an ideal, but because some people made them think that they would make a better world by giving their life.

Honestly, when I go to Verdun, or when I watch a documentary about war, I mostly cry because I'm wistening the parangon of human stupidity and inherent evilness.
For some reason, WWI is the war that touches me the most. So many young lads sent to death for a few meters of swamp...That trully makes me sad.

Our last WWI veteran died a year ago. He was an italian immigrant, who actually had to lie about his age to enter the army at the beginning of the war. Back then, he could barely speak or write french, but wanted to fight for this country because it offered his family a roof and emboded in his opinion human rights and democracy. He still was thankful to France when he died, in march 2008.

I trully don't know how such men can keep such an enthousiasm and faith in the world after witnessing the horrors of WW1.

**Incongruous** · 04-23-2009, 07:38

I get all bent outta shape when I watch Amazing Grace, Waterloo, Letters From Iwo Jima all about sacrafice and sticking to one's guns. Conversley, when I watch the last episode of Black Adder goes Fourth, a series about men with differing views on the war, some scared of actually doing their duty and thing it is all absurd and others believeing in it and wanting to fight. But in the last several minutes they all share the same fear, but are forced over the top to certain death anyway. Vey moving.

Here it is!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ba-...eature=related

**King Kurt** · 04-23-2009, 10:02

I would echo a lot of what was said above. One of the most moving places I have ever been was Monte Cassino - you stand outside this beautiful building, on top of a mountain looking down on the valley below and in the quiet sunlight you reflect on why anybody would want to attack this place - partly because it is so serene, but mainly because you feel that it would be so incredably difficult. You then go on to consider the lives and effort expended there - for an arguebly pointless battle in a sideshow theatre. It really brings home the whole tragedy of war and its consequences.

**Samurai Waki** · 04-23-2009, 10:43

I think that (as is much my very late Grandfather's) sacrifice, wasn't usually intentionally fighting for solely his country. He was fighting to put a meal in his children's mouth, times were tough back then, better a Staff Sergeant than a Rancher's hand. He ultimately gave everything for his family, and then his country. I think that echoes more truth (and perhaps more sadness in war) than the young man who wants to claim glory for his country. Most of those men who gave their lives didn't do it for the advancement of their people, but rather the for the need of their family, whether it be a meager plate of food, or fighting to save his parents/siblings/spouse/children from the perceived threat of tyranny.

and despite all the hell that my grandfather went through at the hands of the Japanese, his cell mate (who died only a couple years ago) had said his last really insightful words were "I don't really hate them (the Japanese), I just don't like them much right now."

**Incongruous** · 04-23-2009, 11:47

Originally Posted by Wakizashi

and despite all the hell that my grandfather went through at the hands of the Japanese, his cell mate (who died only a couple years ago) had said his last really insightful words were "I don't really hate them (the Japanese), I just don't like them much right now."

That is one of the most touching things I have ever read, thank you for sharing