Armistice Day

[Fisherking]

Today marks the 91st anniversary of the end of the First World War.

It is also a day to remember Veterans past and serving.

[Monk]

It's one of those things that sorta sneaks up on you when you don't give it any thought. To think, we're getting close to a full century since the very first World War was fought. Kinda blows my mind.

[Azathoth]

Happy happy birthday!

[Samurai Waki]

And may there never be another war of it's kind again

[pevergreen]

I did my own minute of silence at 11am.

[Meneldil]

Though I hate Sarkozy with a passion, I must say his speech in Paris wasn't all that bad. And though I like Merkel, I think she was kind of going nowhere, talking about pretty much everything, after telling that she was sorry that french had to suffer because of germans... Yeah that's fine by now, we got over it, thank you.

In any case, hope this will never happen again.

[naut]

To those who served in both World Wars.

[Andres]

This is a picture I took last year of one of the many cemeteries in the surroundings of Ieper (Ypres):

While we were standing there, my wife slowly walked over to one of the gravestones. It was covered with snow. She gently whiped away the snow and looked at the name, then at the age of the fallen soldier. You need to know that my wife seldom cries, but at that moment, she had tears in her eyes when she looked back at me.

"He was just a boy," she said.

So many years later, the pure madness of World War I is still devestating.

Many of the graves were anonymous; those that were named were almost all from soldiers aged between 17 and 20.

'No war is worth the loss of a couple of lives, let alone thousands.’

If the common soldiers of each army could just get together by a river bank and talk things over calmly, no war could possibly last as long as a week.

[Fragony]

Heh was at the memorial (well it was being held) pure coincidence, friend of mine had opened a bar there on the same day. No idea so many were still alive had some great chats.


But a great opertunity to once again spam my favorite poem


Move him into the sun -
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning, and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seed -
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved - still warm - too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break [earth's]1 sleep at all?


Gets me every time.

[Hooahguy]

to those who served/

[InsaneApache]

To the fallen.

[drone]

Happy happy birthday!

[Abokasee]

2nded

It's terrible, if we had a minutes silence for every single war in the world we probably wouldn't have enough to time to write a Declaration of one.

[A Very Super Market]

Irreverence may well hide ignorance. I spent most of the day yesterday angrily arguing against remembrance, for remembrance, drawing daffodils, body piles, and other idiotic things. Yesterday, I just about did everything that could be taken as offensive on every day of the week, and I ate my poppy. It was the usual insanity, but how much meaning is it when one sits quietly for a minute and goes on with their day? We are not burdened with whatever the soldiers went through, and we have no way to emulate them. I'm sure, somewhere in the world, there is someone watching some generic war movie in commemoration, and I want to smash it apart. Are we thankful? We are not thankful, at least not the majority and as war goes on and on we grow more or less thankful at the sight of more or less war how do you think the peasants of the past dealt with the constant war and how militaristic societies developed themselves and how there are still militaristic societies today and contemplate not simply remember i remember picking my nose in grade one and so can you so what meaning does that hold none at all but that is the same meaning that war and death holds for us absolutely nothing as they do not signify advancement though they might cause it and even though some of our greatest achievements can be linked to war we simply cannot hold them in the light without mentioning oh what a shame which is bogus can we forget about the war no and i do not wish for it to be forgotten either but separation should be the key i simply cannot understand why stigma is thrown around haphazardlywithoutregardtoonesownregretandimsuretheveteransdotoandtheyregretitwhiletheystillfoughtqu ite

[tibilicus]

So many dead for such ridiculous reasons.

Such moments in history define turning points in humanity, The Great War was one of these. It showed us something of that magnitude couldn't happen again. Unfortunately it did..

[Louis VI the Fat]

Are we thankful? We are not thankful, at least not the majority and as war goes on and on we grow more or less thankful at the sight of more or less war how do you think the peasants of the past dealt with the constant war and how militaristic societies developed themselves and how there are still militaristic societies today and contemplate not simply remember i remember picking my nose in grade one and so can you so what meaning does that hold none at all but that is the same meaning that war and death holds for us absolutely nothing as they do not signify advancement though they might cause it and even though some of our greatest achievements can be linked to war we simply cannot hold them in the light without mentioning oh what a shame which is bogus can we forget about the war no and i do not wish for it to be forgotten either but separation should be the key i simply cannot understand why stigma is thrown around haphazardlywithoutregardtoonesownregretandimsuretheveteransdotoandtheyregretitwhiletheystillfoughtqu ite

I might prefer being send to the trenches over reading that sentence.

[Samurai Waki]

A Little Metallica, and Little Johnny Got his Gun.

[A Very Super Market]

What happened to French pretentiousness? It's art, I say!

[Louis VI the Fat]

What happened to French pretentiousness? It's art, I say!

Lingering frustration over Joyce beating Proust...

Stream of consciousness = another symbol of Anglo superiority typical Anglo preference for form over content. Pft.

[A Very Super Market]

I'll take a page from Duchamp and comfortably settle in here. Hopefully, no one will take the appropriate counter-action.

[Azathoth]

2nded

It's terrible, if we had a minutes silence for every single war in the world we probably wouldn't have enough to time to write a Declaration of one.

What can I say, Armistice Day is usually a pretty happy time for me.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Why does no-one take time to note the nefarious scam the Entente pulled off when they proclaimed the Armistice, which is, IIRC, legally defined as a bilateral, voluntary cessation of war in which no side declares victory or any sort of superiority? Germans agreed to much of the Fourteen points, yet in no way was it an unconditionally surrender. In fact, it was not even a surrender in many ways. Yet that is not what the Armistice was in the end, and the Treaty of Versailles did not help either, as it was a blatant example of victor's justice.


EDIT:

What can I say, Armistice Day is usually a pretty happy time for me.

Arguably, same here. Holidays the likes of these are crap due to the fact that the general mass does not hold any sort of "remembrance" nor feels any (at least not truly) empathy for the whichever victim(s) is commemorated. Instead, everyone is overjoyed to have a rare holiday from the drudgery of work. The people who actually care do not need a holiday.

Not to mention, there is far too much tragedy in this world. Too many renowned men undercut in their prime. Too many common men killed. Why does one man/group deserve a holiday and others do not? Then there is the unapologetic Western bias of such holidays, which are purported at times to represent all of humanity, yet the message is skewed by the method of delivery... I know I am making the issue more complex than it should be, but nevertheless, such overtly sentimental displays make me nauseous...

And the meaningless post spam repeating the same brief message. Oh ya, a few bytes of text are really gonna make a difference for the masses of long-dead soldiers... [/rant]

[Reverend Joe]

Someone posted "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" in a music thread. Sounds appropriate for right now.

[Lemur]

There's something about this thread that just doesn't seem very Frontroomish. To the Backroom, away!

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Arguably, same here. Holidays the likes of these are crap due to the fact that the general mass does not hold any sort of "remembrance" nor feels any (at least not truly) empathy for the whichever victim(s) is commemorated.

Some people do, some people don't. People who know someone who died in a war or have relatives who know someone do for sure.

[Megas Methuselah]

I remember attending a remembrance day ceremony on First Nation reserve land when I was very, very young. My vague memories include witnessing my great-granduncle, together with a small group of other elderly First Nation veterans, marching around a pole flying the Canadian flag in the middle of the vast prairies, sorrounded by First Peoples gathered to pay their respects. They were quite elderly indeed, and in my childish mind, I could not tell whether those proud men were marching or pow wow dancing, so fragile were their bodies and weak their steps.

Yet it was these same men who, more than fifty years ago, fought together side by side with the rest of Canada's young men in a European war. The respect these First Peoples earned overseas, the bonds of friendship developed between Canadian Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals, and the horrors they witnessed, including the holocaust, began to bring an end to one of Canada's historical chapters. Laws which persecuted First Nation peoples were, ever so slowly, abolished. By 1960, most of Canada's First Nation population had finally, amongst other things, been given the basic right to vote.

I respect my great-granduncle not only for the sacrifices he made overseas, but for the rights he, together with all First Nation veterans, won for the future generations of our people. Micwach, nimishomish.