A Thank You, on the Occasion of Veteran's -- Armistice Day

[Viking]

I'll happily honour a conscript; never an enlisted man.

The wonders of pure idealism.

[HoreTore]

The wonders of pure idealism.

Pah.

You're already narrowing it down by limiting the memorial to just soldiers, and not the general populations. If you're going to narrow down the scope, you might as well narrow it down to such a scale that you don't end up celebrating a million dirtbags in the process.

I'll happily honour those soldiers who deserve to be honoured. There have been several good men. There have also been hordes of absolute scum. I'm not honouring those.


And besides - Norway was indeed "pure idealism" during ww1...

[Viking]

Pah.

You're already narrowing it down by limiting the memorial to just soldiers, and not the general populations. If you're going to narrow down the scope, you might as well narrow it down to such a scale that you don't end up celebrating a million dirtbags in the process.

I'll happily honour those soldiers who deserve to be honoured. There have been several good men. There have also been hordes of absolute scum. I'm not honouring those.


And besides - Norway was indeed "pure idealism" during ww1...

It seemed to me that you were coming from the "if everybody refused to go to war, there would be no war"-angle.

I'm not taking part in any honouring. If I do something, it's typically either because I have to do it, or because I believe it's the right thing to do - and in either case, expecting thanks becomes meaningless, and therefore I am not overly inclined to give them, either.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Pah.

You're already narrowing it down by limiting the memorial to just soldiers, and not the general populations. If you're going to narrow down the scope, you might as well narrow it down to such a scale that you don't end up celebrating a million dirtbags in the process.

You can't dig yourself out that easily. There have been all sorts of memorials, documentaries, celebrations etc over here relating to the nurses that served on the battlefields, the women who worked the factories, etc.

Why can't you just honour the bravery and sacrifice of millions of ordinary people?

[Fragony]

You can't dig yourself out that easily. There have been all sorts of memorials, documentaries, celebrations etc over here relating to the nurses that served on the battlefields, the women who worked the factories, etc.

Why can't you just honour the bravery and sacrifice of millions of ordinary people?

If you see the first for what it was, an escalation of total stupidity, it ain't that a weird position to take. Who is to blame is another matter, nobody really knows what started it really. But those who enlisted volunteered to kill, and it was kinda cool to kill, the jolly good war, you can at least call people who enlisted incredibly naive. Naivity is the best quality you can have but you are still an idiot. Horetore ain't far off if you ask me. Bit brutal, but not wrong.

[Brenus]

"There have been several good men. There have also been hordes of absolute scum." I will reverse the proportion.
The men from my village had probably the same proportion of scums, villains than other villages in deep France. By the way, villain was the names of farmers/peasants during the Middle-Ages.
I don't think they deserve your scorn/epitaph.
They were just humans beings, working in not that comfortable conditions, earning from a land made of clay and stones (due to geological factor as old glaciers just ending here and there) at the end of the 19 century start of the 20th.

They were workers, peasants and soldiers, mostly peasants.

They were not hordes, and certainly not absolute scum. Poaching would have probably the main sin of their lives.
You are pushing too far in your statement, made by arrogance. I am French, I am supposed to be a master in arrogance.
Go back to a better understanding of what is honoring the dead. It is not to say the war was good. Not to say you agree with it.

It is just a humble acknowledgement that their lives were cut short by machine-guns, artillery and then the Spanish fever.

I.... feel them, for them, when I walked in my childhood landscape because they had the same, we share this. The mist above the lakes, the river running along the hills, the trees murmuring with the wind, dragon flies flying near the surface, the sun light on the waves made by the stream and the flashing of the fishes, the wild boar crossing the snowy fields, the dear coming to drink few meters from you, you who stay still, not daring blinking. The silence of the warm night in July and the sound of the northern wind in December, the 200 years old tree that saw them, and me.
I have their DNA, some were cousins, potential ones, some could have been my grand-grand parents if the bullets had been few millimeters left or right. They are now just names on a monument, blackened by pollution, barely maintained by the town hall of a around 1000 inhabitants village.
Can't you feel their humanity?

[Kralizec]

Short war then.

Since I must apparently add three or more characters, this is a great thread with some interesting posts. WW1 is one of my favourite "chapters of history" even though my country pretty much sat on its ass during the whole ordeal.

[Tuuvi]

On honoring conscripts vs. enlisted men: I think it's a bit foolish to desire a strong state with comprehensive social programs but then look down upon those who would willingly volunteer to defend it.

When you look at the way occupied countries are treated during wartime, it's hard not to justify the desire to enlist. Even if one's government doesn't have its citizens' best interests at heart, at times it becomes necessary to defend it in order to defend your family and community.

[HoreTore]

It seemed to me that you were coming from the "if everybody refused to go to war, there would be no war"-angle.

I am a fan of that Tolstoj line, yes.

[Viking]

I am a fan of that Tolstoj line, yes.

That's the idealism. If one side is willing to fight, a logically correct line will not save anyone.

It's typically heads of states and governments that start wars, so that might be a better point of focus - not the least because there are considerably fewer heads of states around than there are soldiers.

[HoreTore]

That's the idealism. If one side is willing to fight, a logically correct line will not save anyone.

It's typically heads of states and governments that start wars, so that might be a better point of focus - not the least because there are considerably fewer heads of states around than there are soldiers.

That, however, was not Tolstoj's argument in War and Peace. Sorry for being a quote-tease, but I've searched the intertubez for the relevant section and found nothing. And I'm not going to break open that tome again.... A good read though, if you've got a decade to spare.

Anyway, I don't see where I have diverted any blame from hawkish heads of state. Would you care to point out where I have done so? Still, they could not have done so if not for the willingness of their soldiers(as Tolstoj noted).

At the end of the day, I consider a soldier to be a profession like any other. Like, say, working in advertising. And just like advertising, I see no point to their work, and I do not want it. I see them as a drain of resources better spent elsewhere, who contribute nothing of what I want.

Further, days like these do not celebrate sacrifice and losses in war. It celebrates very specific sacrifices in war. And it just so happens that the sacrifices celebrated is not one I find any point in celebrating, I see it as a simple celebration of militarism. It contributes to the aura of grandeur surrounding those in the military. The hero-worship makes it much harder to hand out proper punishment for war crimes(he's a hero, shut your mouth!).

Where is the day celebrating all those who lost their lives sabotaging the war effort in their own countries during ww1? Those are the people I would like to celebrate.

[HoreTore]

Remember Erik Gjems-Onstad, Viking. A truly despicable creature, but his war-time service has made it a lot harder for people to see what scum he was.

He awarded Benjamin Hermansens murderer, Ole Nicolai Kvisler, a large sum of money for his "contribution to maintaining racial purity in Norway".

When the bugger finally died, I saw plenty of people express their sorrow in social media, for the loss of a "great hero". A man who funds nazi murderers is a hero in this country, because he fought in a war.

I spit on his grave.

[Viking]

At the end of the day, I consider a soldier to be a profession like any other. Like, say, working in advertising. And just like advertising, I see no point to their work, and I do not want it. I see them as a drain of resources better spent elsewhere, who contribute nothing of what I want.

Theoretically, all jobs are redundant. If everybody could just behave properly and do the right things, we could get rid of the police - and the state, too.

Further, days like these do not celebrate sacrifice and losses in war. It celebrates very specific sacrifices in war. And it just so happens that the sacrifices celebrated is not one I find any point in celebrating, I see it as a simple celebration of militarism. It contributes to the aura of grandeur surrounding those in the military. The hero-worship makes it much harder to hand out proper punishment for war crimes(he's a hero, shut your mouth!).

I guess. I take issue with most kind of themed days, as they do not encourage critical thinking. "Let's have a Human Rights Day, where we feel sorry for tortured souls and good about our enlightened selves, falling asleep perhaps a shallow insight or two smarter than the day before - insights carefully selected by others".

Remember Erik Gjems-Onstad, Viking. A truly despicable creature, but his war-time service has made it a lot harder for people to see what scum he was.

He awarded Benjamin Hermansens murderer, Ole Nicolai Kvisler, a large sum of money for his "contribution to maintaining racial purity in Norway".

When the bugger finally died, I saw plenty of people express their sorrow in social media, for the loss of a "great hero". A man who funds nazi murderers is a hero in this country, because he fought in a war.

I spit on his grave.

Nothing unique. Think of aid programmes for poorer countries. Undoubtedly, they'll benefit thousands of murderers, rapists and other despicable people, while organisations and TV ads prefer to turn the entire population into suffering angels, for a moment.

[rvg]

...I spit on his grave...

A grave is indeed a worthy adversary.

[HoreTore]

I guess. I take issue with most kind of themed days, as they do not encourage critical thinking. "Let's have a Human Rights Day, where we feel sorry for tortured souls and good about our enlightened selves, falling asleep perhaps a shallow insight or two smarter than the day before - insights carefully selected by others".

Yes, this.

I don't put on pants before 3 o'clock on the 17th of May either. These days are really not my thing.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

If that makes you feel better about yourself, sure.

I consider conscription just as worthless as any other kind of service, btw. Still, the peasant conscript hordes of the Tsar did not have much of a say in their situation...

The point is not that they signed up or were conscripted, the point is that they died.

By your own accounts you were a piss-poor soldier, so maybe you didn't get the memo but soldiers don't die for flags or causes, they dies for each other and that is what Armistice Day is about. It is for the survivors to honour the fallen, those who survived are generally around because of those who didn't.

You're being a jerk, you made a nasty (yes nasty) throw away comment about all those young boys (not men) who thought they were doing the right thing a hundred years ago and died as a result. This was not a topic for debate, this was those of us who feel sympathy to express that.

You've managed to soil it and make quite a few people angry - I hope you're happy with that because I'm bleeding well not.

[rory_20_uk]

The concept of Armistice day was created by the survivors against the bombastic "celebrations" politicians liked to have who were generally a long way from the sharp end of the war - at worst.

Most soldiers join to protect their country and often are too young to realise that defensive, just wars are in the minority. But theirs is not to reason why, theirs is but to do and die.

From the comfort of my office, where the worst thing that tends to happen is a corrupt powerpoint file the least I can do is remember the sacrifice they made - not the political objective that served.

[Montmorency]

In that case, one should also mind to remember the enemy's sacrifice.

That's an idea. At least nominally, it promotes international solidarity.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

In that case, one should also mind to remember the enemy's sacrifice.

That's an idea. At least nominally, it promotes international solidarity.

My original post, if you will recall, did just that as well as what rory suggested.

[Husar]

My original post, if you will recall, did just that as well as what rory suggested.

Please don't get me wrong, I do not want to fight over this, but that is not exactly the impression I usually get from sentences like this:

Today is the day set aside by many countries, at least in the West, to honor their military veterans.

It sounds a lot like (and I think that is actually the case as well) most countries just honour their own veterans.
I rarely if ever see Americans post about how the brave Japanese signed up to sacrifice themselves for their country and how they deserve everyone's respect for that.

As someone who grew up learning how horrible his country was and who watched enough hollywood movies, I do actually have a sense of gratefulness towards Americans and that they liberated Europe from Hitler and his cronies.
As someone who learned even more, I also appreciate the efforts of Russian soldiers.
And as a German I also feel like quite a few of our soldiers died thinking they were doing the right thing.

But apart from Wehraboos, nazi-fans and Sturmfront readers one gets the impression that most Americans only care about the sacrifices of their own soldiers and maybe those of their anglo-allies. 50 years of cold war and current events seem to have eroded any support for other allies they may have had and apart from Hitler-mentions or making fun of Merkel NSA affairs, Germany seems hardly noteworthy for most, the aforementioned fringe groups excluded.

I'm aware that my perspective may be skewed as I have never been to the USA sadly, but this is the impression I get over these data tubes. It has a certain logic of course, why would people of the greatest, most just country in the world care about anyone else after all?
And I can't claim that France or even all Germans are very different.

I just find it hard to buy that most people actually care about soldiers and their sacrifice if they're not soldiers from close to home. In quite a few cases they might rather worship their own war criminals than care about a guy from farther away who only had good intentions when he signed up. I won't mind if you prove me wrong as I don't think I painted a nice picture here.

[rory_20_uk]

I think you're right. We all care about those that defend us and ours, not really that bothered about those, who at the end of the day were actively trying to kill our ancestors.

And the victors were always the good guys as they write the histories - why the Nazis are treated so much worse than the Soviets whose acts of genocide were pretty close and Bomber Harris got lauded for his acts and not damned for removing the armour plating from the bombers and of course carpet bombing non-military targets.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Please don't get me wrong, I do not want to fight over this, but that is not exactly the impression I usually get from sentences like this:

It sounds a lot like (and I think that is actually the case as well) most countries just honour their own veterans.
I rarely if ever see Americans post about how the brave Japanese signed up to sacrifice themselves for their country and how they deserve everyone's respect for that.

As someone who grew up learning how horrible his country was and who watched enough hollywood movies, I do actually have a sense of gratefulness towards Americans and that they liberated Europe from Hitler and his cronies.
As someone who learned even more, I also appreciate the efforts of Russian soldiers.
And as a German I also feel like quite a few of our soldiers died thinking they were doing the right thing....

I tried to include one of the German poems of that era (and would have posted a link in German had one been forwarded to me) so as to NOT make it an exclusively US or even "allied" attitude. However vehemently I may have disagreed with their cause, their leadership, or even some of the values of their respective cultures (and knowing this sentiment may even be mirrored by the "other" side), ALL of those veterans served at the behest of their communities doing what they thought fit in the defense of their community and its interests. THAT I honor. That includes those Germans who tried so desperately to pull off in win in the Spring of 1918 before American numbers could be felt as well as those French who fought so steadfastly at Verdun. It includes those Germans who fought the Allies as they invaded Germany because they were defending Germany -- even when they themselves hated Nazism. It includes the brave defenders of Iwo Jima every bit as much as the Marines who took that first bit of Japanese soil away from the empire. I even hold a grudging respect for those who have taken up arms in our "War on Terror" to defend hearth and home from a foreign occupier -- even as I decry those who slaughter non-combatants in a calculated act of terror.

In this, I separate the politics and events that engendered these conflicts -- while calling on respect for the one commonality of most of those who fought -- their service.