Reverence

[neonlyte]

I was in an airport yesterday in the UK (Stansted) shortly before 11.00am on Remembrance Sunday.

The announced a two minute silence for the Fallen in War and the place went instantly quiet, only a few late souls scurrying for flights. Most people at tables stood up, head bowed. An Italian girl a few tables along in the coffee shop continued squealing into her mobile phone until a waiter told her to stop.

It made the hairs on my neck stand up.

Do we ordinarily 'Remember', or do we continually need to be reminded, and if reminding is what brings individuals to stop what ever it is they are doing, how much 'value' is the Remembrance?

 

[Shwenn]

Do we ordinarily 'Remember', or do we continually need to be reminded, and if reminding is what brings individuals to stop what ever it is they are doing, how much 'value' is the Remembrance?

I rather try to think of the people who are currently falling in war.

There is more of a point to that, I think.

In remembering and in thinking of contemporaries, I always make a huge effort to see them as most of them are/were, terrified teenagers. Not the 30-somethings you always see in movies.

I also believe there is a point to that.

 

[neonlyte]

I rather try to think of the people who are currently falling in war.

That is where my thoughts lay. Rememberance Sunday sets too much store on past wars... honourable though it is to remember all the fallen, I'm ready for a shift in emphasis.

 

[Safe_Bet]

That is where my thoughts lay. Rememberance Sunday sets too much store on past wars... honourable though it is to remember all the fallen, I'm ready for a shift in emphasis.

I disagree. I think they are VERY important. Not just in remembrance to those who died to give us what we enjoy today, but to remind us that if we forget what has happened in the past we are destine to repeat it.

 

[rgraham666]

If we forget the past we have no future.

One of the reasons, I believe, that the chickenhawks were so hot for 'doing Iraq' is that they had no idea what war involved. Wars were like movies; exciting, with lots of cool effects, clear good guys and bad guys, over in two hours and then the credits roll with the bad guys dead and the good guys living happily ever after.

Morons.

 

[xssve]

I think of all the people who are falling every day - and not just in war.

It helps me keep things in perspective.

 

[Shwenn]

If we forget the past we have no future.

I haven't really seen that born out. Even when we remember the past with vigilance, we never seem to see that it bears on our present. We believe our situation is different, that we are different.

We can't see ourselves objectively enough to draw the neccessary parallels that would make your statement true. If we could see ourselves objectively enough, we would be able to make reasonable, rational decisions and we wouldn't need to remember the past.

I don't believe that, if we forget the past, we are condemned to repeat it.

We're just condemned to repeat it.

End of story.

 

[neonlyte]

I disagree. I think they are VERY important. Not just in remembrance to those who died to give us what we enjoy today, but to remind us that if we forget what has happened in the past we are destine to repeat it.

I take your point, very clearly. I don't want to suggest anyone should overlook the tragedy of the past, less still fail to apply those lessons to current times and the future.

To clarify, the 'promotion' of Remembrance Sunday, in the UK, is largely enshrined in the two Great Wars, events all but forgotten to the current generation who need to take heed of the unforgiving mortality of battle. The focus is on the hundreds of thousands who died fifty or more years ago, and celebrate the handful of aged survivors from the first Great War as if their surviving is somehow triumphant. Tales are told and re-told of valiant deeds, and they have their place... in history lessons, while the loss of the current generation of soldiers and airmen is all but overlooked.

If I have a gripe, I'd rather see 2000 lowered flags commemorating the recent fallen than half a dozen wheelchair bound veterans in their nineties for whom we have remembered time and again. I hope that doesn't sound too callous.

 

[epiphany65]

Remembrance only matters if it is accompanied with a pledge to never allow the mistakes or atrocities of the past to ever happen again. Yesterday was the anniversary of Kristallnacht, yet not a thread was devoted to it. Few Americans today mark December 7th as a day that still lives in infamy and each year fewer observe Sept. 11th. Jingoism reigns over patriotism.

 

[AvoidingRealWork]

In remembering and in thinking of contemporaries, I always make a huge effort to see them as most of them are/were, terrified teenagers. Not the 30-somethings you always see in movies.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. rightly referred to WWII as "The Children's Crusade."

 

[neonlyte]

Remembrance only matters if it is accompanied with a pledge to never allow the mistakes or atrocities of the past to ever happen again. Yesterday was the anniversary of Kristallnacht, yet not a thread was devoted to it. Few Americans today mark December 7th as a day that still lives in infamy and each year fewer observe Sept. 11th. Jingoism reigns over patriotism.

We had the same lack of respect in Portugal last year, the 500th 'anniversary' of the burning of the Jews in Lisbon's main square. Most Portuguese I spoke to didn't even know it had happened, yet the city museum has numerous etchings made by a Frenchman who witnessed the slaughter and recorded the events. The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon by Richard Zimler gives a fictional account of what hapened that year.

 

[oggbashan]

The British Legion's Remembrance event in the Albert Hall on Saturday evening had considerable emphasis on Iraq and Afghanistan with some of those recently returned parading in their desert kit instead of their dress uniforms.

Our local Rememberance Day Parade remembered that we are still sending troops to risk their lives and included reference to those from our town currently in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The latest inscription on our War Memorial is for the invasion of Iraq. The next town has one name from 2007.

Unfortunately we have had to leave space for more names to be added.

I was in Bayeux, France in October. There they have a memorial garden to journalists killed reporting the news since 1944. Some years are blank. The 21st Century needs more than one list per year. Truth has a price.

Og

 

[oggbashan]

Remembrance only matters if it is accompanied with a pledge to never allow the mistakes or atrocities of the past to ever happen again. Yesterday was the anniversary of Kristallnacht, yet not a thread was devoted to it. Few Americans today mark December 7th as a day that still lives in infamy and each year fewer observe Sept. 11th. Jingoism reigns over patriotism.

There may not have been a thread but there was a significant amount of information about it in The Times newspaper. Kristallnacht mobilised many in the UK to do what they could to extract Jews from Germany and Austria. Unfortunately their efforts were hampered by officialdom (with notable exceptions including one British consular official who ensured that all Jews applying to his consulate were fed BEFORE he helped them complete their application forms creatively - apparently all of them had UK relations even if the applicants didn't know they had) and Nazi vigour.

Even in 1938 Jews admitted to the UK were given papers stamped "Refugee from Nazi Oppression" so that they would never be deported back to Germany.

Og

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

ROB

Saddam was a very evil guy. Cowards such as you are will always find some excuse to discount interventions, its what you do. You wouldnt have lifted a finger to help the Jews, either.

 

[epiphany65]

There may not have been a thread but there was a significant amount of information about it in The Times newspaper. Kristallnacht mobilised many in the UK to do what they could to extract Jews from Germany and Austria. Unfortunately their efforts were hampered by officialdom (with notable exceptions including one British consular official who ensured that all Jews applying to his consulate were fed BEFORE he helped them complete their application forms creatively - apparently all of them had UK relations even if the applicants didn't know they had) and Nazi vigour.

Even in 1938 Jews admitted to the UK were given papers stamped "Refugee from Nazi Oppression" so that they would never be deported back to Germany.

Og

Og -- I certainly do not mean to demean your comments or what was done decades ago -- I applaud them and have nothing but respect for them. My father and uncles fought and died for them. I just think that we should never forget what happened, or the efforts of those back on '38. I consider this an ongoing battle where one must never rest on their laurels. There are always those who promote fascism. As long as we have a heart beating in our chest, we must oppose them.

 

[john-the-author]

I was in an airport yesterday in the UK (Stansted) shortly before 11.00am on Remembrance Sunday.

The announced a two minute silence for the Fallen in War and the place went instantly quiet, only a few late souls scurrying for flights. Most people at tables stood up, head bowed. An Italian girl a few tables along in the coffee shop continued squealing into her mobile phone until a waiter told her to stop.

It made the hairs on my neck stand up.

Do we ordinarily 'Remember', or do we continually need to be reminded, and if reminding is what brings individuals to stop what ever it is they are doing, how much 'value' is the Remembrance?

I think the Brits do a better job of remembering than we do. Yes, there are big things on TV--speeches and some parades in honor and so on--but I think that the Brits have a better grasp of it. It was Armistice Day there for just forever and that helped inculcate the awareness of it.

 

[kendo1]

I attended my kid's school Rememberance Service on Sunday. There is a large monument set in the school grounds with the names of some two hundred teachers, staff and pupils who died in service to their country in the two World Wars.
There are similar monuments in other schools in Edinburgh- Watson's College, Merchiston Castle, Fettes College, etc.

Lest we forget.

Ken

 

[oggbashan]

In the entrance hall of my Australian school are several plaques covered in names.

One records sporting achievements. Another records academic achievements. Between those two boards the names of six brothers are recorded.

I had the privilege of meeting one of those brothers who had become my father's friend. I could never have met any of the other five brothers. They had all died during the First World War at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. Their names are recorded on one of the other plaques - the memorial to those former scholars who had died serving with the AIF in World War 1.

The sixth and youngest brother also went to France but survived. He fought again during World War 2.

All six brothers were volunteers.

Og

 

[starrkers]

Today my sons are attending the town Remembrance ceremony. A contingent of the school is going to it - three classes, plus any child that had a relative serve and wishes to attend.
One of the boys is in a chosen class, the other is going as his Great Great Uncle Harry served and survived Galipoli, only to die on the Somme.
And both their maternal grandparents served in WW2 - if not for that war, I wouldn't exist. Dad's was a RAAFie sent to England, mum was a Wren.

 

[starrkers]

double post

 

[gauchecritic]

I was in my local Working Men's Club last night and the committee man in 'the box' made an announcement through the club. It was about a bloke who'd died last Monday. There was a minute's silence.

Most people knew his name. A lot of the people knew him personally. Just an ordinary bloke that died of 'old age'.

Every single person in the club stood and bowed their heads. Sundays in our club are traditionally the day these things are announced.

It goes on through clubland in the whole country, every Sunday I dare say, for local people, local ordinary people.

The value is in the acknowledgement of their impact on those left behind.

 

[cloudy]

The value is in the acknowledgement of their impact on those left behind.

That's what counts to me - making a difference.

 

[foxseeker]

oggbashan,
Thank you for summing up the reality so well. Here in the UK certainly, the observation of 'Remembrance day' encompasses remembering and honouring the memory of those who have made the supreme sacrifice in all wars.
Oh and I'm sure they all made a difference, a big difference to all our lives today.

Lest we forget..........

 

[fifty5]

On Sunday I attended remembrance services / wreath laying ceremonies in two townships in West Yorkshire, as I did last year.

Both years, one township included prayers by Muslims as well as Christians.

Both years, both ceremonies included reference to deaths since, as well as, those from the first and second world wars, but last year, they did so more extensively.

Deaths and non-fatal wounds are always significant.

The same goes for non-military services - coast guard, fire service, mountain rescue, etc.

The point to me is to respect all who put their bodies at risk to save others - and to prevent, wherever possible, other such death or injury.

Lest we forget - the debt that is owed, no matter what faith or creed...

 

[cantdog]

I think the Brits do a better job of remembering than we do. Yes, there are big things on TV--speeches and some parades in honor and so on--but I think that the Brits have a better grasp of it. It was Armistice Day there for just forever and that helped inculcate the awareness of it.

That particular war was horrendous. Objectively. Not only did it warp the demographics of Europe and the UK for two generations, it impacted politics and international diplomacy for decades.

All the men were gone. And the ones that weren't were haunted. And yet a few short years before, men had gone off to the war singing and with speeches and parades about glory, just as they'd always done.

There was a sustainable effort toward universal great-power disarmament for nearly twenty years, which should give some idea how awful the bloodbath was. Several battles, single battles, produced millions of casualties.

We actually have forgotten, to some extent. It's not originally about the dead so much as the resolve to forgo war without extraordinarily convincing reasons for it.