Thread: Remembrance Day

I would with the kindest of regards and with the most honour ask you all to on the 11th day of November at 11:00am, stand in silence wherever you are, whatever you are doing, and for two minutes in silence, remember the millions of men and women that gave thier lives in war for our freedom.

Thanks,

SVWillmer

Or we can, uh, stop being overly sentimental idiots and prevent massive massacres like this in the future? Since, y'know, being sentimental has TOTALLY stopped it before...oh wait.

Asshole award goes to...me.

Originally Posted by svwillmer

I would with the kindest of regards and with the most honour ask you all to on the 11th day of November at 11:00am, stand in silence wherever you are, whatever you are doing, and for two minutes in silence, remember the millions of men and women that gave thier lives in war for our freedom.

Should we also honor those that died trying to take our freedom away, namely the enemy? For the most part they were young people following orders also.

Yea I think it's very important to remember, especially world war 2. But in the Netherlands we remember on May 4th, so that's still a couple months ahead.

Originally Posted by svwillmer

I would with the kindest of regards and with the most honour ask you all to on the 11th day of November at 11:00am, stand in silence wherever you are, whatever you are doing, and for two minutes in silence, remember the millions of men and women that gave thier lives in war for our freedom.

Thanks,

SVWillmer

I can't plan that far ahead

But yeah - our school will probably do something.

knowing my luck i'll be standing at the tills in the local supermarket when everyone goes rigid for 2 minutes and i'll be bored rigid for 2 minutes

btw, wasn't WWI supposed to be the war to end all wars ?

Originally Posted by marnixR

btw, wasn't WWI supposed to be the war to end all wars ?

Yes, but it was followed by the peace to end all peace.. It's often said that the Versailles peace treaty was too strict and thereby caused WW2, but actually I think it was not reinforced strict enough (the US and UK looked the other way when it was broken). Anyway a discussion about that may be more appropriate for the history section.

what happened on the 11th of november then?

That is when Germany surrendered in WWI in 1918.

You cannot not have war. It's endemic to life.

The only thing you can hope for is that the wars we do fight are fought for good reasons.

Originally Posted by Wolf

You cannot not have war. It's endemic to life.

The only thing you can hope for is that the wars we do fight are fought for good reasons.

And what would you exactly consider as a good reason to fight a war? And who'll be the one to decide which reason are good and which bad? And from whose point of view?

A pupil in a Finnish school shot 7 students, the headmaster + himself dead yesterday for his own idealistic reasons. I guess he considered them as a good reason to kill a couple of people.

Originally Posted by svwillmer

That is when Germany surrendered in WWI in 1918.

Germany didn't surrender in WW1. There was an armistice. An agreed to end of hostilities...then there was a peace treaty (Versailles). You are correct, however, that Germany was 'more or less defeated' and the terms of this are reflected in the Treaty of Versailles.



The insanity of war. My father was a Canadian soldier in WW2. After the invasion of Normandy, etc. his division eventually made his way across France, Belgium and the war ended when he was just across the Dutch/German border in the town of Kleve. By chance 25 years later my sister marries a German from a small German town called Xanton, a few kms from Kleves. My sisters father-in-law was a German soldier and spent much of the war on the Dutch side of the border and was part of the German defense when the Canadians came through. The co-incidence continues....my own wife is from a Dutch family that immigrated to Canada....they lived just on the Dutch side of the border from Kleve. Her father was too young to be in the Dutch army but he remembers when the Germans occupied their village and subsequently a few years later when the Canadians came through.
So there was my father (Canadian solider) and my father-in-law (Dutch) and my sister's father-in-law (German soldier) all at one time possibly wthin the same few kms in 1945. In the 1980's our families got together a few times and the 'old guys' all drank beer and, except for the accents, just 'regular' people no more different from eachother than any other 3 people. It illustrated how STUPID war usually is and how ordinary sane people in a society shouldn't die for STUPID ideas.

Nov 11 is an important day in our family. My mom's British and one of her brothers in the RAF was killed in north Africa. On my wifes maternal side, her Dutch Grandfather was killed in a camp and my dad's brother, also in the Canadian army, was seriously burned and disfigured in Belgium. War is STUPID but we thank those who sacrificed to clean up the mess made by STUPID leaders.

I'm glad that there is hope we can say no more to our so called 'leaders'. That hope comes from the fact that one German soldier nearly 100 years ago on a foggy Christmas Eve night freezing cold raises a Christmas tree and the Brits move to meet him and they end up spending all night and most of the next day playing football, drinking (afer they have buried their comrades). What an unbelieveable sight that would have been.

The next day they were back killing again, but not the enemy, their friends. Damn the worlds war mongers.

Originally Posted by svwillmer

I'm glad that there is hope we can say no more to our so called 'leaders'. That hope comes from the fact that one German soldier nearly 100 years ago on a foggy Christmas Eve night freezing cold raises a Christmas tree and the Brits move to meet him and they end up spending all night and most of the next day playing football, drinking (afer they have buried their comrades). What an unbelieveable sight that would have been.

The next day they were back killing again, but not the enemy, their friends. Damn the worlds war mongers.

If you are British ask your grandparents about their older relatives killed in the Great War. Every family in every house was touched. Uncle...and Uncle...who were never more than faces in black and white photos in old albums.... killed on the Western Front, in the Balkans, or at sea. Hundreds of thousands dead for 'God and King' and then the next generation at it again.

The sad thing is that if a war broke out and you were sent to prison for refusing to partake, most people would brand you a traitor and a coward. They would not be able to understand the total barbarity of war.

If you are fighting because you must, to survive, that's one thing.

If you are fighting for the sole purpose of making profit, or because of pride, that's quite another.

The former is a necessity of survival shared by all living things, from people to ants to bacteria.

The later is a sin far above the former in all respects.


There are two kinds of pacifists in the world. Those who try to avoid war, and those who utterly refuse it.

The former may be sensible humanitarians who recognize the cost of war and where its value is.

The later, we call road kill. They would rather be killed then fight for their right to live when another says they have more right.

there's a lot to be said for cowardice - see John Cleese's rectorial address

"You know I'm a pacifist, Vvyan!"
"A what?"
"You know...a coward..."
(The Young Ones)

Since we've come to quotes...

"Whoa whoa hold on a sec I refuse to fight, I'm a consciencious objector".

"A what?"

"You know a coward".

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

"It is the duty of every robot to give his life for the better of humanity...ohh crap!"

Futurama?