Rememberance Day Nov 11

[peter eldergill]

Wednesday the 11th is Remembrance Day in Canada where we honour the fallen soldiers of all major conflicts. I'm sure other countries have a similar holidays (I think it's Veteran's day in the US?). We have a two minute silence at 11 AM on that day to honour the fallen.

Even though I've no direct loss due to conflict, I still get very emotional and I don't know why, especially when I hear "Last Post" played on a bugle.

Saving Private Ryan was on tonight and although I can't stay up to watch the whole thing (It's really long), I love the ending, when an aged Ryan is at the grave of his Hanks' character in the famous graveyards in France and then asks his wife to reassure him that he did indeed live a good life and the sacrifices made by his colleagues was not in vain. Always make me way too emotional and I can assure you there are always tears.

Just thought I'd share

Pete

[danscope]

We owe much to our veterans. My Father-in-law was a sperry ball turret gunner in the 8th airforce. Coming back from a heavy sortie, his pilot was shot up and his co-pilot was wounded/and blind. Bombadier badly injured.
He had a little time at the controls before . He flew that B17 back to England. Another days work for those guys.
They think it's easy.

Dan

[DonM435]

My father turned 18 just as the U.S. entered World War II. He served for several years in the Army Air Corps in Europe (this was before there was an Air Force). His crew actually got shot down over Italian-Yugoslavian territory and had to escape from behind enemy lines. Imagine having to go up against the greatest threat to freedom ever, at so young an age, then having to come home and build a life.

Dad died in 2004. We're losing those WWII veterans in big numbers daily.

[HenrikOlsen]

Talking WWII, my grandfather was in the Danish resistance as were several uncles, including one who was caught and tortured by the nazis, he never really recovered, and my grandfather never talked about that time.
That's one of the things I really regret, that he didn't live long that I was old enough to talk with him about it.

[Nick Theodorakis]

My Dad enlisted in the US Navy during WWII when he turned 18. He served in the submarine service in the Pacific theater. Now he is buried in a military cemetery near St. Louis (Jefferson Barracks) and it's sobering to see how fast that section of the cemetery filled up.

Nick

[grant hutchison]

Wednesday the 11th is Remembrance Day in Canada where we honour the fallen soldiers of all major conflicts

Also in the U.K., South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, France and Belgium.

I can't hear the phrase "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" without a shiver: it's the time and date of the signing of the Armistice in 1918.

Grant Hutchison

[mahesh]

Sunday nearest to the eleventh of November, in the UK is Remembrance Sunday.
Her Majesty lays a wreath, at eleven o'clock, at Cenotaph, on behalf of the nation, after a two-minutes silence.

It makes me go jelly, everytime.

Then, of course the eleventh of November itself.

It is sobering, humbling to contemplate the events of those times.

[DonM435]

At the viewing prior to my dad's funeral, there was recorded religious and sentimental muzak played softly and constantly at the funeral home.

Just prior to our leaving for the burial, I managed to recognize one piece: it was the Air Force song (you know how that goes: Off we go into the wild blue yonder ... ) played very slowly and solemnly. I'd never heard it that way. I'd held up pretty well through all of the services, but almost lost it then.

[HenrikOlsen]

Losing it at one of these services does not remove from your real man status, to other real men it adds.

[peteshimmon]

Strange how you grow up in a peaceful quarter
of the World and gradually learn recent
history and think "What the Hell!?". And at
age 12 to 14 it dawns these things called
nuclear bombs are really unpleasant things.
But the really big peace has been kept
thank you very much.

My primary school (age 7 to 11) was a
wartime installation of wooden huts made into
a school about 1949. The was a concrete
structure that was the cookhouse used as a
storeplace for desks and things. There were
gas pipes on the outside long disconnected.
Some of my schoolchums made out that gassing
of Jews happened here which made me turn white.
The detail was wrong but such evil really did
happen just a few years before I was born.

Never paid much attention to Remembrance days
growing up but now I tend to watch the
service. The royal family have been doing it
every year I have been around. Strange how
WW1 seemed really ancient when young due to
jerky old black and white film but as I age
it seems more and more recent history.

I dont agree with this thing about the real
Nov 11 being a time when you might have to
keep quiet for 2 minutes if caught in a public
place. It seems like media busy bodies have
brought this about for an item on that days
news. I put on Judith Durham singing Blowin
in the Wind. At home that is1

[Trebuchet]

My Dad served in the US Navy in World War II. He was a hospital corpsman on a transport ship that took troops in to the landing beaches and wounded back out. He didn't talk about some of the things he must have seen. He passed away in August, we're losing these veterans at a terrible rate.

[KaiYeves]

When I was in eighth grade, our class went to Washington in early May, and we ended up visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at night. It was very humid, and buggy, and my friends all wanted to move on, but I really needed to take a moment.

Just to remember.

[LaurelHS]

My grandfather was a sergeant in the US Army Anti-Aircraft Division in World War II. He was drafted at age 18. My mother says he saw a lot of combat but he didn't talk about it with her. He only talked about it once with me; we were watching television and saw a few seconds of black and white footage of soldiers walking through knee-deep mud and he just said, "That's what it was like in France." But his time in Europe wasn't all bad because he met my grandmother there (she was in the Red Cross). He died of cancer in 2002.

On my father's side of the family, my great uncle was a lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II. He became a Naval reservist a year or so before the war started because he had gotten a job that involved working on a barge and he decided he liked boats. During the war, he was on a destroyer in the Atlantic Ocean and he once helped negotiate the surrender of several Germans from a damaged submarine. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1945. He died a few years ago at age 92.

Speaking of World War II films, I've seen the miniseries Band of Brothers on History Television several times and it's very powerful. It includes personal recollections from the surviving veterans of Easy Company. I highly recommend it.

[mugaliens]

...we ended up visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at night.

I saw it at dusk. I looked for the name of a neighborhood friend's father, and when I found it, I cried.

Funny, I've never cried at any memorial, and I've visited dozens. I'd never cried for my friend's father either.

There's just something about that wall.

And that war.

[flynjack1]

I went with my brother to the Vietnam Memorial. He served in Vietnam, and of course it was difficult for him. It was a memorable experience for me too, and even though I have been to most of the memorials in DC this one has special significance. Its design is unique and fitting perhaps like no other. There is a statue along the running trail adjacent to the Potomac. This statue is of a wave cresting on the ocean with a gull flying above. It is a memorial to those lost at sea, and one I always stopped at when on my daily run. I always felt it captured the loneliness of the open ocean and the projected the sorrow for those lost there.

[danscope]

Many of us served durring the cold war ( myself for six years 67...73 ).
Our reward is that it stayed cold. It is sufficient. To be able to return to society in one piece is something you hold dear all your life. You live as quiet as the boats you serve on.
Best regards to all who serve . May they all come home in their time.

Dan

[captain swoop]

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is a music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncountered:
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables at home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end they remain.

[flynjack1]

Nicely written Captain Swoop.

[Perikles]

My father and I were sorting out some old photos recently and we came cross a photo of a squadron of WWII pilots, a group of around 30 young men including my father. He looked at it for a long time in silence and then said that around a fortnight after the photo was taken, he and his co-pilot were the only ones in the photo who were still alive.

It was the only time I had ever seen my father with tears in his eyes.

[Moose]

I'm not a happy camper tonight, gang. Apparently somebody (badly) damaged a cenotaph in Fredericton, NB last night.

[LaurelHS]

That's despicable. And even worse, it's not an isolated incident.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswi...theft-201.html

[captain swoop]

Nicely written Captain Swoop.

Not mine but the words of Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), the words of the 4th Stanza are used at parades and war memorials on Remembrance Day

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Services were on Sunday but the offical Silence is on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

[captain swoop]

I'm not a happy camper tonight, gang. Apparently somebody (badly) damaged a cenotaph in Fredericton, NB last night.

There have been several attacks on War memorials in the UK as well. recently students were filmed urinating on a War Memorial, there have been other attacks by anti war protesters.

[adapa]

There have been several attacks on War memorials in the UK as well. recently students were filmed urinating on a War Memorial, there have been other attacks by anti war protesters.

Those actions are truly disgusting. And these people depend on the sacrifices of those same fallen soldiers so that they can have the freedom to commit these reprehensible acts.

One of my classmates was a POW in Desert Storm. I also learned after the war that a former upperclassman in my cadet squadron was killed when his F-16 was shot down. In addition, earlier this year I flew with a fellow pilot whose dad is still MIA in Vietnam. When I think about these people, I consider myself to be extremely lucky.

[LaurelHS]

CBC's The National had a poignant segment called "Olivia's Hero" this evening. It is about the family of Master Cpl. Scott Vernelli, who was killed in Afghanistan earlier this year. The video is on this page.

[Spoons]

We just had our moment of silence here 15 minutes ago. No noticeable decrease in volume around the office though.

[BigDon]

There have been several attacks on War memorials in the UK as well. recently students were filmed urinating on a War Memorial, there have been other attacks by anti war protesters.

Though to be fair that urinartion incident wasn't a political attack. And can't be counted for purposes of this rant. An asian kid put down a quart of whiskey at a nearby sponsored party and was completely obliterated at the time.

Very few military men, at least sailors, can hold a man completely accountable for escapades done while poop-faced drunk.

Compared to what that kid did, I've done stuff that would turn you white and only because I was plowed like the south forty.

Stuff I had to be told I did.

[TheOncomingStorm]

I probably be in the woods at that time in the mourning tomorrow.
I have been watching a series on History called Convoy. It is all about the Convoys between England and Canada during WWII. The maritimes were in middle of it even with u-boats going down the St. Lawrence in Quebec.
I think the vandels should be sent to Afghanstan.

[HenrikOlsen]

I think the vandels should be sent to Afghanstan.

Why punish the Afghans?

[TheOncomingStorm]

lol, Henrik.
An added note.
I heard the phrase "loose lips sink ships" comes from WWII from the maritimes as a reminder to keep any news about convoys as secert as possible.