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Tomorrow (Saturday) is Armistice Day, Sunday is Remembrance Sunday.

Around this time of year I am reminded of a trip I took a few years ago. We visited some of the Great War memorials, and cemeteries. I can still picture vividly the flower laid recently on the grave of a 17 year old soldier, the card said "to my brother". In the same cemetery there were graves of Australian and Kiwi soldiers ... so young, so far from home.

At Thiepval we visited the massive monument, you can see it for miles around and as you get closer you realise the scale of it. It bears the names of 72000 soldiers who were never buried ... every inch of the marble is covered in names. I recall particularly on that day, a beautiful summers day, there was a sense of peace all around the monument. In the midst of my reverie there was an interruption of noise as two French airforce phantom jets flew over, very low. There was a some sad symbolism of this monument to the loss of youth and beauty juxtaposed with the weapons of destruction overhead.

I visited the Beaumont-Hamel memorial park nearby, which is a great war memorial for the Newfoundland regiments that fought and died there. It is a section of carefully maintained trenches, the shock for me was just how close the trenches were to each other, and standing in that place it's easy to let your mind wander and imagine the horror the youngsters, thousands of miles from home, were going through.

As you walk into the memorial park there is a plaque bearing this legend by John Oxenham:

Tread softly here! Go reverently and slow!
You let your soul go down upon its knees
And with bowed head, and heart abased strive hard
To grasp the future gain in the sore loss!
For not one foot of this dank sod but drank
Its surfeit of the blood of gallant men.
Who for their faith their hope - for life and liberty
Here made the sacrifice - here gave their lives
And gave right willingly - for you and me.

From this vast altar-pile the souls of men
Sped up to God in countless multitudes.
On this grim cratered ridge they gave their all.
And giving won.
The peace of Heaven and immortality
Our hearts go out to them in boundless gratitude.
If ours - then God's for His vast charity
All sees, all knows, all comprehends - save bounds
He has repaid their sacrifice - and we - ?
God help us if we fail to pay our debt
In fullest full and all unstintingly!

I never served, but I happily offer my thanks to those that did. They gave their tomorrow for all of our todays.

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

Ditto, and may they never be forgotten

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

It's over thirty years since I first did it, but I still vividly remember driving up the Somme valley... A truly salutory experience. Ditto the Mennen Gate, all those names, all those men who were never even recovered for burial...

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

Will Longstaff


Says it all.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Very sombre experience just to visit the cemetaries in Northern France.

Today I observed a silence at 11 am. Those guys must be turning in their graves.. they gave their lives so that we could enjoy free speech, civil liberties. I look around and I wonder very much about the open prison we appear to be making for ourselves by too much reliance on control by gadgetry and a reluctance to take resposnibility for our own actions - so much so that we now have to be warned that a bag of nuts .. contains .. well .. nuts.

They went to war to preserve the future generations from life under a very evil dictator - for the right reasons - a genuine threat. The Falkalns War was fought because of an invasion to British lands and the first Gulf War was waged for a correct reason - Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and a call from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to the West to help them fight back. Bush senior and his Allies should have settled Saddam there and then.

But Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day symbolise all who lost their lives to protect our way of life, customs and culture - and I do wear my poppy with pride put of respect for past and present killed, injured and currently fighting those threats to us on our behalf.

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
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Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

What a superb picture... Brought a chill to the spine. Thanks for posting it GatsoMate, and nice to see you back.

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

Ditto.


I served in the Army, and went to the Gulf war in 91, did the job we were sent there to do and stopped once the Iraqis were out of Kuwait as per the UN mandate.
If we had gone further, that would have made us the agressors.

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

I'm going to go against the grain here and admit that I'm seriously uncomfortable with this 'remembrance' thing.

On the one hand I am truly grateful that we have been protected from evil dictators, but on the other hand I can't accept the glory of war aspects.

When our fighters are heroes to be remembered for their service, I cannot help but believe that such a position makes further wars with further death and destruction more likely, not less.

If something is to be remembered, surely it should be great evil, so that we might avoid it in future?

Haven't we grown enough and learned enough that we can use the UN properly to Police evil? Apparently not since we have done such harm in Iraq.

War just isn't healty. That's what needs to be remembered.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Handy, your post brought back a lot of memories of my last visit to the Somme, six years ago having visited the Thiepval Memorial, Beaumont Hamel, The Lochnagar crater at La Boiselle and the Ulster Tower. I'd recommend a visit to the Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge (the preserved trenches and tunnels there are a must-see.)

A good place to visit is Sanctuary Wood (Hill 62) at Ypres and the reconstructed trenches there. Visit the Tyne Cot Cemetery at Passchendaele. Seeing the 11,000 graves and 13,000 commemorations there is something you won't forget.

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Anyone who tells you that nothing is impossible has never bathed in a saucer of water.

The whole point of remembrance Sunday is to reflect upon the sacrifices made by ordinary people in the face of evil. We remember that evil cannot be allowed to triumph.
Unfortunately it has become passe in recent years to mischeviously and insidiously misinterpret the rememberance as a glorification of war - it is absolutely no such thing.
Fortunately for us, our countrymen died protecting the feeedoms that permit people to completely misunderstand and even maliciously contort the meaning behind the remembrance of the ultimate sacrifice they made, and voice their views without fear of retribution against themselves or their families.


The Greatest Gift God gave us is

'Remembrance'


"They shall not grow 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"

...What "Rigpig" said. Ave.

I'm not religious and quite frankly hated having to go to church parades whislt in the RAF but the was always there for the remeberance parade.

To me it has always been as RigPig said, at the end of the day a professional soldier will up arms and fight for what is required, but a truly professional soldier does not relish or seek out war.

"Only the dead have seen the end of the war" Plato

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

Just a quick post to ask everyone to remember the often forgotten heroes in the merchant navy.

These guys were out there not actively fighting but keeping the country going and providing necessary backup to the royal navy. Many guys lost their lives doing this civilian occupation (can you say sitting duck?) and untill recently were not a part of official rememberance day events.

I think we learn from history. Oh - some of the past wars were perhaps not as noble or even nobly fought as we may like to think... but overall British warfare has been for sound reasons - the ones which gave us the initial reputation as fair minded and a reputation for justice in the first place. That alone requires remembrance and reminder. Let's see

Defences against the invading Spanish Armada. Our fight for our Church of England. (Makes no difference that this family have a Catholic history... we have traced back down the generations...apparently we have some fine chaps in the ancestry and quite a few /.. well let's say some "felines" are "down under" - "rebel" seems to be the dominant gene here ) - but let's say justified - country was being invaded and we rule the waves around our waters.

Napoleon? He had his beady little eyes on running our country as well. BOf alors .. he was really of Italian stock from Corsica by the way.. not really French per one histroy book I read as a kid... think it was good ol' "Look and Learn" Sure he gave the French a culture of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity and founded much of current French culture .. but our country had the right to defend its own culture and that of her allies at the time. The French have never really forgiven us I fear ...


Later on .. I forget most of the stuff I learned for my O Level in History here .. all I can say is I enjoyed the History lessons - and did consider it for A Level and beyond... but I was more drawn to Physics and Maths .. but basically I recall reading about the Boer War.. preditary colonisation of Africa.. unifficatiion of Germany and Italy from principalities to united countries.. and I recall the teacher equating this to trying out the Ferrari on a test drive for power ( I guess the grammar school I attended had some really cool teachers ).. which ultimately ended in the First World War when the pressure cooker of various conflicts bust when the Austrian Arch Duke was murdered in Sarajevo. Potted version - there were so many other political arguments going on - the war which should have ended all wars because it was so vicious in character and the first which involved civilians as well... too much to include in a short post..when there are literally volumes of exposes and other poignant first hand accounts since this war was C20 - with news reel footage.



By remembering the very young men who died .. I think we all know in ourselves that we should try to avoid a war and attempt to resolve differences by peaceful means.. But.. wrong people slected for high offices and elected perhaps.. I have met our leader personally given the constituency on our patch . Basically a decent bloke to chat to .. and he chats back in a freindly enough manner - but I will risk commenting that "not my ideal of a leader or prime minister" as I think he is more wanting to be liked than respected. We all had teachers like that ... On reflection I liked the teachers who made me respect them more than the ones who wanted me to like them He comes across to me as the latter type.



We wanted to remember the dead of 1914-1918.. the war to end all wars.

The treaties, punitive reparations and the world recession unfortunately led to adulatiion of men who at first appeared to steer the countries back to stablility - but who turned out to be completely power crazed - with one blaming the Jews who were by instinct financial whizzers for the great depression of the bust economy years. and the other just apparently power hungry... but both wanting to dominate Europe .. It led to the Second World War... obligations to defend ourselves and our Allies.
.. and quite soon after war declared - knowledge of absolute atrocities .. genocide.

If the ordinary German protested - consequences were dire. Try reading a novel by Hans Werner Richter.. (A fave book of the Swiss riff raff) "False Triumphs". The novel is quite a poignantly moving tale of brothers-in law caught up in a conflict. One is apathetic .. yet unwilling to botch a prowess in archery. The prize was a protrait of Hitler. His false triumph was winning the protrait and then being dictated to hanging the protrait. He had to place on wall oppsoite the marital bed and it rather put him off his nights of passion.. and the entire village paid homage to the portrait in his bedroom The brother in law was a commusist .. a teacher .. lost his job.. managed to secure one in a school but was arrested again for calling Hitler an idiot.. (sound familiar.. )

His main false triumph though was surendering to the conquering Russians at the end of the war.. and getting arrested by them.. and subjected to a number of revenge attacks for atrocities committed on the Eastern Front.

It's a clever novel though.. there are a number of "false triumphs" for these ordinary German blokes caught up in a dictatorship not of their choosing... and I think rightly included on A Level exam options as the Swiss point out to me.

Another on the reading list is one which the Swiss have a particular bond as they have a pal distantly related to the family involved in the horrendously true story.

The White Rose Group. Augsburg based "rebels"

. The White Rose leaders. were medical students who refused to join Hitler Youth and tried to alert the German in the street about the atrocious goings on in the death camps. They were guillotined in Strasbourg .. garotted with piano wire in Hamburg.. they were only 24 and 22 years old at the time. There is aroad by the Rhine in Strasbourg called ... "la rose blanche." It is close to where the Scholl family of Augsburg were murdered by the Nazis in 1941.

Oh.. what was their crime? Oh yes.. They distributed some leaflets which informed the average German of what really was happening to the Jews, the gypsies, the Muslims, the non Aryans.. the frail, disabled.. the people a civilised country should care for and protect and serve.

They told the truth about the false statistics being bandied around at the time. They were beheaded in Strasbourg and fellow members of their group across Germany literally garroted with piano wire.


Remembrance Sunday.. held across EU and Austria and Germany who call it a day of attonement and deep regret. It's about remebering all who died in the two main wars of the last century as well as those who died in more recent conflicts ..whetehr we agree with the current debacle in Iraq or not.. our armed forces do not have the luxury of choice in the matter and their very premature deaths should be remembered - but not with pride.. with some horror as well. So I wear two poppies .,. a red one and a white one as I wish to show proud remembrance and my debt for the past soldieres who fought for my right to freedom of speech - and a very sad remembrance for those I really think died for the vanity of some foreign politician. Remember.. those who fought the tyrants lost their lives so that I and my fellow equal law abiding citizens in this land could enjoy freedom of speech .. right to express an opinion without fear of dire reprisal -but that freedom means that I do not and should not resort to insult, libel, offence and foul language .. but express a view without causing offence nor being subjected to such offence. No pee cee nonsense .. but courtesy

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

I have to disagree too Paul. For me it's a "lest we forget" thing. That's the whole point, I think - to remind us just how awful war is and (in theory) to remind us, therefore, not to do it again....

...Hmmmm.

I would also like to give my wholehearted support to what Rigpig said. It's nothing to do with glorifying war, it's recognising that sometimes people have to take up arms in the face of aggression and evil, and many of them make the ultimate sacrifice.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Much forgotten and extremely brave men.


But you know .. the whole generation ..our 80-90- year olds who fought and were in the merchant navy too and our 70 plus year olds lived as children and late teen call-ups for training. I think we forget the bravery of the childhood of that era too.


Rather surprising given today's children are revered as little angels and gods and goddesses.

The kids of the 1940s... became the flower power of the 60s and took society by storm, tried to further freedoms of speech.. anti war protesting.. ... and electric guitars and then became rebel council tax payers of the nowty years

We have a lot to thank the war years generations for..

Let's not squander their legacy - continue their assertiveness and let's
continue to strive for a fair and just society which respects our rights to courteously civilised civil liberties and a justice system which delivers justice - but fairly - without vengeance and barbarism - and no matter how vicious the criminal really is.. calm courtesy really foxes them.. it disarms them as they only know violence begets violence. Not pee cee nonsense as prison term should be seen and viewed as deterrent and punishment. We punsih by restricting movement and locking a door and imposing rigid rules of expected behaviour with some punishment for breaking those rules whilst inside.. However, if we are to try to break the circle and loop of a criminal career and "occupational hazard of arrest" - then we must also try to help those we convict and punish by prison sentence by at least trying to educate and steer them towards some better goals in life..

Getting away from the topic.. sorry ... but those guys of the 1940s in particular died to defend a way of life which had a much revered and copied justice system as its core. To fully remember them with the reverence they deserve is to campaign all the more for this very same straight forwardly true and sharp sense of justice and fair play.

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

My view has always been that politicians START wars, soldiers DIE in them.
From the American Civil War onwards, the general population got caught up in them too, as industry supplied the means to wage "Total War"

I would really like to see German personell at rememberance parades, along side our own - THEN we will have moved some way towards a lasting political peace. Their losses were just as devastating as our own, and they have no cause to remember their part with any pride, and by not sharing, we just fail to see the even bigger tragedy of ALL countries losses.

I took my family to Oradour-sur-Glane, southern France in August.
My youngest son is only nine years old, but has been doing World War II in school this year, so we thought the time was right.
A village of 642 inhabitants was massacred by SS troops, on the 10th of June 1944, after the invasion had started - men first, and women and children, herded into the church, and killed with grenades and gunfire. The village was then torched to destroy the evidence, and after the war, was preserved exactly as it was left, not as a memorial, but as a reminder of the human cost of war.

Frenchmen from Alsasce and Lorraine, as well as Poles and Russians made up the SS numbers! What an awful mess we have made of our world by greed and arrogance! I expected to be saddened by the sights I had only read of, but instead I was angered by the thought that "we" still have to resort to violence, and everyday people have to do the politicians dirty work.
You can see pictures I took in my French online album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/topeengraver/FranceInPictures

You should read the full story at:http://www.oradour.info/
It takes some time to read the whole site, but it should be compulsory to anyone going into politics!
Sadly it was not the only massacre, nor the biggest, but the sight of buildings, and peoples personal effects from just 62 years ago make it very moving and powerful reminder.
This is NOT about glorifying war, or about servicemen and women, it's about our inability to resolve differences through talking, or working together.
For example WMD's were an excuse to cover up the fact that two UN "partners" refused to show a united front, and Saddam exploited this show of weakness, and played one country off against another.
Without that show of weakness, the inspectors would have been allowed back in IMHO.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

I'm as anti war as the next man, but I've had a poppy at this time of year ever since I can remember. If you remember the sacrifice and suffering there's all the more reason to aim for peaceful solutions in the future, which is why AFAIC a red poppy is also a symbol of peace.


The one that got me most was of the ghosts of soldiers marching past the Cenotaph in Whitehall. Longstaff's paintings are on display at the Canberra War Memorial, one of the most solemn places I've ever visited. The image below my sig is also from there - a small crop of a much larger photograph I keep for PC wallpaper this time of year.



That's about half of one of the two walls of names either side of the eternal flame, which gives an idea of the scale of the sacrifice made just by the ANZACS, never mind the millions of others in the last 100ish years.

IMO we need memorials like these around to remind us not only of those who've given their lives for our freedom, but also to remind us not to add to them if it's at all possible to avoid it.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

I can see Paul's point. Of course remembrance services are not intended to suggest that war is noble or glorious, far from it. But as a child when I was first exposed to them, it was the impression I got nevertheless: that war was in some strange way romantic. I don't really know why. It might be a side effect of the deep emotions involved.