Does Remembrance Day Honour our soldiers...?

[pastafarian]

...or just glorify their sacrifice so that we always have a ready supply of cannon fodder and cheerleaders for the conquests of the corporate elite?

I never wear a poppy on Remembrance Day, though I did at my father's funeral because he was a born soldier, in the most admirable sense of the word.

The hoopla around Remembrance Day always talks of "heroes", mostly those who were drafted and had little choice. I submit that it takes more courage to be a contientious objector than it does to do what your society expects of you.

By the logic of "sacrifice" that we are fed, the freedom-fighters in Iraq are far more heroic than our soldiers who died at Vimy and Normandy. This makes the whole day stick in my craw.

Sticking to the Second World War, which seems to me as close to a "just war" for the Allies as can be imagined, many Canadian, American, British and Polish soldiers among others, gave their lives heroically to stop Hitler and the other Axis powers.

Tomorrow, people all over the world will get misty-eyed about soldiers, including those who died for nothing in Vietnam and Iraq. We will glorify all soldiering as equal. To me, this is an insult to all who fought in just wars, a whitewashing of a system that sends young men and women to die so that chickenhawks well away from the battlefield can make themselves richer.

I can feel the blie rising when I think of Bush mouthing sanctimonious platitudes about how we should remember the fallen and I think of those millions of luckless souls who died rotting in the trenches of the war that was "To End All Wars"

A similar view can be found in:
Why I Don't Wear a Poppy

And while I don't share the radical pacifism of the author, I do agree with this:

Sadly, the poppy acts more as a rallying cry to support military solutions to the world's problems, instead of a heart-felt and genuine plea for an end to the suffering of war.

 

[#juan]

Yes, Real Canadians remember and honour our soldiers who were killed in foreign wars.

Some of us have been to see the cemeteries that are kept immaculate to this day. Some of us still care,

 

[pastafarian]

Last time I checked my birth certificate, I was a Real Canadian, I always remember our soldiers, and I've been to several of theose immaculate cemeteries in a Canadian Forces uniform. I just think the whole RD propaganda-fest runs counter to what most of our soldiers believe they were fighting for. I wouldn't write this if I didn't care.

 

[no1important]

RE: Does Remembrance Day

I read that article yesterday at the Tyee and the guy is within his rights to publish what he did, but I think it is a moronic editorial though.

Hell if so many young men did not die, we would be wearing swastika's all the time.

I put my poppy on every Nov1 and wear it proudly for the men and women who died to allow us to live in freedom.

 

[Nascar_James]

Tomorrow on Veteran's Day, we'll honor our war heros through official national ceremonies. Part of these ceremonies will center around the Tomb of the Unknown soldiers. To honor these men, symbolic of all Americans who gave their lives in all wars, an Army honor guard, the 3d U.S. Infantry (The Old Guard), keeps day and night vigil.

We should all try to participate in Veteran's day activities tommorrow, if possible. If not, then we should at least take a moment to acknowledge Veteran's day and to remember our fallen war heros. Say a prayer for our fallen soliders.

November 11th, is the anniversary of the official end of WWI. On Monday November 11 1918, the Germans and Allies singed a ceasefire agreement to end the first world war.

 

[Twila]

RE: Does Remembrance Day

Hell if so many young men did not die, we would be wearing swastika's all the time.

Well, there's a theory that states if it wasn't for WW1 final restitution drafts there would have been no chance Hitler could have risen to power....

 

[#juan]

Re: RE: Does Remembrance Day

Hell if so many young men did not die, we would be wearing swastika's all the time.

Well, there's a theory that states if it wasn't for WW1 final restitution drafts there would have been no chance Hitler could have risen to power....

Politicians and maniacs cause wars. In any case, that theory has no effect on the millions of young men who died in WW2.

 

[Twila]

RE: Does Remembrance Day

Politicians and maniacs cause wars. In any case, that theory has no effect on the millions of young men who died in WW2.

Nope. It doesn't. But then that's not what I was implying.

 

[Jay]

You're right Twila. It is generally known that the concessions placed on Germany played a role in Hitler’s rise to power.

 

[#juan]

Re: RE: Does Remembrance Day

Politicians and maniacs cause wars. In any case, that theory has no effect on the millions of young men who died in WW2.

Nope. It doesn't. But then that's not what I was implying.

I know you weren't implying that but you know, Hitler did nothing but laugh at those concessions from the first day he was in power. He built an army he wasn't supposed to have, he built warships he wasn't supposed to have, he built war planes he wasn't supposed to have and nobody said anything. It wasn't until he invaded Poland that we declared war with Germany.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Does Remembrance Day

I think there's a pretty good case to be made that Remembrance Day has been hijacked by some as a recruiting and pro-war tool. The rhetoric spewed by some has the effect of poisoning it in that way.

That being said, it is a way to honour the people who died in wars for the right reasons. I've talked to people who fought in WWII and they would be the first to tell those that think war is some glorious adventure to take a flying f*ck at the moon. The trick is to honour the people who fought for freedom and regard those that would send others to fight for money with utter disdain.

 

[pastafarian]

I posted the topic in a confrontational way because of the feelings talk radio, tv newsreaders and newspapers stir up in me, like they're secretly getting some sort of "macho-patriotic buzz" from a weird voyeuristic celebration of war, barely covered up by pious cliches about "never fogetting" while they're cheering the next shipment of teenaged "heroes" to wars of acquisition and realpolitik in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But I'm not saying let's abolish RD, either. I agree the article is kind of incoherent and I think the author is demolishing a straw man with all his Nazi talk. There is no reason to think that the world would be a better place if Hitler had won WWII and plenty to think it would have been a nightmare. There is already a Holocaust Remembrance Day,Yom Hashoah.

Humans are neither intrinsically good nor intrinsically bad, rather we are territorial apes with a great capacity for aggression and violence. Because of this, we will always need defensive forces to protect civil society, so soldiers are a necessary evil.

I can think of very few wars of "freedom". Even the US Civil War was primarily an economic war, as are most wars when all the rhetoric and jingoism is cleared away.

This is a disturbing thing to me about RD, but it while would be wrong to deny the sacrifices made by soldiers in wartime, we ignore the hardships and sacrifices made by the civilians as well, who often have the hardest lot in times of war, particualrly women and children. Civillians comprise the lion's share of casualties in modern warfare.

"Collateral damage" is so collateral: war affects all of us;not just soldiers. This gets lost in military pomp of poppies and cenotaphs in #juan's beautiffully manicured cemeteries.

Thanks for your replies, I just wanted to get a feeling for what RD signified for people on Canadian Content, not to suggest what form the remembrance should or should not take.
And I wanted to try to figure out on what it is that disturbs me most about the ceremonies which remember our soldiers: they seem to encourage us to forget about the war dead who were not armed.

 

[Hard-Luck Henry]

To my mind (or to me, personally), Remembrance Day is about just that; remembrance. Some people will always use it to make political capital, but really it's about us as individuals quietly, solemnly and simply remembering the men, women and children - of whatever side, whatever political/social/ethnic group, whatever war - who have died because of wars, past, present and future, and reflecting on what it means to us. These people died for an infinite number of reasons and none. "Ashes and diamonds, foe and friend, we were all equal in the end" ,eh? I don't believe Remembrance Day glorifies war, despite the best efforts of those who would like it to, but we can't truly be honouring those who have died whilst many of us are complicit in, or even simply witness to, the continuance of violence.

Some of those who line up on Sunday are hypocrites, often, regrettably - and ironically - those on the front line of the parades, those who get to speak; the hubristic politicians, the cynical hacks. At least for two minutes we get to shut them out. It's weird that in a world still at war, and in a country filled with people who like to argue about the rights and wrongs but who, on the whole, won't/don't/can't do anything about changing things, those two minutes seem so important. I often glance around and wonder what it is people are thinking during that two minutes of silence - it seems so poignant, in it's true sense: actually, mentally, physically, distressing. For two minutes people are left alone with their conscience. Then the bugle plays, to the relief of many, the world turns and nothing has changed.

"So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son ... "

 

[JomZ]

Lest we forget, and yet today we hardly remember. The veterans are slowly diminishing. The seeds that sprouted those wars are being spread again, and yet we are blind to this menace.

It is a hard thing for a young Canadian like me to comprehend. A person sent to war not only because his country asked him too but that he felt he needed too. To kill those that were not too different from him.

To see the savagery and brutality of no mans land.
To experience the harshness and cruelty of The Somme.
The unrelenting terror of having to storm the beaches of Normandy.

And yet, today we buy video games and watch movies that vividly capture this. Are these morbid curiosities or honourable memorials of soldiers in combat, its hard too tell.

Rememberance day is a day where we take a moment to reflect on a time where the world was tearing itself apart, and to all those who died. Yes we do mainly remember those who sacrificed all to stop this carnage, but we should remember those who could or would not fight but died anyways.

For if history is forgotten, then it is doomed to repeat itself. That is why I try too remember, even for a moment.

 

[peapod]

If people really honored soldiers, instead of the once year pomp and circumstance, than we would have a apology from the japanese for the "beyond" human treatment of prisoners of war in world war 2.
Why do people who offered up their lives have to fight for pension rights, when my X husband can collect a vetrans pension for a hockey injury for the rest of his life :?

I suggest anyone that had a ancestor who fought in world war one, seach the data base at the national archives in ottawa. You can have these records for the price of photocopying. Shortly there after you receive a mountain of paper with the most amazing material. 8O

I got to see my ancestors own handwriting, I saw that he lied about his age, he was 15, insteading of fishing, he was watching his friends being blown to bits and gassed. Yet he had to fight for his pensions rights till the day he died.
Everything was in those papers, I know all the distinguishing marks on his body, I know he had his kneecap blown off, I read the hospital records, I know he was hit by shrapnel in his arm, I read the hospital records, which was a good thing, considering that if he had not been in a hospital, he would have been blown to bits, along with the others that were killed in his trench. I know he earned 15 dollars a month for this, most of which he sent home to his mother rose in nova scotia.

Anyone, who has a relative or family memeber that served in world war one should retrive these treasures to read.

 

[Jay]

To my mind (or to me, personally), Remembrance Day is about just that; remembrance. Some people will always use it to make political capital, but really it's about us as individuals quietly, solemnly and simply remembering the men, women and children - of whatever side, whatever political/social/ethnic group, whatever war - who have died because of wars, past, present and future, and reflecting on what it means to us. These people died for an infinite number of reasons and none. "Ashes and diamonds, foe and friend, we were all equal in the end" ,eh? I don't believe Remembrance Day glorifies war, despite the best efforts of those who would like it to, but we can't truly be honouring those who have died whilst many of us are complicit in, or even simply witness to, the continuance of violence.

Some of those who line up on Sunday are hypocrites, often, regrettably - and ironically - those on the front line of the parades, those who get to speak; the hubristic politicians, the cynical hacks. At least for two minutes we get to shut them out. It's weird that in a world still at war, and in a country filled with people who like to argue about the rights and wrongs but who, on the whole, won't/don't/can't do anything about changing things, those two minutes seem so important. I often glance around and wonder what it is people are thinking during that two minutes of silence - it seems so poignant, in it's true sense: actually, mentally, physically, distressing. For two minutes people are left alone with their conscience. Then the bugle plays, to the relief of many, the world turns and nothing has changed.

Good post Henry.

I especially like this part below.

"So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son ... "

 

[Hard-Luck Henry]

Thanks Jay - the poem is by Wilfred Owen, probably the greatest of Britain's war poets. He's a very poignant figure, made even more so by the timing of his death; he was one of the last men killed in the First World War - News of his death reached his parents in Shrewsbury on Armistice Day itself, as the bells in his local church were ringing out in celebration.

Dulce et Decorum est is probably his most famous poem:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.*


(*trans. - it is sweet and right to die for your country).

 

[missile]

Not being a large fan of any poetry,I still found much to admire in the works of Rudyard Kipling and his poems about the ordinary soldier.The war cartoons by Bill Maudlin also depicted the hard life of the infantrymen in WW2.