In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
================================
If you see one of these stands out today at your local shop, be sure to buy a poppy pin.
Robertvdl –
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR WHAT YOU POSTED!
My Father, his friends…they were involved in this… I’m SO PROUD OF YOU for being THANKFUL.
THANKS SO MUCH FROM COLD MINNESOTA to warm Netherlands and the people therein.
Howskepticalment says:
November 11, 2012 at 5:35 pm
“Useless wars” eh?
Does the deliberate murder of some 60 million Chinese innocents under Communism even bother you?
Does the deliberate murder of 45 some million under Communists in Russia/USSR bother you?
Does the enslavement of Eastern Europe bother you?
The deliberate murder of two millions more by Pol Pot bother you?
The imprisonment/enslavement/coerced and forced labor/loss of freedom of hundreds of millions under Communists elsewhere bother you at all?
What do you consider then a “useful” war? One that serves the purposes of socialists? Muslims over Christians? Hindu’s over Pakistani? Muslims over Buddhist? Is your “hatred” of war only focused on the western countries trying to keep others free … Who are you afraid of?
The rescuers? The ones fighting for somebody else’s freedom? Or the guerrilla, the terrorist, the slave owners and corrupt dictators in Africa and South America?
DocWat said:
“Where did you serve in order to preserve your right to disparage us all?”
As we see, he chickened out. All his words of ‘woulda, coulda’ are meaningless. Because there is always the enlistment option.
.
Lichanos says:
“WWI was nothing but senseless murder of innocent draftees to satisfy the ambitions of kings, ministers, and generals.”
Don’t forget the biggest warmonger: President Woodrow Wilson.
Wilson got the U.S. into WWI. It did not have to happen. We could have been the peace brokers. Instead, Wilson chose war. After the war, Wilson was the cause of the Versailles treaty being ratified. He could have easily blocked it. Germany held more territory at the end of the war than at the beginning. But like lots of his screwups, Wilson made the wrong decision. He also set up the League of Nations, the precursor to the totally corrupt, flagrantly anti-American, anti-West UN. It would be hard to find a more inept and stupid president than Woodrow Wilson. Even counting Carter and Obama.
D Böehm says:
November 11, 2012 at 3:22 pm
The U.S. could have, and should have, kept out of both World Wars.
And ignore the fact that Hitler was out to make Europe a Jew free territory?
Here is a veteran who is not so blind to human nature that he believes that war is never necessary.
Remember "all it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing."
D Böehm says:
November 11, 2012 at 3:22 pm
The U.S. could have, and should have, kept out of both World Wars.
———————————————————————————————-
And ignore the fact that Hitler was out to make Europe a Jew free territory?
Here is a veteran who is not so blind to human nature that he believes that war is never necessary.
Remember “all it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.”
sorry about the double post. my browser wasn’t updating properly
Richard Patton,
You make a good argument, and I agree. However, my point was that FDR deliberately maneuvered the U.S. into WWII. But protection of the European Jewish population was not his reason.
D Böehm says:
November 11, 2012 at 3:22 pm
“The U.S. could have, and should have, kept out of both World Wars.”
Possibly and perhaps probably the US should have stayed out of WW1 and as it was, they entered very late in the conflict.
On the other hand, fighting the Axis in WW2 was likely unavoidable. If England was defeated during the Battle of Britain, Germany would have England’s powerful naval forces and Germany would have the time to consolidate its conquests into a great European war machine. The Zimmerman telegram revealed ed early on Hitler’s intentions of conquering South America and from there, threatening North America. There was no way that the US could have avoided war with the Axis countries other than prostrating themselves as a vassal state.
RACookPE1978 says:
November 11, 2012 at 5:57 pm
Howskepticalment says:
November 11, 2012 at 5:35 pm
“Useless wars” eh?
Does the deliberate murder of some 60 million Chinese innocents under Communism even bother you?
Yes. Which war did the West fight to stop that? I am not sure what your point is.
Does the deliberate murder of 45 some million under Communists in Russia/USSR bother you?
Yes. Which war did the West fight to stop that? The reality is that Kruschev (who organised the Stalingrad front during World War Two), had previously been one of the chief instigators of mass slaughter in the USSR under Stalin. You might recall that he was our ally in World War Two. But this went off the boil a bit during the Cold War. In any case, I am not sure what your point is here.
Does the enslavement of Eastern Europe bother you?
It did. It is one the main reason our family fled Europe. BTW, that enslavement was carried out by our chief World War Two ally, the Soviet Union so I am not sure what your point is.
The deliberate murder of two millions more by Pol Pot bother you?
Yes. I have visited the killing fields and they is appalling. BTW, it was the Vietnamese Communist Government that overthrew Pol Pot. So, I am not sure what your point is.
The imprisonment/enslavement/coerced and forced labor/loss of freedom of hundreds of millions under Communists elsewhere bother you at all?
Yes. I am bothered by all despotisms and all infringements of human rights whether by Communists, colonial empires, Right-wing dictatorships, reiligious oligarchies, unelected kings and other bunches of unelected thugs, crooks, criminals and genocidal mass murderers.
What do you consider then a “useful” war? One that serves the purposes of socialists? Muslims over Christians? Hindu’s over Pakistani? Muslims over Buddhist? Is your “hatred” of war only focused on the western countries trying to keep others free … Who are you afraid of?
I would define a useful war as one in which we fight successfully against an invasion.
The rescuers? The ones fighting for somebody else’s freedom? Or the guerrilla, the terrorist, the slave owners and corrupt dictators in Africa and South America?
If you were to apply these rhetorical questions to Saudi Arabia, what conclusions would you come to?
The US is propping up a Mediaeval Kingdom in Saudi Arabia through, inter alia, the presence of heavily armed troops, air power and naval power.
The Kingdom is only maintained by an apparatus of secret police, religious thought police, and military might.
As for personal freedom, women cannot drive a car without being accompanied by a husband or a male guardian. As for democracy, there are no elections.
OTOH, Saudi Arabia is a major exporter of one of the world’s most radical Islamist sects – Wahabism, and counts Osama bin Laden as one of its most ‘successful’ imports.
I suggest the world is a far more complicated place than implied by your series of rhetorical questions.
Thanks for the dedication of a page to honor all those who have served. The many comments and thoughts are a celebration of the magnificence and frustration of being human. I commend some study and reflection on Rupert Brooke, the young Englishman with great gift for poetry and academics, who enrolled in England’s service in WW1. He died in France or Belgium. He very much wished to live, as did likely all who ever have served. The sacrifice of those who serve is honorable, irrespective of second thoughts about the justifications of their leaders, with few exceptions.
Howskepticalment…
…is someone who deliberately avoided serving his country. Now he presumes to pontificate on military matters.
Truly disgusting.
Aussie Luke Warm says:
November 11, 2012 at 5:37 pm
In Australia, we have a charitable organisation called Legacy which looks after wives & children of armed services personnel who are deceased or disabled. Lest we forget! For some unfathomable reason I suspect that many global warming alarmist do not support this worthy not-for-profit organisation.
Suspicions never got anyone anywhere in a logical discussion.
I support AGW science and I support Legacy which I believe has done a fantastic job – often despite governments, rather than because of governments.
I also support actively making sure that our Government treats returning vets from Afghanistan properly. We have around 30 KIA and several hundred WIA in Afghanistan. OTOH, Defence has around 30,000 cases of PTSD on its books. IMHO, these should be counted as casualties in the casualties stats (their wounds will often take much longer to heal than physical wounds) and they should be given an Australian equivalent to the US purple heart decoration.
By far the largest percentage of our war casualties are psychological casualties. They should be honoured and supported 100% by the Government that ordered them into the war, regardless of what we might think about the value of the war itself.
Bernd Felsche says:
November 11, 2012 at 5:07 pm
Howskepticalment wrote:
It would be nice, on their behalf, to see a national day of remembrance of human war folly and mass war waste, lest we stumble into yet another war by error, or accident, or misapprehension, but I imagine that the politicians would not be attracted to the idea at all, at all.
It is up to the individual to recognize the relative folly and virtue of armed conflict. Perhaps it’s still too soon for those who shunned/demonised the combatants returning from Vietnam and who spat on the graves of the fallen to see their own wrong.
(I appreciate this post.)
I would have no difficulty with the premise (it is up to individuals…) but in practice it is not possible. All national governments use national resources to organise vast remembrance events. This makes it government business, not private business, IMHO.
Rememberance Day/Veterans Day/… is about those who fought. It’s not about war, politics or a military. It is to honour the strengths of those who fought, to recognize and to respect their humanity.
See my previous comment. Remembrance Day is not private. It is a public event. I habitually visit war cemetaries and war memorials whenever I travel. The last such was the American Cemetary in Manila earlier this year. There are 17,000+ graves in that cemetary (two Aussies slipped in amongst all the Americans and Filipinos). Here and there a relative has visited and left a wreath or has arranged with the management to have a wreath laid. I visited the cemetary three or four times to try and get a handle on what it ‘meant’.
It is a beautiful, peaceful place for contemplation.
The first and the obvious feeling is a profound emotional response to the ultimate self-sacrifice and to the sheer scale of that sacrifice. The second impact was that the cemetary contains many graves of Filipino soldiers who died with their US comrades. The cemetary therefore marks an important step in the evolution of the national relationships between the US and the Philippines. Thirdly, the cemetary contains a potted history of the course of the War on its murals. IMHO, it is a historically accurate potted history. It sticks to the military elements, by the large. Fourthly, it gave form to our visit to Corrigidor and to our understanding of the destruction of Manila during World War Two. So, the cemetary tells, simultaneously, many stories and it has many meanings – some personal, some national, some political.
I put it to you that the American Cemetray is like Remembrance Day and that we cannot separate the personal and the political, even if we wanted to. (BTW, I had many excellent discussions with knowledgeable staff at the Cemetary and they organised a buggy for me to visit the Australian graves – they are a credit, IMHO).
Those who return from combat carry unseen scars. Some may choose not to remember because that can rip open those old wounds. I can respect that choice. An alternative day of rememberance will not serve those veterans who do not wish to remember. I suspect that it would counter-productive.
I acknowledge the sensitivities you raise. I would add another sensitivity to your consideration: a remembrance of those who suffered pyschologically as their menfolk returned, maddened by their war experiences.
Finally; it must not be left to politicians to decide what day the public choose to honour certain people and who should be honoured. The people to be honoured mark their day in history. The public decides if that day should be set aside. Individuals decide if they should participate.
As I have argued above, try to stop a politicians from basking in reflected deeds of the truly brave. If there are soldier’s greatcoats about, the politicians are sure to ride the tails.
Howskepticalment says:
“I habitually visit war cemetaries and war memorials whenever I travel.”
Yet he refused to serve.
Hypocrite.
My advice to howskepticalment: get off the subject. You are only digging yourself a deeper hole.
D Boehm I don’t wish to be pedantic here, but Howskepticalment didn’t ‘refuse to serve’ as you put it. He was not selected in the draft and was therefore not required to serve. If you are going to condemn someone for some reason, you should at least get that reason right.
D Boehm write, of Kiling “He served. Did you?”
Kipling did not serve. That is the whole point. Kipling, as in Tommy Adkins above, promoted a sentimental propoganda about the Empire and the wars it took to get and keep it. Kipling’s son was half blind, a decent boy, in no way suited to serve in the infantry or to be an officer. He would never have been accepted on health grounds had he tried to enlist in the normal way. Kipling therefore intrigued with his senior contacts in government to get him into the army, where he died almost at once. No shame to him, thousand, tens of thousands died that same day. No shame to him for being half blind either, that’s just what he was given.
The shame is to his jingoistic father who drove him to it and put him there, and afterwards wrote My Boy Jack. It has to be one of the falsest poems of loss ever published, a complete sentimental denial of the reality the shame and the pity of what the author had done to his boy.
As for did I serve? Never mind me. My family paid in the Great War and the price was most evident even in my childhood. What the Great War and remembrance of it should be about, in England, is not the honour of sacrifice, which is a fully legitimate subject and emotion, just not of that war. Instead we should be remembering the loss and the betrayal and the denial. As Ezra Pound put it
Daring as never before, wastage as never before.
Young blood and high blood,
fair cheeks, and fine bodies;
fortitude as never before
frankness as never before,
disillusions as never told in the old days,
hysterias, trench confessions,
laughter out of dead bellies.
There died a myriad,
And of the best, among them,
For an old bitch gone in the teeth,
For a botched civilization.
Charm, smiling at the good mouth,
Quick eyes gone under earth’s lid,
For two gross of broken statues,
For a few thousand battered books.
This is Kipling’s dreadful and pitiable reaction, the man who still could not admit what he had done.
Have you news of my boy Jack?”
Not this tide.
“When d’you think that he’ll come back?”
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
“Has any one else had word of him?”
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
“Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?”
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind —
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.
Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!
I did serve(USN). I’ve also been a firefighter, and I have worked security. I got really tired of spending holidays away from home, missing birthdays, seeing the kids grow up and not being able to attend the funerals of close family members. So, I got out after 20 years.
The one thing that bothers me about it… is the bleating “war is evil” crowd. Allegedly, we serve to protect that sort of slime… but I can’t help feeling like we are being taken as suckers by that sort. Personally, I don’t fly my flag anymore. Mainly beause the country is effectively done. All you bashers of the US… I tell you what. You’re own you own. Don’t look to me for help. I have a family to take care of.
Howskepticalment: I don’t believe anyone wants, or rejoices, in war, there a whole string of wars I vehemently disagree with ranging from Korea, through Viet Nam to Iraq. That they are wrong isn’t the fault of the participants, it’s the fault of their leaders. I can only quote the mother of a British soldier whose death was announced in the press.
“To the world he was just a British soldier, to me he meant the world”.
Behind all these deaths are people whose lives have been destroyed. Pointman, with great eloquence, has written about the BBC and hte attempts to dismiss the casualties of the various unnecessary wars, and how the people of a small village near Brize Norton showed our metro-elite that compassion comes before politics.And yes it’s the same for the “other side ” in any war.
“So many times, they offend the sentiments of ordinary people, because they simply don’t know what that those sentiments are. They seem incapable of understanding the very idea of some basic things like love of country and respect for the men and women who are prepared to put everything on the line, to protect that old-fashioned idea. Notions like that are very out fashion in medialand.
They desperately wanted to spin the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as some sort of variant of Britain’s very own Vietnam, by almost eagerly reporting each casualty on the evening news, but their silly agenda was beaten by the quiet dignity of a bunch of villagers nobody had ever heard of. The people of Brize Norton heard the transports droning in with the bodies aboard, so they knew the hearses would be driving by in a while. Everything stopped in the village for five minutes, as they lined the streets to pay their final respects to the hearses driving by.
They knew each of those hearses contained someone’s son or daughter and irrespective of the politics of the thing, it was a person who’d lost their life in the service of their country. Old fashioned stuff but even a bunch of sophisticates like you couldn’t sneer at it for too long, because people found it grossly offensive, which yet again surprised you. You repackaged it as your very own condescending take on little England but let’s face it, you’ll never understand anything like that. That would involve something called patriotism.”
Read it all:
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/the-bbc-aunty-beeb-or-mummy-knows-best/
I dunno, I’m all turned around on sacrosanct institution. I believe saluting veterans is pretty propagandistic; not out of disrespect for those who died but really over the myth that wars beget freedom. You do realise that a hell of a lot of of their intake is via school drop-outs and those lacking prospects. In times past, wars have been promoted as auspicious international opportunities, I know that is true for Australia, -I’m pretty optimistic that the military exploits these people.
One really needs to question the mindset of someone willing to risk their life for a nation state. Are they delusional? -perhaps, but more than likely indoctrinated.
I perfectly understand that a country requires a strong defence but the concept of defence is barely tenable when one considers your county’s track record. On the contrary, the U.S. has been a scourge to the developing of world peace and economic stability for years now.
I’m sorry if this offends, it’s just how I feel. I can see why you wouldn’t want to publish this.
From one living in Flanders Fields, who can’t drive in western direction without passing by those white silent witnesses of a painful past, scattered all over the West-Flemish war zone http://www.ww1cemeteries.com/ww1cemeteries/indexpage.htm , sincerest thanks to all those poor souls who came here thinking they were involved in something sublime and glorious, but soon found themselves in living hell…
http://www.inflandersfields.be/en/world-war-i-in-flanders/casualty-database/introduction
This discussion should not have ventured into politics and right or wrong.
The day is about remembrance of those who gave their lives for others, knowing full well they were risking everything.
Time will eventually render us all forgotten, but we should stop and remember those people now while their names and their history still have meaning.
And perhaps pray for a future without wars.
“With God On Our Side”
Oh my name it is nothin’
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I was taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And the land that I live in
Has God on its side.
Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.
The Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I’s made to memorize
With guns on their hands
And God on their side.
The First World War, boys
It came and it went
The reason for fighting
I never did get
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don’t count the dead
When God’s on your side.
When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And then we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.
I’ve learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war comes
It’s them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.
But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we’re forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God’s on your side.
In a many dark hour
I’ve been thinkin’ about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can’t think for you
You’ll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.
So now as I’m leavin’
I’m weary as Hell
The confusion I’m feelin’
Ain’t no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God’s on our side
He’ll stop the next war.
Bob Dylan
samg
I was one of those with no prospects.
I went into the US Navy one week out of high school.
I went to college on the VA bill.
Earned a Ph.D. in chemistry.
The US and its military is the reason your post was not in Japanese.
jwa
All war is an evil; but war against a tyrant can be, and has been, much the lesser evil. Ask the Ukrainians, or the Jews, or the Cambodians, or the Chinese, what evil tyranny can bring.
Remembrance day (here in Britain) is observed with increased respect of late. I am pleased that my family happily takes part, and that a son of mine parades with the cadets.
At the same time, I am grateful that I was never called up into the military – I don’t know if I would have found the courage to go under fire.
@ur momisugly SamG says:
November 12, 2012 at 2:15 am
Your post doesn’t offend me (GySgt, USMC (Ret). But I do think you should study world history and cultural anthropology. You seem rather ignorant of both, and would benefit from furthering your education.
There’s a lot here since my last post.
Let’s leave it at this: This is a board that is inhabited largely by skeptics – i.e. hard heads that follow where the data leads them.
The Origins of the Second World War – A.J.P. Taylor
History of the Second World War – B.H. Liddell Hart
The Chief Culprit – Victor Suvorov
Read those, probably in that order, instead of the fawning court histories one usually runs into. Even the ‘good’ war wasn’t.
Remember: you (justifiably) don’t trust the government approved narrative on climate, why in the world would you trust the narrative on foreign interventions?