Happy Armistice Day!
- Thread starter Candlelight
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^^The boys and the girls who went over? I don't remember there being any girls.
I think Terry Kelley is referring to ongoing conflicts, not just WW1 and WW2.
I do agree that remembrance should not be a two-minute thing on one day of the year - but I also think that it's a good opportunity for me to teach my students how important it is to remember that there are people dying every day in conflicts around the world.
^^The boys and the girls who went over? I don't remember there being any girls
I think Terry Kelley is referring to ongoing conflicts, not just WW1 and WW2.
I do agree that remembrance should not be a two-minute thing on one day of the year - but I also think that it's a good opportunity for me to teach my students how important it is to remember that there are people dying every day in conflicts around the world.
If you manage to bring some good to your students through this, that is to your credit
. However, my experience of this day is that it's a society-wide excuse to ignore issues and responsibilities that should not be brushed aside and must be addressed. WWI was ultimately the result of the ideologies of all the European nations; their militiarism, their belief that their young men had no higher purpose than to fight and die "for their country" and such nationalistic nonsense. Boys were conditioned from birth into this masculine role and callously sacrificed in the name of government's ridiculous competitiveness and national pride. But what do we do every Remembrance Day? Celebrate this sacrifice, thanking the victims of our societies for their victimization.
Remembrance Day should be about society confronting its mistreatment of its sons, ensuring that we never again make the mistake of seeing our young men and boys the way our nations did then. We must reaffirm the desire to treat our sons better and we must accept responsibility for what we've done to them for generations. Society has to imagine those soldiers as people deserving of empathy, not "heroes" (as they're always labeled), who are distinct from you or I. You and I are not heroes. Heroes are not people like us. Society has to learn not to dismiss these soldiers behind the exact same nationalistic, good-for-them-being-courageous-men nonsense that contributed to these conflicts in the first place. Society should use this day to say to its sons, "we were wrong".
But society does not admit its wrongs. Instead, it brushes the issue under the carpet with two minutes of silence defined in terms of the exact ideologies that were and are responsible for so many of our brothers and sons being lost to us.
^^The boys and the girls who went over? I don't remember there being any girls
I think Terry Kelley is referring to ongoing conflicts, not just WW1 and WW2.
I do agree that remembrance should not be a two-minute thing on one day of the year - but I also think that it's a good opportunity for me to teach my students how important it is to remember that there are people dying every day in conflicts around the world.
If you manage to bring some good to your students through this, that is to your credit
WWI was ultimately the result of the ideologies of all the European nations; their militiarism, their belief that their young men had no higher purpose than to fight and die "for their country" and such nationalistic nonsense. Boys were conditioned from birth into this masculine role and callously sacrificed in the name of government's ridiculous competitiveness and national pride. But what do we do every Remembrance Day? Celebrate this sacrifice, thanking the victims of our societies for their victimization.
Remembrance Day should be about society confronting its mistreatment of its sons, ensuring that we never again make the mistake of seeing our young men and boys the way our nations did then. We must reaffirm the desire to treat our sons better and we must accept responsibility for what we've done to them for generations. Society has to imagine those soldiers as people deserving of empathy, not "heroes" (as they're always labeled), who are distinct from you or I. You and I are not heroes. Heroes are not people like us. Society has to learn not to dismiss these soldiers behind the exact same nationalistic, good-for-them-being-courageous-men nonsense that contributed to these conflicts in the first place. Society should use this day to say to its sons, "we were wrong".
But society does not admit its wrongs. Instead, it brushes the issue under the carpet with two minutes of silence defined in terms of the exact ideologies that were and are responsible for so many of our brothers and sons being lost to us.
Hear,Hear!
It's what we're all told isn't it, respect 'our boys' as the tabloids put it but don't question why we fight these wars.
It's why I will not wear a poppy.
Not because I hate the soldiers but because it has become a symbol for self satisfied politicians and blowhard journalists who spout useless platitudes whilst refusing to deal with the actual facts of our ongoing (and past) wars.
We should make sure that 'never again' has real meaning.
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/ultra_realistic_modern_warfare
Here in the US it's Veterans Day
^^The boys and the girls who went over? I don't remember there being any girls
Many women served in war zones as nurses and some of them were killed. One example are the 21 Australian nurses who died in Banka Island Massacre, machine gunned by the Japanese after surviving the sinking on the ship thy were on. 2 other nurses went down with the ship, while 9 others were seen floating away on a raft and never seen again. Only one nurse survived the massacre.
For Australians and New Zelanders, Anzac Day is far more inportant for than Remembrance Day when it comes to homouring those who served in all wars. Each year thousands make their way to Turkey to attend the Dawn Services on the beaches at Gallipoli.
^^The boys and the girls who went over? I don't remember there being any girls
Many women served in war zones as nurses and some of them were killed. One example are the 21 Australian nurses who died in Banka Island Massacre, machine gunned by the Japanese after surviving the sinking on the ship thy were on. 2 other nurses went down with the ship, while 9 others were seen floating away on a raft and never seen again. Only one nurse survived the massacre.
That doesn't change the fact that 99.9 % of those who died were male, and died specifically because they were male. Anything else is revisionist history that tries to deny this selective maltreatment. If we were talking about women being denied the right to vote and we started talking about "women and men", I'm sure someone would object to the incorrect assumption that this was an issue imposing upon both sexes equally...
^^The boys and the girls who went over? I don't remember there being any girls
Many women served in war zones as nurses and some of them were killed. One example are the 21 Australian nurses who died in Banka Island Massacre, machine gunned by the Japanese after surviving the sinking on the ship thy were on. 2 other nurses went down with the ship, while 9 others were seen floating away on a raft and never seen again. Only one nurse survived the massacre.
That doesn't change the fact that 99.9 % of those who died were male, and died specifically because they were male. Anything else is revisionist history that tries to deny this selective maltreatment. If we were talking about women being denied the right to vote and we started talking about "women and men", I'm sure someone would object to the incorrect assumption that this was an issue imposing upon both sexes equally...
I certainly don't see how honouring the women who served can lead to the assumption that they served in equal numbers.
However in Anzac Day marches the nurses march with the soldiers and that is how it should be. Females did go into war zones and therefore the statement
"boys and girls who went over"
Is absolutely correct.
They weren't sent into those war zones to die, they were sent in to mop up their brother's guts. It isn't the same thing, and to equate the two is to deny the true issue which is the disposibility with which the nations involved marked their sons.
Well, today, I wore a poppy and observed two minutes silence, but all I could think about was how those young men in the trenches were told to die because generals and other high-ups considered them expendable.
We should remember them, not because of their gloried service to the nation, but because of their sacrifice, their forced sacrifice. 'Going over the top' is just another way of saying execution, and battles like the Somme were nothing more than mass murders. We should remember that.
We should remember them, not because of their gloried service to the nation, but because of their sacrifice, their forced sacrifice. 'Going over the top' is just another way of saying execution, and battles like the Somme were nothing more than mass murders. We should remember that.
I would say that, as far as Australia soldiers are concerned, that they were sent to fight rather than sent in to die.
Australian lost far more troops in the WWI than in WW2 (60,000 deaths in WW1, 33,826 deaths in WW2). This is because during the first war we were under British command and the British generals were too willing to sacrifice troops. When WW2 came along Australia refused to give over command of their troops and weren't willing to sacrifice men needlessly.
I do think that the women who choose to serve in war zones were just as brave as the soldiers and should be as equally honoured.
My father who was a WW2 veteran certainly had as much respect for the nurses as he did the troops.
And there was very difference between the way Allied men, women and children were treated after being captured by the Japanese during the Fall of Singapore. There is little difference between the way captured civilians and soldiers were treated. They all died in high number and those that survived endured starvation and cruelty.
On Anzac Day Australians honour them all.
Australia's greatest World War 2 hero is Edward "Weary" Dunlop. He was a doctor who wasn't sent to fight but to provide medical aid just like the nurses were. Should Weary not be so honoured because he wasn't sent to fight?
But do you address the problem of the actual ideologies involved? Well, actually, as you point out Australia was still a part of British hegemony, your nation has far less responsibility than most of those involved. Australia likely has less need to remind itself of its mistakes because it can't be given equal responsibility for the conflict. I'm opposed to these ritualistic observances because they never involve taking responsibility as a society and instead reinforce the very means of relating to the soldiers that put them in that position in the first place.
I think it is worth noting that Anzac commemorates Australia's defeat at Gallipoli not any sort of victory. At school we were taugfht how futile the Gallipoli campaign was but how brave the soldiers who fought there were.
We have a war memorial in Australia which has on the words of the leader of the army our troops fought at Gallipoli
We have a war memorial in Australia which has on the words of the leader of the army our troops fought at Gallipoli
Sadly, Miss Chicken, that memorial has always infuriated me. What does it say about people that their comprehension of "son" is "he who dies for us"? If they're your sons, you should share in my horror over how their nations treated them and be committed to ensuring it is never allowed to happen again. And as I've said before, "hero" is a distancing label designed to prevent empathic identification.
I wear a poppy and observe remembrance day in memory of the people, largely teenage boys, who fought, got injured and died fighting the wars of more powerful men. I do not glorify nor endorse those wars through remembering those who fought in them. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong.
I think the memorail shows how little hatred there was between the Turkish forces and the men they fought. By the end of the war they had great respect for each other and that respect has continued for more than 90 years and has developed into a great friendship between Turkey and Australia.
The Turks fought the Anzacs because they were fighting an invasion of their land, the Anzacs fought them not because of hatred but because they were told to do so. The whole campaign was futile for both side (and we are taught that it was futile) and accomplished little but out of it came the Anzac spirir an enduring respect for those who were once our enemies.
The Turks fought the Anzacs because they were fighting an invasion of their land, the Anzacs fought them not because of hatred but because they were told to do so. The whole campaign was futile for both side (and we are taught that it was futile) and accomplished little but out of it came the Anzac spirir an enduring respect for those who were once our enemies.
In the US, we remember all veterans on this day.
To those that have served their nation, men and women of the United States and of other countries, I salute you. Thank you for standing watch so that those of your land can know peace.
Remember the fallen. We stand on their shoulders.
To those that have served their nation, men and women of the United States and of other countries, I salute you. Thank you for standing watch so that those of your land can know peace.
Remember the fallen. We stand on their shoulders.
As a US Military Veteran of both the Cold and Gulf Wars, this Veterans Day, I salute not only the Veterans but those, both American and Allied, currently serving both in and out of the combat zones.
Over my course of service, I lost some friends, and have lost people I knew in the current conflicts across the world.
There is one song I always remember on this day..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvE97zz5loc
Thank a Veteran today, if it wasn't for them, many of you would be living much different lives now..
Over my course of service, I lost some friends, and have lost people I knew in the current conflicts across the world.
There is one song I always remember on this day..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvE97zz5loc
Thank a Veteran today, if it wasn't for them, many of you would be living much different lives now..
Beautifully said.
Goldbug (and all veterans on TrekBBS), allow me to extend a heartfelt thank you for your service and the treasured freedoms you protected.
Warmest Wishes,
Whoa Nellie
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