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i don't expect everyone to observe this holiday, however, there are a few canadians here that do and even americans and british as well. i personally take the time each year to think about my family and what sacrifices they have made for others and how i doubt i would have the courage they had to do what they felt was right, which at the time was to serve in the canadian military and fight the war against nazi germany. They fought to protect the rights of all you wankers that insist on turning something as harmless as a rememberance thread into some political bullshit drama.

R.I.P to my Great, Great Grandfather; gassed in Ypres, France: May 1915

No kidding. You can take countless minutes to bitch about it but not 2 minutes to remember those fallen soldiers and the ones who are still fighting? Lame.

I've discovered a relative killed in WWI in France. My mother's uncle was in the British Army in WWII. And an ancestor on my father's side fought for the British in the Crimean war.

But I don't commemorate.

the US has memorial day, which everyone "celebrates". i imagine veterans day is to stay in tune with remembrance day, elsewhere.

i still have one of these laying around somewhere

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

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.

had to be posted.

off to the hockey game.

quote:

Originally posted by wienerschnitzel They fought to protect the rights of all you wankers that insist on turning something as harmless as a rememberance thread into some political bullshit drama.

I very, very much doubt that people who died in wars past willingly sacrificed their lives for me so you can fuck off with that rhetoric.

And if you're going to turn your frustrations somewhere, turn it towards countries and leaders who piss on the memory of millions of lives taken unjustly by continuing to wage war. Or how's about all of the men and women serving in the military today who play the game merely because they feel some great swell of pride or duty to their nationalism ticket of choice? The only ones who 'died for us' were those taken into military drafts against their will and were murdered by a system which robbed them of choice all the while promising that their forfeited lives would someday lead to bloodshed's end.

The only true 'lesson' I see with Veteran's Day is in not following in the footsteps of the ones you are remembering. This lesson seems to fall hard on all too daft minds, however.

quote:

Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On I very, very much doubt that people who died in wars past willingly sacrificed their lives for me so you can fuck off with that rhetoric. And if you're going to turn your frustrations somewhere, turn it towards countries and leaders who piss on the memory of millions of lives taken unjustly by continuing to wage war. Or how's about all of the men and women serving in the military today who play the game merely because they feel some great swell of pride or duty to their nationalism ticket of choice? The only ones who 'died for us' were those taken into military drafts against their will and were murdered by a system which robbed them of choice all the while promising that their forfeited lives would someday lead to bloodshed's end. The only true 'lesson' I see with Veteran's Day is in not following in the footsteps of the ones you are remembering. This lesson seems to fall hard on all too daft minds, however.

no they didn't die for you wankers was plural. and i wasn't intending on taking out my frustration, i was simply reflecting with reverance. I thought you were the one who was frustrated with countries and leaders. Are you telling me that people who willingly enlisted in the war were not putting their lives on the line for others? that was specifically reserved for those who were conscripted? you, sir, can fuck off.. 'how is' about that?

quote:

Originally posted by wienerschnitzel no they didn't die for you wankers was plural. and i wasn't intending on taking out my frustration, i was simply reflecting with reverance. I thought you were the one who was frustrated with countries and leaders. Are you telling me that people who willingly enlisted in the war were not putting their lives on the line for others? that was specifically reserved for those who were conscripted? you, sir, can fuck off.. 'how is' about that?

Don't give me the 'you wankers' bullshit until you've died in a war for me. Nobody else. Just me.

You can find quite a bit to sacrifice yourself to some imagined collective or greater good if you advertise it enough - but in the end, quite unbeknown to the very cattle being slaughtered, no good came of their foolish and pointless deaths, now did there?

People who enlist in the military are probably doing it for themselves or have deluded themselves into believing they are protecting their loved ones from, you know, that great fucking threat looming over us. Whether it be political agendas, economic agendas, or black people, there's seems to be no shortage of reasons people see as justification for either killing one another directly or merely helping the process by pushing buttons.

You seem to believe that there is honour reserved for the sacrificial, the most lemming-like of our species. This sort of mentality is what allows impassioned viewpoints to perpetuate war and mass murder in the first place.

Oh, but look at me - some fucker I didn't know *died* so that I could post this. How fucking ungrateful I am.

i see wars in two angles.

one being the battle of britain and the other being the iraq / afgan war.

The battle of britain was an ariel war and the RAF was defending the country against something much bigger.
On paper the RAF should have been wiped out and england become german land.

I think the moral and mentality of those pilots with their spitfires and hurricanes which were heavily outnumbered by the luftwaffe , coupled with some of goerings mistakes , saved the UK from operation sealion becoming a success.

These pilots and soldiers of that day were fighting against one crazy enemy in control of tanks , planes , V2 rockets and several 10's of thousands of soldiers.
And you would want to protect you wife and children against that.

The current conflict in iraq and afgan land are just terrorists , not leaders or military powers but terrorists.

In most western countries a terrorist is dealt with by the civilian police.

But nowadays a nation with a terrorist cell is bombed to shit and its oil captured.
Although a loss is still devastating , i cant help but feel it is in vain , it dosnt matter.

A phrase in the first world war ' Lions lead by donkeys' stood then and it sure as hell stands now.

And in fairness , i think rememberance day should highlight the pointlessness in current conflicts and as said before , the reasons why people should lay down their life for you , the citizen.

Just remember those who did it for the right of freedom , the ones who fought to save there country and were lead into battle by their leaders on that promise.

Nowadays it seems all an advert , like a real life computer game , and thats where you get the idiots joining because they want to be tough.But there still maybe people who really want to fight the cause.

but i am certain they are few and far between.

pardon my ignorance, but did Canada have mandatory service in WWI or II? I believe the US did, a la "draft dodgers" but wasn't sure about Canada.

In view that people were forced to serve, and might have died, I definitely feel sorry for them and their families and believe it's totally appropriate to remember them. But if you volunteered and got killed, that's no more important than a cop dying on the street trying to thwart a robbery. and we don't have a special day to remember those cops, so I don't really care, especially for those dying in Iraq or Afghanistan.

however, for the involuntary military men, I salute you.

quote:

Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On Don't give me the 'you wankers' bullshit until you've died in a war for me. Nobody else. Just me. You can find quite a bit to sacrifice yourself to some imagined collective or greater good if you advertise it enough - but in the end, quite unbeknown to the very cattle being slaughtered, no good came of their foolish and pointless deaths, now did there? People who enlist in the military are probably doing it for themselves or have deluded themselves into believing they are protecting their loved ones from, you know, that great fucking threat looming over us. Whether it be political agendas, economic agendas, or black people, there's seems to be no shortage of reasons people see as justification for either killing one another directly or merely helping the process by pushing buttons. You seem to believe that there is honour reserved for the sacrificial, the most lemming-like of our species. This sort of mentality is what allows impassioned viewpoints to perpetuate war and mass murder in the first place. Oh, but look at me - some fucker I didn't know *died* so that I could post this. How fucking ungrateful I am.

whilst i certainly agree, i would still argue that some wars had to be fought, and those that say, defeated fascism should be shown some respect.

quote:

Originally posted by fayraree pardon my ignorance, but did Canada have mandatory service in WWI or II? I believe the US did, a la "draft dodgers" but wasn't sure about Canada. In view that people were forced to serve, and might have died, I definitely feel sorry for them and their families and believe it's totally appropriate to remember them. But if you volunteered and got killed, that's no more important than a cop dying on the street trying to thwart a robbery. and we don't have a special day to remember those cops, so I don't really care, especially for those dying in Iraq or Afghanistan. however, for the involuntary military men, I salute you.

Stupidest thing I've ever seen you post, and you should be ashamed of it.

quote:

Originally posted by Alex Stupidest thing I've ever seen you post, and you should be ashamed of it.

sad thing is, i'm not

to be quite honest, i do have a lot of sympathy for those who died in WW2. I've visited Omaha Beach in Normandy, France and the U.S. cemetary nearby and it was sobering to see the bunkers where the nazis mounted their machine guns on the top of the cliffs, just spraying down on the allied forced on D-Day. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the brave people that tried to break enemy lines (they were conscripted, which is why I feel that way). I didn't have any family that were touched by the WWs but still, when I studied it in history and especially watching Saving Private Ryan with the vividness, and physically being there on the beach, all of those made me respect those brave acts very much, and made me hate the nazis who could just kill like that with no remorse.

but still, for those who volunteer to get butchered, i don't understand that. for leaders to decide to sacrifice their citizens, i also don't get that. I feel like the end of WW2 had more to do with lack of supplies and cold weather (i.e. nature) on the eastern front when nazis were stopped in russia than anything else. that front spread the nazis thin and allowed the allies to flank them.

anyway, enough of my Risk analysis but sorry to disappoint, Alex, but that's how I feel...I feel more safe with the cops who get into the line of gang fire here in Scarborough than the idiots giving up their lives in the middle east.

I hope you get deported, seriously.

quote:

Originally posted by Alex I hope you get deported, seriously.

lol

I guess it's a touchy subject with me.

My whole family on my dad's side and a lot on my mom's side have all been in the military. (Either US or Canada)

I have friends serving in Afghanistan and neither of them joined because they wanted to go to Afghanistan and get shot by Taleban guys.

They had joined the forces years earlier in hopes of getting a career and possibly doing some relief work abroad should the need arise.

If you agreed with the Afghan war in the first place or not, the facts are we're there now and if we leave there will be genocide and all our efforts (false as they may be to some) will have been for nothing.

I'm all for peace, one of my heroes is John Lennon ffs, but your ideas on this subject are so flawed and insensitive that you need to think a bit more about what you're saying.

hey dude i figured you had a personal, familial connection to the subject and yes a lot of it has to do upbringing. war was never a discussion at my dinner table so i developed my ideas about it through education, and i never had a very deep-seated belief about it.

Just like you said, your friends joined the forces earlier because of the various benefits it provides (not just financial, I almost joined the air force because of the discipline it would have taught me, plus i love fast things ). But the second your organization takes a turn in a direction you don't personally believe in, you gotta leave it!!! whether it's the army or a bank, or a law firm! lol. My argument is that when war was declared, and your friends who didn't fathom going to war may have a possibility of going, they should leave! Just because you have a US flag on your uniform, imo doesn't make you less patriotic when you quit then if i quit my job in business.

I don't know, I might have it wrong there but I honestly believe that the genocide SHOULD occur...the innocent people who just want to feed their family will outnumber the extremist politically motivated people and if the regular joes want freedom enough, they will have to fight for it themselves, old school styles. enough of this imperialistic bullshit.

It's when an innocent MINORITY is being wiped out, that's when I think someone like the UN should step in. Anyway, even that argument is filled with loopholes because the Taliban have weapons while the regular citizens don't...fuck too many cans of worms...I think I'll take a nap now before work tomorrow and forget i ever posted any of this shit.

I didn't grow up with it being a big part, even though SA is part of the commonwealth, so it's not really ingrained into me, but we did observe the 2 minutes silence at work yesterday, all the phone lines were turned off and the like.

Unbelievable, just wow.

quote:

Originally posted by fayraree I didn't have any family that were touched by the WWs

If you believe this then you, clearly, have no understanding of history and how the two great wars shaped the world you live in today. Being of Pakistani origin you may be interested to know that over a million British Indian (of which now Pakistan was part) served in Europe during the first world war. Additionally, it was the lingering economic and social changes from the First Great War that shifted sentiment in the UK such that Britain wanted to divest itself of it's colonies. Only after the second Great War did the UK realize that they could no longer support a colony in India, which is precisely what lead to the UK to allow independence for Pakistan. Moreover, the implications of the two Great Wars for your present home are nearly immeasurable; so much so that I dare say the life you enjoy today would not have been possible without those two wars. Finally, your precious M3 would not exist if not for the second world war... as BMW only started making automobiles because they were barred from making aircraft engines in the aftermath of second great war( ).

quote:

but still, for those who volunteer to get butchered, i don't understand that. for leaders to decide to sacrifice their citizens, i also don't get that.

The volunteers joined the war effort because they wished to; a) further the interests of their country, which would benefit those they loved, b) put an end to what they believed to be dangerous powerful nations bent on global conquest (Germany and Austria in WW1, Germany, Italy, and Japan in WWII), 3) to prevent the suffering and slaughter of countless people. Of course some joined because they wanted adventure; however, the vast majority had more noble aspirations. Perhaps you are simply not selfless enough to understand but some people do believe that there are things greater then themselves that require protection and they are willing to provide the same (even at the cost of their lives).

As far as the leaders go... that will differ for each nation in each of the wars; the reasons are far too numerous to go into in this forum.

quote:

I feel like the end of WW2 had more to do with lack of supplies and cold weather (i.e. nature) on the eastern front when nazis were stopped in russia than anything else. that front spread the nazis thin and allowed the allies to flank them.

While weather and supply problems crippled Operation Barbarosa the German military would have been able to withstand those problems if not for the constant resistance of Soviet and Western Allied forces. Perhaps the biggest problem the Nazis faced was the destruction of their manufacturing base and rail lines in the Reinland due to Allied bombing. If not for that bombing the Germans would likely have been able to sustain the eastern front to the Polish Ukraine boarder at very least. That hit in their industrial capacity and the overwhelming number of soldiers that the Soviet Union threw at the eastern front is ultimately what brought the Germans down; the western allies invasion of Italy and France hastened the Soviet victory. Make no mistake, without the early actions of the Allied volunteer armies followed by the larger actions of the same armies bolstered with conscripted soldiers Western Europe would have suffered a very long Nazi occupation and Eastern Europe would have been a battlefield for a lot longer then 5 years.

ur last argument is completely debatable, the allies were able to succeed in their invasion of france because of the fact that nazi resources were committed to the east.

and re: my beloved car and previous generations, again, neither my grandfathers nor any great uncles ever mentioned anything about the war to me when i pressed them for details (because i was really passionate about it when i was studying it) and their children (i.e. my parents and aunts/uncles) confirmed that there was nothing they knew so unless i studied my fam geneology then i wouldn't know. your generic references don't really hit home for me, and i was referring to direct references, urs were obvious

and again, to Halcyon's point, saying what the "majority of volunteers'" intentions were, that's a load of bullshit unless you have some Ipsos Reid polls or something

All those unacquainted with this day of commemoration should turn to the literature of that time period.

Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front (or watch the movie)
It's not a war book driven by the politics of war - rather, the fictional story revolves around the lives of a few men who lived through the horrors of the trenches in WWI

The book was banned by the Nazis who attempted to glorify war. Any copy of it found was burned because the story explicitly depicts the actual horror of war. A really good read imo


In Flanders Fields is a beautiful poem.

My favourite of the war poet's is Wilfred Owen

Dulce Et Decorum Est

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 disappointed shells 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 floundering 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.

(the last line is latin: "it is right and proper to die for your country")

quote:

Originally posted by fayraree ur last argument is completely debatable, the allies were able to succeed in their invasion of france because of the fact that nazi resources were committed to the east.

You obviously didn't understand my last point. The invasion of France was more or less immaterial to the Soviet victory over the Nazis... that would have happened with or without the Western Allies invading France. You're right, resources were a problem for the Nazis but not due to weather; rather, the key component was supply and transportation problems due to the destruction of production facilities and transportation infrastructure resultant of Allied bombing.

quote:

and re: my beloved car and previous generations, again, neither my grandfathers nor any great uncles ever mentioned anything about the war to me when i pressed them for details (because i was really passionate about it when i was studying it) and their children (i.e. my parents and aunts/uncles) confirmed that there was nothing they knew so unless i studied my fam geneology then i wouldn't know. your generic references don't really hit home for me, and i was referring to direct references, urs were obvious

Are you suggesting that unless one had a family member fight in the wars then one has not been effected by them? If you believe that then you're taking way too narrow a view.

quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN whilst i certainly agree, i would still argue that some wars had to be fought, and those that say, defeated fascism should be shown some respect.

Wow, Fascism was defeated?

Link?

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