Dulce Et Decorum Est

[UnderYourSpell]

Singing enemy songs

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

L'homme Arme , a mass for peace.

 

[champagne1982]

Can there be a more apt song that Lili Marlene? Written as a love poem in WWI, then put to music in WWII and adopted and loved by both sides?

Lili Marlene in Deustch, Lili Marlene in English

My great uncle Jim was one of the "Little Red Devils", Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and was only 16 in 1914 and lied in order to volunteer to fight. He was at Ypres in 1915 when the Germans deployed their gas attacks on the entrenched allies downwind. He suffered relatively mild poisoning and had emphysema for years before he passed on in the late 80s. It wasn't until I joined the armed forces that he opened up and shared the reality of his wartime experiences and the survival tricks he learned and practiced in the field. It was comforting to me that technological advances in war machinery meant that my own fight and death would be quick should the world ever descend to global conflict again. He taught us this song and a half-dozen other forgotten ones when I was very young. He had a lovely tenor voice.

I thank him and the millions of others who suffered and died that I may live in this now, when we have the luxury to develop more efficient death delivery systems and to talk, endlessly, on maintaining the peace so that those systems will never be deployed.

I thank those who serve to the greater end of sowing freedom and raising the standards of nations who build their wealth and power on the backs of women and children.

I thank those who give candy bars to kids who have small reason to smile, soccer balls to those who need to play rather than drill, and clean water to any who come with a vessel to fill.

I thank my lucky stars that I have never had to face my own mortality in a war zone.

 

[bogusagain]

One thing we should remember is that world war one wasn't inevitable and it wasn't about freedom. Every year we hear how men died in great numbers in WWI for freedom, which isn't true. In fact Britain didn't become a proper democracy until 1918, the same year as Germany and didn't achieve universal suffrage until 1928. While most western countries were nominally democratic, none had universal suffrage in 1914. The reasons for war were an arms race, nationalism, unresolved border disputes, colonial rivalry, economic rivalry, trade and intricate alliances and bad political decisions in 1914. All reasons that could start a war today. We still even have colonialism, though in the west we are in denial about it. After four years of war, the war and the reasons for it still wasn't properly resolved. The economist Milton Keynes who was at the Versailles Treaty signing wrote in 1920, predicting another war in 1940 because the treaty didn't resolve the issues, it just imposed a victors peace, at the isistance of an arrogant France which ignored simmering German resentment.

I had a great uncle who served in the WWI trenches for three years. He said little about the war other than if they (ordinary soldiers) were really brave, they would have turned and shot the bastards behind them! (Officers and politicians). But then, I come from a family of socialists.

 

[ishtat]

Memorial

Take your brother Jack by the hand Lily
to Aylesbeare church and there beside the door
show him the name cut there in stone Lily
the name of your Dad who went to war.

And when he is old enough to understand Lily
find a pew down on the south side in the sun
Please read to him the letter that I wrote Lily
the last one that I sent when I was gone.

Be a good girl if you can for your dad Lily
and if you always can't, think of your mum
for she's a lady, best of all I ever knowed Lily
so when in doubt be just like her if you can.

Nor I won't be coming back again with you Jack
no more fishing , no more football, no more fun
my girls are in your keeping so be done with any weeping
stand up straight and be a man my son.


I wrote two lines of the first verse. The remainder were taken from numerous postcards and letters written by my great grandfather to his 11 year old daughter and 6 year old son. GG was killed at the battle of Loos in 1915.

 

[twelveoone]

One thing we should remember is that world war one wasn't inevitable and it wasn't about freedom. Every year we hear how men died in great numbers in WWI for freedom, which isn't true. In fact Britain didn't become a proper democracy until 1918, the same year as Germany and didn't achieve universal suffrage until 1928. While most western countries were nominally democratic, none had universal suffrage in 1914. The reasons for war were an arms race, nationalism, unresolved border disputes, colonial rivalry, economic rivalry, trade and intricate alliances and bad political decisions in 1914. All reasons that could start a war today. We still even have colonialism, though in the west we are in denial about it. After four years of war, the war and the reasons for it still wasn't properly resolved. The economist Milton Keynes who was at the Versailles Treaty signing wrote in 1920, predicting another war in 1940 because the treaty didn't resolve the issues, it just imposed a victors peace, at the isistance of an arrogant France which ignored simmering German resentment.

I had a great uncle who served in the WWI trenches for three years. He said little about the war other than if they (ordinary soldiers) were really brave, they would have turned and shot the bastards behind them! (Officers and politicians). But then, I come from a family of socialists.

I wonder how many west pointers were fragged in nam.
I heard a story once from a Navy Seal, caught on leave in the Tet offensive and ordered to retrieve a wounded soldier a sniper had shot, by a green lieutenant. His response "fuck you". So the lieutenant turned and ordered a green kid to a his death.
Too many wars, not enough "fuck you"s

 

[twelveoone]

*Broken man*

clichéd to say that he was in hell
but they were his words,
spoken in drunken slurs,
Dutch courage was needed
to repeat the defeat he felt,

dishonourable discharge,
upheaved from his birth place,
for having the nerve to
disgrace his commanding officer
from England to Australia
outcast,

not shooting the child that he
was ordered to shoot,
he swallows another draught
of draught to steady his narration
this drunken contemplation on
why?

when he refused his officer did the deed
pulled the trigger,
for the boy was a rice-nigger
not a real human,
and grandfather wept for that boy as if he
were his own,
disowned the army

in violent rage and angered protest
he laid his officer out to rest
in the brains of the child he'd killed
and bet him near to death,

at this point is when he would break down
real tears, revealing his fears
memories that wont cease,
so he drank them and himself
to death

miss you granddad

BTW, I like this
just sayin

 

[bogusagain]

Too many wars, not enough "fuck you"s

Sadly, too true.

We should remember the dead but we should also remember the stupid reasons why they are dead. Wyndham Lewis said the sacrifice was out of proportion of the reasons. I suspect that is true of just about all wars.

 

[todski28]

Take your brother Jack by the hand Lily
to Aylesbeare church and there beside the door
show him the name cut there in stone Lily
the name of your Dad who went to war.

And when he is old enough to understand Lily
find a pew down on the south side in the sun
Please read to him the letter that I wrote Lily
the last one that I sent when I was gone.

Be a good girl if you can for your dad Lily
and if you always can't, think of your mum
for she's a lady, best of all I ever knowed Lily
so when in doubt be just like her if you can.

Nor I won't be coming back again with you Jack
no more fishing , no more football, no more fun
my girls are in your keeping so be done with any weeping
stand up straight and be a man my son.


I wrote two lines of the first verse. The remainder were taken from numerous postcards and letters written by my great grandfather to his 11 year old daughter and 6 year old son. GG was killed at the battle of Loos in 1915.

So poignant Ishtat, a found poem nearly a century in the making, but good to remember. Thanks for sharing the advice to daughter and son handled through letters and transcripts is so moving, even through war he was doing the best he could to be a father.

 

[champagne1982]

One thing we should remember is that world war one wasn't inevitable and it wasn't about freedom. Every year we hear how men died in great numbers in WWI for freedom, which isn't true. In fact Britain didn't become a proper democracy until 1918, the same year as Germany and didn't achieve universal suffrage until 1928. While most western countries were nominally democratic, none had universal suffrage in 1914. The reasons for war were an arms race, nationalism, unresolved border disputes, colonial rivalry, economic rivalry, trade and intricate alliances and bad political decisions in 1914. All reasons that could start a war today. We still even have colonialism, though in the west we are in denial about it. After four years of war, the war and the reasons for it still wasn't properly resolved. The economist Milton Keynes who was at the Versailles Treaty signing wrote in 1920, predicting another war in 1940 because the treaty didn't resolve the issues, it just imposed a victors peace, at the isistance of an arrogant France which ignored simmering German resentment.

I had a great uncle who served in the WWI trenches for three years. He said little about the war other than if they (ordinary soldiers) were really brave, they would have turned and shot the bastards behind them! (Officers and politicians). But then, I come from a family of socialists.

I get annoyed at people saying Canadian soldiers died for our freedom. We were never at risk of being enslaved or held bound by any other nation than the empire that already held us to paying taxes and providing resources (including young men) to fuel their squabbles. The second war was about fighting a tyrant and keeping the world from paying that man's horrible price but still Canadians fought then at the behest of the British parliament. Yes, we were still under that yoke but for the most part willingly, even now we play on that team, but I can think of worse arrangements. I just can't find an argument to point me away from wishing to still hold the rights and freedoms of all people under the Canadian charter paramount to any other cause, no matter where that fight may take us, since I believe the course outlined within it is one drawn in good faith and looks to having all of us celebrate and tolerate the diversity of humanity.

 

[twelveoone]

I get annoyed at people saying Canadian soldiers died for our freedom. We were never at risk of being enslaved or held bound by any other nation than the empire that already held us to paying taxes and providing resources (including young men) to fuel their squabbles. The second war was about fighting a tyrant and keeping the world from paying that man's horrible price but still Canadians fought then at the behest of the British parliament. Yes, we were still under that yoke but for the most part willingly, even now we play on that team, but I can think of worse arrangements. I just can't find an argument to point me away from wishing to still hold the rights and freedoms of all people under the Canadian charter paramount to any other cause, no matter where that fight may take us, since I believe the course outlined within it is one drawn in good faith and looks to having all of us celebrate and tolerate the diversity of humanity.

I was hoping for somebody to say something like this.
This is thoughtful.
A few months ago, I was behind a car...
"Thank a Teacher" "Thank A Vet" "yaddda, yadda" "YADDA yadda"
BUT no bumper sticker that said
"Think"
which naturally prompted me to do so.
If we are supposedly in a "War on Terror"
why no "Thank the TSA" "Thank the NSA"
Thanks for the soft x-rays, (and the random and often stupid strip searches) thanks for the spying on me.
The sentiment is a should be a little different with "Remembrance Day" or in the US with "Memorial Day"
"Veterans Day" implies this will be an ongoing process, so let's look the other way and as we shop during the sale.
Orwell (who was a Vet) was shot by the "other side", and barely escaped being killed by the side he was "fighting for" had an expression "facing it".
Thank you George
Politics and the English Language changed my life.

 

[bogusagain]

We were never at risk of being enslaved or held bound by any other nation than the empire that already held us to paying taxes and providing resources (including young men) to fuel their squabbles.

I'm sorry champs, the devil in me can't help but smile and note the irony. The irony is, Canada as a modern nation, like the USA, wouldn't exist if it wasn't for imperialism and both countries were imperialistic themselves during and after their growth. And both countries are leading nations in the western capitalist project, which itself, is imperialistic.

 

[twelveoone]

Canada is a great nation
one need look no further than Toronto
(wasn't he played by Johnny Depp?)

 

[corndog_]

No doubt the residents were reassured. Like being told by a neighbor "Yes, I play with guns, but only when I'm pissed off."