Nearly 100 years ago today, in 1918, the treaty to end hostilities on the Western Front of World War 1 took effect. Typically a 2 minute moment of silence is taken at 1100 hours to commemorate the nearly 20 million men who lost their lives during the conflict.
Kurt Vonnegut put it best in one of my most favorite quotes.
I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.
So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.
What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
And all music is.
UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
Canada has a thing for John McCrae's In Flanders Fields today, but for real emotional impact Wilfred Owen's Dulce Et Decorum Est gets me every time.
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 gas-shells dropping softly 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,
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 paralysis of cold was passing away from the knot of sufferers, though the light no longer made any progress over the great irregular marsh of the lower plain. The desolation proceeded, but not the day.
Then he who spoke sorrowfully, like a bell, said. "It'll be no good telling about it, eh? They wouldn't believe you; not out of malice or through liking to pull your leg, but because they couldn't. When you say to 'em later, if you live to say it, 'We were on a night job and we got shelled and we were very nearly drowned in mud,' they'll say, 'Ah!' And p'raps they'll say. 'You didn't have a very spicy time on the job.' And that's all. No one can know it. Only us."
"No, not even us, not even us!" some one cried.
"That's what I say, too. We shall forget — we're forgetting already, my boy!"
"We've seen too much to remember."
"And everything we've seen was too much. We're not made to hold it all. It takes its damned hook in all directions. We're too little to hold it."
"You're right, we shall forget! Not only the length of the big misery, which can't be calculated, as you say, ever since the beginning, but the marches that turn up the ground and turn it again, lacerating your feet and wearing out your bones under a load that seems to grow bigger in the sky, the exhaustion until you don't know your own name any more, the tramping and the inaction that grind you, the digging jobs that exceed your strength, the endless vigils when you fight against sleep and watch for an enemy who is everywhere in the night, the pillows of dung and lice — we shall forget not only those, but even the foul wounds of shells and machine-guns, the mines, the gas, and the counter-attacks. At those moments you're full of the excitement of reality, and you've some satisfaction. But all that wears off and goes away, you don't know how and you don't know where, and there's only the names left, only the words of it, like in a dispatch."
"That's true what he says," remarks a man, without moving his head in its pillory of mud. When I was on leave, I found I'd already jolly well forgotten what had happened to me before. There were some letters from me that I read over again just as if they were a book I was opening. And yet in spite of that, I've forgotten also all the pain I've had in the war. We're forgetting-machines. Men are things that think a little but chiefly forget. That's what we are."
"Then neither the other side nor us'll remember! So much misery all wasted!"
This point of view added to the abasement of these beings on the shore of the flood, like news of a greater disaster, and humiliated them still more.
"Ah, if one did remember!" cried some one.
"If we remembered," said another, "there wouldn't be any more war."
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
The naked earth is warm with spring,
And with green grass and bursting trees
Leans to the sun’s gaze glorying,
And quivers in the sunny breeze;
And life is colour and warmth and light,
And a striving evermore for these;
And he is dead who will not fight;
And who dies fighting has increase.
The fighting man shall from the sun
Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth;
Speed with the light-foot winds to run,
And with the trees to newer birth;
And find, when fighting shall be done,
Great rest and fullness after dearth.
All the bright company of Heaven
Hold him in their high comradeship,
The Dog-Star, and the Sisters Seven,
Orion’s Belt and sworded hip.
The woodland trees that stand together,
They stand to him each one a friend;
They gently speak in the windy weather;
They guide to valley and ridge’s end.
The kestrel hovering by day,
And the little owls that call by night,
Bid him be swift and keen as they,
As keen of ear, as swift of sight.
The blackbird sings to him, ‘Brother, brother,
If this be the last song you shall sing,
Sing well, for you may not sing another;
Brother, sing.’
In dreary, doubtful, waiting hours,
Before the brazen frenzy starts,
The horses show him nobler powers;
O patient eyes, courageous hearts!
And when the burning moment breaks,
And all things else are out of mind,
And only Joy of Battle takes
Him by the throat, and makes him blind,
Through joy and blindness he shall know,
Not caring much to know, that still
Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so
That it be not the Destined Will.
The thundering line of battle stands,
And in the air Death moan and sings;
But Day shall clasp him with strong hands,
And Night shall fold him in soft wings.
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CorporateLogoThe toilet knowshow I feelRegistered Userregular
History had a really good docudrama about the Gallipoli campaign. It goes by the same name. Y'all should watch it.
Love me.
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FandyienBut Otto, what about us? Registered Userregular
pip this is a great thread for someone so gay
really though i love that quote so much. i also like the idea of someone getting incensed over a writer trashing veterans day and then being made to look dumb
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Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
Opposite our trenches a German salient protruded, and the brigadier wanted to "bite it off" in proof of the division's offensive spirit. Trench soldiers could never understand the Staff's desire to bite off an enemy salient. It was hardly desirable to be fired at from both flanks; if the Germans had got caught in a salient, our obvious duty was to keep them there as long as they could be persuaded to stay. We concluded that a passion for straight lines, for which headquarters were well known, had dictated this plan, which had no strategic or tactical excuse.
E-uppy-pi name, if you're interested in the Gallipoli campaign there are a bunch of really interesting memoirs and contemporary accounts you could check out. Although some of them might be hard to track down.
Lost Salient on
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
Canada has a thing for John McCrae's In Flanders Fields today, but for real emotional impact Wilfred Owen's Dulce Et Decorum Est gets me every time.
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 gas-shells dropping softly 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,
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.
Wilfred Owen
I've... geeze, I feel like a shit for saying this, but I figure I should.
Always hated that poem. Not for saying World War One was horrible, nasty business that probably wasn't worth it. That's fair and honest. But it's taking all the vile business, presenting it as the facts and all of the facts, and calling the only things that add any nobility to the business wasn't just out of scale, wasn't wrong here, but were lies.
I mean... hmm. Hard to say, and I've never served so I feel like I can't say anything, don't have the right, but there seems a heritage other than the rah-rah bullshit that says there's some good, not in war which is vile, nasty business, but in the people fighting for home and country, and maybe dying in the attempt. No greater love and such.
We should avoid war whenever possible, agreed. But there are times war is more or less necessary, God forgive us all, and taking away what few comforts are left then with any humanity or nobility to them?
Posts
3DS: 5241-1953-7031
She's much nicer looking than ol' Sam.
Would've sucked to be a dude that died on say, 11/10/18 or something
even Nickleback?
Is this, like... a WWI thread?
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
There's nothing cushy about life in the Women's Auxiliary Balloon Corps!
I bought my poppy yesterday and had a good thing about World War 1.
My great grandad fought in france and died from infection.
Satans..... hints.....
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
http://www.world-war-pictures.com/war-poem/The-Redeemer/166/
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/suicide.html
That'll do.
GoFund The Portland Trans Pride March, or Show It To People, or Else!
really though i love that quote so much. i also like the idea of someone getting incensed over a writer trashing veterans day and then being made to look dumb
E-uppy-pi name, if you're interested in the Gallipoli campaign there are a bunch of really interesting memoirs and contemporary accounts you could check out. Although some of them might be hard to track down.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
I've... geeze, I feel like a shit for saying this, but I figure I should.
Always hated that poem. Not for saying World War One was horrible, nasty business that probably wasn't worth it. That's fair and honest. But it's taking all the vile business, presenting it as the facts and all of the facts, and calling the only things that add any nobility to the business wasn't just out of scale, wasn't wrong here, but were lies.
I mean... hmm. Hard to say, and I've never served so I feel like I can't say anything, don't have the right, but there seems a heritage other than the rah-rah bullshit that says there's some good, not in war which is vile, nasty business, but in the people fighting for home and country, and maybe dying in the attempt. No greater love and such.
We should avoid war whenever possible, agreed. But there are times war is more or less necessary, God forgive us all, and taking away what few comforts are left then with any humanity or nobility to them?
Dunno. Just feels... wrong.
Why I fear the ocean.