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.
I would counter this by saying that in the case of the First World War there is a lot to suggest that it was a greatly unnecessary expenditure of youthful lives, which lasted long beyond what it should have. I'm not disagreeing that there are times when war is more or less necessary, mind you, but I'm comfortable in saying that the greatest tragedy of the Great War is that it was perpetuated long beyond any sane reasoning, due to a combination of many factors (an outdated and slow-to-evolve approach to military tactics, the incestuous quality of European politics at the time, hundreds of years of bitterness on many sides), most of which were far, far removed from the battlefields where men were dying in agony by the thousands. I'd recommend Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy as a well-researched and much more eloquent expression of this opinion, although it's obviously no more definitive than any history book.
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
Young people getting sent to their deaths by the old generals and politicians is not a good thing. There shouldn't be any undue romance or nobility attached to it.
what the difference between veterans and armistice day? the reason kurt vonnegut dislikes it?
I think its that Veterans day is just sort of a generic thing that has co-opted Armistice Day, which commemorated the end of what was arguably the most awful war mankind has ever endured. Something, I suspect, he thinks should be remembered most keenly and not fade in memory.
To add to some of the stuff already posted, Kemal Ataturk wrote, concerning the Anzac soldiers that died landing in Galliopoli
"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side now here in this country of ours... you, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land. They have become our sons as well."
Which sort of serves to highlight just how many countries that had no reason at all to be fighting one another were otherwise embroiled in the conflict due to the byzantine pull of alliances and allegiance.
in the 50s congress decided we weren't celebrating armistice day anymore, it was now veterans day and we'd use it as an excuse to buy cars instead of celebrating the end of the worst war in human history
WWI ending maybe doesn't have the same impact for us as it does for most of the rest of the world because we weren't as heavily affected as any of the other major players
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?
Dunno. Just feels... wrong.
You've entirely missed the point of the poem.
Owen basically wrote the poem as a huge "fuck you" to Jessie Pope, who herself had written a poem that trivialized war and urged young men to sign up because it was a jolly good thing, this war! Really gets the blood flowing don't you know and of course it's your duy as a man to go out and kill whichever person your country doesn't like, come on, go on, you're not afraid are you? etcetera. Urging young people to go off to war for stupid reasons by insinuating that they're pussies if they don't and then telling them that it's all right if they die because it would be the right thing to do under those circumstances, so, win-win!.
Owen's poem has nothing at all to do with whether or not a war can be just or not, it adresses the issue of people staying home, yet urging people to go out and fight a war for entirely the wrong reasons (some ridiculous, arbitrary, outmoded idea of glory or honour) while being ignorant or wilfully blind to the gruesome reality. The things Owen took offense at do not add any nobility to war, if anything they do the exact oposite and make it even more horrible and wasteful.
There is such a thing as a just war, but neither Owen nor Pope's poems have anything to do with that. Just war or not, dying for your country is never "sweet and proper." It's always unpleasant and horrible, but it's not necessarily the most unpleasant and horrible alternative. It's something you can accept, but not something you should ever feel good about or praise because when you get down to it someone will still be dead.
WWII was way worse in terms of casualties and general misery of course, but at least you could make the argument that a net good was achieved by fighting. all WWI was was a run-of-the-mill European turf war like they'd been having for time out of mind, except hey, now we have machine guns and artillery and an entire generation of young British dudes died for no reason
I would like to pause for a moment, to talk about my penis.
My penis is like a toddler. A toddler—who is a perfectly normal size for his age—on a long road trip to what he thinks is Disney World. My penis is excited because he hasn’t been to Disney World in a long, long time, but remembers a time when he used to go every day. So now the penis toddler is constantly fidgeting, whining “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? How about now? Now? How about... now?”
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Nah I can see how the legs are a bit short. This was one of those 1am sketches, but I was also trying to make the clothes too ill-fitting with the coat coming down to nearly his knees, hence why his neck is more exposed than usual, etc., etc. Sort of an exhausted product of a half-baked concept trying to convey how young the boys were who went off, like kids dressing up rather than soldiers in uniform.
The best part about World War I was it drove home the idea that chemical weapons were awful.
Hell of a price tag but frankly I'm grateful we paid it. Imagine our world of ICBMs, submarine-launched cruise missiles, precision air strikes, and now imagine all of that with mustard gas payloads, or god forbid biological weapons.
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the ProfessorPONY ROMNEY DOES NOT CAREPONY ROMNEY WILL CUT YOUR FUNDINGRegistered Userregular
The best part about World War I was it drove home the idea that chemical weapons were awful.
Hell of a price tag but frankly I'm grateful we paid it. Imagine our world of ICBMs, submarine-launched cruise missiles, precision air strikes, and now imagine all of that with mustard gas payloads, or god forbid biological weapons.
Oh, yeah, I would love to get hit directly in the rot with some many kilotons of nuclear radiation, as opposed to the horrific and dreadful biological weapons you're describing.
I understand your point, but I'm still saying, we're still going to be fucked if the wrong end of the Intercontinental Nuclear Fuck You slams into our territory.
The best part about World War I was it drove home the idea that chemical weapons were awful.
Hell of a price tag but frankly I'm grateful we paid it. Imagine our world of ICBMs, submarine-launched cruise missiles, precision air strikes, and now imagine all of that with mustard gas payloads, or god forbid biological weapons.
Oh, yeah, I would love to get hit directly in the rot with some many kilotons of nuclear radiation, as opposed to the horrific and dreadful biological weapons you're describing.
I understand your point, but I'm still saying, we're still going to be fucked if the wrong end of the Intercontinental Nuclear Fuck You slams into our territory.
Just saiyan.
Nuclear weapons typically fall under the purview of strategic weapons. That is, they are massive, theater encompassing deployments, and a nuclear strike somewhere means a nuclear strike everywhere and everyone dies. Shitty, yes, but the concept of mutually-assured destruction does somewhat mitigate the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Chemical weapons are tactical weapons. They can fall on a town, kill everyone in it, and disperse. Much less hectic and doesn't assure the the destruction of human civilization. It can be reasonably assumed that if they were still part of the standard payload of modern militaries the authorization wouldn't come directly from a president or premier; they would be decided by colonels and generals on an as-needed basis.
Chemical war can still be considered "winnable" despite being horrifically atrocious. Much more dangerous for men of power to have in their arsenals, in my opinion.
The best part about World War I was it drove home the idea that chemical weapons were awful.
Hell of a price tag but frankly I'm grateful we paid it. Imagine our world of ICBMs, submarine-launched cruise missiles, precision air strikes, and now imagine all of that with mustard gas payloads, or god forbid biological weapons.
Oh, yeah, I would love to get hit directly in the rot with some many kilotons of nuclear radiation, as opposed to the horrific and dreadful biological weapons you're describing.
I understand your point, but I'm still saying, we're still going to be fucked if the wrong end of the Intercontinental Nuclear Fuck You slams into our territory.
Just saiyan.
Nuclear weapons typically fall under the purview of strategic weapons. That is, they are massive, theater encompassing deployments, and a nuclear strike somewhere means a nuclear strike everywhere and everyone dies. Shitty, yes, but the concept of mutually-assured destruction does somewhat mitigate the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Chemical weapons are tactical weapons. They can fall on a town, kill everyone in it, and disperse. Much less hectic and doesn't assure the the destruction of human civilization. It can be reasonably assumed that if they were still part of the standard payload of modern militaries the authorization wouldn't come directly from a president or premier; they would be decided by colonels and generals on an as-needed basis.
Chemical war can still be considered "winnable" despite being horrifically atrocious. Much more dangerous for men of power to have in their arsenals, in my opinion.
Funnily enough, after the cold war it was discovered in Soviet archives that according to most of their war plans, they would use nukes and the decision would be with the generals on the field
chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Huh. That's the end, then.
I'm... lucky, I guess. Met a WWI veteran when I was in kindergarten. Lot of World War II veterans there too. They were old guys, but the sort of old that still feels up for something. Older partner in a buddy cop film or something.
The WWI vet? He was ancient. Scary old. Even back then, I figured I'd never see another WWI veteran alive.
As a kid I was all impatient for them to finally attack and have some awesome battle scenes stabbing Germans
That ending kind of traumatized me
Watching the bonus footage or an interview somewhere, they show the original footage for that last shot, and it is absolutely fucking horrible. Whoever figured out to slow it and then fade was a genius, and it's one of my favorite moments in television of all time.
Edit: They have the interview linked in the related videos.
Fencingsax on
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
oh dang, I almost forgot about today
take this bump as a reminder that there are no longer any living people that served in any capacity in WW1
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
My great grandpa fought in the Great War. Happy Armistice Day.
also I sometimes worry that we are going to see one of those end of an era type tipping points that preceded WWI in our life times. Probably I'll be too old to serve by then I think though.
Posts
I would counter this by saying that in the case of the First World War there is a lot to suggest that it was a greatly unnecessary expenditure of youthful lives, which lasted long beyond what it should have. I'm not disagreeing that there are times when war is more or less necessary, mind you, but I'm comfortable in saying that the greatest tragedy of the Great War is that it was perpetuated long beyond any sane reasoning, due to a combination of many factors (an outdated and slow-to-evolve approach to military tactics, the incestuous quality of European politics at the time, hundreds of years of bitterness on many sides), most of which were far, far removed from the battlefields where men were dying in agony by the thousands. I'd recommend Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy as a well-researched and much more eloquent expression of this opinion, although it's obviously no more definitive than any history book.
"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
It isn't sweet and fitting to die for country, it's harsh and maybe occasionally necessary, maybe
GoFund The Portland Trans Pride March, or Show It To People, or Else!
I think its that Veterans day is just sort of a generic thing that has co-opted Armistice Day, which commemorated the end of what was arguably the most awful war mankind has ever endured. Something, I suspect, he thinks should be remembered most keenly and not fade in memory.
To add to some of the stuff already posted, Kemal Ataturk wrote, concerning the Anzac soldiers that died landing in Galliopoli
"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side now here in this country of ours... you, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land. They have become our sons as well."
Which sort of serves to highlight just how many countries that had no reason at all to be fighting one another were otherwise embroiled in the conflict due to the byzantine pull of alliances and allegiance.
WWI ending maybe doesn't have the same impact for us as it does for most of the rest of the world because we weren't as heavily affected as any of the other major players
hitting hot metal with hammers
You've entirely missed the point of the poem.
Owen basically wrote the poem as a huge "fuck you" to Jessie Pope, who herself had written a poem that trivialized war and urged young men to sign up because it was a jolly good thing, this war! Really gets the blood flowing don't you know and of course it's your duy as a man to go out and kill whichever person your country doesn't like, come on, go on, you're not afraid are you? etcetera. Urging young people to go off to war for stupid reasons by insinuating that they're pussies if they don't and then telling them that it's all right if they die because it would be the right thing to do under those circumstances, so, win-win!.
Owen's poem has nothing at all to do with whether or not a war can be just or not, it adresses the issue of people staying home, yet urging people to go out and fight a war for entirely the wrong reasons (some ridiculous, arbitrary, outmoded idea of glory or honour) while being ignorant or wilfully blind to the gruesome reality. The things Owen took offense at do not add any nobility to war, if anything they do the exact oposite and make it even more horrible and wasteful.
There is such a thing as a just war, but neither Owen nor Pope's poems have anything to do with that. Just war or not, dying for your country is never "sweet and proper." It's always unpleasant and horrible, but it's not necessarily the most unpleasant and horrible alternative. It's something you can accept, but not something you should ever feel good about or praise because when you get down to it someone will still be dead.
Also what spex said.
hitting hot metal with hammers
Wanna know what the Germans do on 11.11. at 11:11?
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
I'm going to go ahead and say you don't know as much about drawing as you think you do.
Hell of a price tag but frankly I'm grateful we paid it. Imagine our world of ICBMs, submarine-launched cruise missiles, precision air strikes, and now imagine all of that with mustard gas payloads, or god forbid biological weapons.
Oh, yeah, I would love to get hit directly in the rot with some many kilotons of nuclear radiation, as opposed to the horrific and dreadful biological weapons you're describing.
I understand your point, but I'm still saying, we're still going to be fucked if the wrong end of the Intercontinental Nuclear Fuck You slams into our territory.
Just saiyan.
kpop appreciation station i also like to tweet some
Nuclear weapons typically fall under the purview of strategic weapons. That is, they are massive, theater encompassing deployments, and a nuclear strike somewhere means a nuclear strike everywhere and everyone dies. Shitty, yes, but the concept of mutually-assured destruction does somewhat mitigate the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Chemical weapons are tactical weapons. They can fall on a town, kill everyone in it, and disperse. Much less hectic and doesn't assure the the destruction of human civilization. It can be reasonably assumed that if they were still part of the standard payload of modern militaries the authorization wouldn't come directly from a president or premier; they would be decided by colonels and generals on an as-needed basis.
Chemical war can still be considered "winnable" despite being horrifically atrocious. Much more dangerous for men of power to have in their arsenals, in my opinion.
His legs aren't too short, but his arms are too long, which makes the legs look too short.
Funnily enough, after the cold war it was discovered in Soviet archives that according to most of their war plans, they would use nukes and the decision would be with the generals on the field
As a kid I was all impatient for them to finally attack and have some awesome battle scenes stabbing Germans
That ending kind of traumatized me
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/world/europe/florence-green-last-world-war-i-veteran-dies-at-110.html?_r=1&src=tp&smid=fb-share
that's the end of it then
damn
111 years old
holy cow
hey satan...: thinkgeek amazon My post |
I'm... lucky, I guess. Met a WWI veteran when I was in kindergarten. Lot of World War II veterans there too. They were old guys, but the sort of old that still feels up for something. Older partner in a buddy cop film or something.
The WWI vet? He was ancient. Scary old. Even back then, I figured I'd never see another WWI veteran alive.
And... I guess I was right.
Why I fear the ocean.
word
Edit: They have the interview linked in the related videos.
take this bump as a reminder that there are no longer any living people that served in any capacity in WW1
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https://medium.com/@alascii