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The guns fell silent and men heard the voice of God

PiptheFairPiptheFair Frequently not in boats.Registered User regular
edited November 2011 in Social Entropy++
NYTimes-Page1-11-11-1918.jpg

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.

PiptheFair on
«1345

Posts

  • SASA Registered User regular
    I love Kurt Vonnegut.

    WoW: Revash (Cho'Gall)
    3DS: 5241-1953-7031
  • AntimatterAntimatter Devo Was Right Gates of SteelRegistered User regular
    I love kurt vonnegut and agree with his statement

  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    Kurt Vonnegut is pretty cool

  • HunteraHuntera Rude Boy Registered User regular
    This title is the best quote I have ever heard.

  • HobnailHobnail Registered User regular
    You're an alright guy Pip.

    Broke as fuck in the style of the times. Gratitude is all that can return on your generosity.

    https://www.paypal.me/hobnailtaylor
  • Dongs GaloreDongs Galore Registered User regular
    Well, hurrah! Rule, Britannia, and boo-sucks to Harry Hun!

  • DruhimDruhim Registered User, ClubPA regular
    Pip, you done good.

    belruelotterav-1.jpg
  • Indie WinterIndie Winter die Krähe Rudi Hurzlmeier (German, b. 1952)Registered User regular
    MORE WARSHIPS JOIN THE REDS

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  • PiptheFairPiptheFair Frequently not in boats. Registered User regular
    I was actually planning on making this thread on the way home from work, and lo and behold I get home and Tam sent me a message telling me to make one

  • HunteraHuntera Rude Boy Registered User regular
    America needs to bring back Columbia.

    She's much nicer looking than ol' Sam.

  • SalSal Damnedest Little Fellow Registered User regular
    Didn't they drag out the armistice by a couple of days so that it would fall on the special date and time

    Would've sucked to be a dude that died on say, 11/10/18 or something

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  • GatsbyGatsby Registered User regular
    You're a good bloke, Pip.

  • TamTam Registered User regular
    this was a good day

  • Centipede DamascusCentipede Damascus Registered User regular
    edited November 2011
    PiptheFair wrote:
    What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
    And all music is.

    even Nickleback?

    Centipede Damascus on
  • PiptheFairPiptheFair Frequently not in boats. Registered User regular
    even megatokyo

  • No Great NameNo Great Name FRAUD DETECTED Registered User regular
    even l33t str33t boys

    PSN: NoGreatName Steam:SirToons Twitch: SirToons
    sirtoons.png
  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    even Brokencyde

  • SliderSlider Registered User regular
    Happy Veteran's Day.

  • UnbrokenEvaUnbrokenEva HIGH ON THE WIRE BUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered User regular
    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

  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    Wait, what is this?

    Is this, like... a WWI thread?
    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."

    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "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
  • Butler For Life #1Butler For Life #1 Twinning is WinningRegistered User regular
    If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied

  • Centipede DamascusCentipede Damascus Registered User regular
    that is a powerful passage

  • TamTam Registered User regular
    In the fyres of change...

  • Indie WinterIndie Winter die Krähe Rudi Hurzlmeier (German, b. 1952)Registered User regular
    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.

    wY6K6Jb.gif
  • CorporateLogoCorporateLogo The toilet knows how I feelRegistered User regular
    Well, hurrah! Rule, Britannia, and boo-sucks to Harry Hun!

    There's nothing cushy about life in the Women's Auxiliary Balloon Corps!

    Do not have a cow, mortal.

    c9PXgFo.jpg
  • I Win SwordfightsI Win Swordfights all the traits of greatness starlight at my feetRegistered User regular
    Happy Birthday, Kurt.

    lfYVHTd.png
  • Calamity JaneCalamity Jane That Wrong Love Registered User regular
    sometimes a dude must war

    twitter https://twitter.com/mperezwritesirl michelle patreon https://www.patreon.com/thatwronglove michelle's comic book from IMAGE COMICS you can order http://a.co/dn5YeUD
  • Blake TBlake T Do you have enemies then? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered User regular
    One of the best things about that newspaper front page is that it didn't have a single line about the kardashians.

    I bought my poppy yesterday and had a good thing about World War 1.

    My great grandad fought in france and died from infection.

  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    edited November 2011
    Baldrick wrote:
    Hear the words I sing
    War's a horrid thing.
    So I sing sing sing
    Dingalingaling

    The German Guns

    Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom
    Boom Boom Boom
    Boom Boom Boom Boom
    Boom Boom Boom

    Fencingsax on
  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    If you guys are interested, there's a quite famous book called It Was the War of the Trenches. You can read the first ten pages via this .pdf.

    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "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
  • PlatyPlaty Registered User regular
    edited November 2011
  • RankenphileRankenphile Passersby were amazed by the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderator mod
    this thread is a good thread

    8406wWN.png
  • Fire TruckFire Truck I love my SELFRegistered User regular
  • E^(i Pi)+1=0E^(i Pi)+1=0 hellRegistered User regular
    History had a really good docudrama about the Gallipoli campaign. It goes by the same name. Y'all should watch it.

    Love me.
  • FandyienFandyien But Otto, what about us? Registered User regular
    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

    reposig.jpg
  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    edited November 2011
    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
    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "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
  • TheySlashThemTheySlashThem Registered User regular
    don't really have anything to add other than that this thread is a good thread

  • chiasaur11chiasaur11 Never doubt a raccoon. Do you think it's trademarked?Registered User regular
    Fearghaill wrote:
    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.

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