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The guns fell silent and men heard the voice of God

245

Posts

  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    edited November 2011
    chiasaur11 wrote:

    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of the Great War is that it was perpetuated long beyond any sane reasoning, due to a combination of many factors (an outdated and slow-to-evolve approach to military tactics, the incestuous quality of European politics at the time, hundreds of years of bitterness on many sides), most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
    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
  • QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    I also think the poem is intended more to take to task those who glibly repeat the phrase without fully considering the ramifications and consequences

    It isn't sweet and fitting to die for country, it's harsh and maybe occasionally necessary, maybe

  • Fire TruckFire Truck I love my SELFRegistered User regular
    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.

  • HobnailHobnail Registered User regular
    Humanity: Young men die for old men, and the women get used as paving stones.

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

    https://www.paypal.me/hobnailtaylor
  • NuzakNuzak Registered User regular
    what the difference between veterans and armistice day? the reason kurt vonnegut dislikes it?

  • GatsbyGatsby Registered User regular
    I drew a thing for November 11, I'll upload it tomorrow. Quite happy with how it turned out.

  • PhantPhant Registered User regular
    Nuzak wrote:
    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.

  • Typhoid MannyTyphoid Manny Registered User regular
    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

    from each according to his ability, to each according to his need
    hitting hot metal with hammers
  • Spectre-xSpectre-x Rating: AWESOME YESRegistered User regular
    chiasaur11 wrote:
    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.

    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.

  • B_RB_R Registered User regular
    edited November 2011
    I would argue that WW2 was much worse, but that doesn't really matter here.

    Also what spex said.

    B_R on
  • Typhoid MannyTyphoid Manny Registered User regular
    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

    from each according to his ability, to each according to his need
    hitting hot metal with hammers
  • GatsbyGatsby Registered User regular
    So this is what I drew for November 11. I don't know why but sleep deprivation seems to improve my ability to draw.

    IMG_0085-1.jpg

  • QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
  • E^(i Pi)+1=0E^(i Pi)+1=0 hellRegistered User regular
    That's quite good though if you want some constructive criticism from a former artist his head is too small and his legs too short. Still good though.

    Love me.
  • Donovan PuppyfuckerDonovan Puppyfucker A dagger in the dark is worth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered User regular
    His legs aren't too short. His coat comes halfway down his thighs.

  • FerrusFerrus Registered User regular
    edited November 2011
    Hey you guys.

    Wanna know what the Germans do on 11.11. at 11:11?

    Ferrus on
    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.
  • E^(i Pi)+1=0E^(i Pi)+1=0 hellRegistered User regular
    They're still too short.

    Love me.
  • Donovan PuppyfuckerDonovan Puppyfucker A dagger in the dark is worth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered User regular
    They're still too short.

    I'm going to go ahead and say you don't know as much about drawing as you think you do.

  • E^(i Pi)+1=0E^(i Pi)+1=0 hellRegistered User regular
    edited November 2011
    You can say that if you like.

    E^(i Pi)+1=0 on
    Love me.
  • GatsbyGatsby Registered User regular
    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.

  • Volucrisus AedriusVolucrisus Aedrius Registered User regular
    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.

  • the Professorthe Professor PONY ROMNEY DOES NOT CARE PONY ROMNEY WILL CUT YOUR FUNDINGRegistered User regular
    edited November 2011
    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.

    the Professor on
  • L|amaL|ama Registered User regular
    the gallipoli campaign was an excessively fucking stupid campaign in a war full of idiotic campaigns

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W6dUtUcsVI

  • GatsbyGatsby Registered User regular
    edited November 2011
    We talking about the Gallipoli campaign and the godawful mess it was?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7thAi2kSyc

    Gatsby on
  • Volucrisus AedriusVolucrisus Aedrius Registered User regular
    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.

  • Spectre-xSpectre-x Rating: AWESOME YESRegistered User regular
    His legs aren't too short. His coat comes halfway down his thighs.

    His legs aren't too short, but his arms are too long, which makes the legs look too short.

  • T. J. Nutty Nub T. J. Nutty Nub Registered User regular
    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

  • Dongs GaloreDongs Galore Registered User regular

    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

  • MugginsMuggins Registered User regular
    Man

    111 years old

    holy cow

    BdVvFJu.jpg
    hey satan...: thinkgeek amazon My post |
  • chiasaur11chiasaur11 Never doubt a raccoon. Do you think it's trademarked?Registered User regular
    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.

    And... I guess I was right.

  • Skull ManSkull Man RIP KUSU Registered User regular
    yo chia you're still wrong about that poem

  • PharezonPharezon Struggle is an illusion. Victory is in the Qun.Registered User regular
    Skull Man wrote:
    yo chia you're still wrong about that poem

    word

    jkZziGc.png
  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    edited February 2012

    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
  • PiptheFairPiptheFair Frequently not in boats. Registered User regular
    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

  • Metzger MeisterMetzger Meister It Gets Worse before it gets any better.Registered User regular
    My great grandpa fought in the Great War. Happy Armistice Day.

    http://youtu.be/psoTEzpHIbI

  • DodgeBlanDodgeBlan PSN: dodgeblanRegistered User regular
    I'm always kind of amazed that humanity has by and large refrained from using chemical weapons since world war 1

    Read my blog about AMERICA and THE BAY AREA

    https://medium.com/@alascii
  • DodgeBlanDodgeBlan PSN: dodgeblanRegistered User regular
    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.

    Read my blog about AMERICA and THE BAY AREA

    https://medium.com/@alascii
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