11/11

[MisterD]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YNb9r6Pzxks/SRh5HdtnU4I/AAAAAAAABIY/DeQnHlmDeco/s400/Poppy-Field.jpg

[imdying]

Mmmm opiates.

[wysper]

How much we owe the fallen.
And the saddest part is we will never learn.
Our children will continue to fall.

[R6_kid]

"The whole worlds to blame, for not feeling the same"

[yungatart]

Nice post. Our lad is in Belgium on a student exchange...he is looking forward to seeing how the Europeans celebrate Armistice Day and being a part of it.
Also looking forward to having the day off school...of course.

[Dave Lobster]

It's not just about people who've died (not saying that anyone here says it is), but there's thousands of us who've volunteered and joined up, so that others don't have to.

Going to war can be a good laugh.. it's not all bad news :)

[Ixion]

So few people nowadays know what you are talking about. I cannot remember when the minutes silence fell out of practice, but noone observes it here, now. They do still in some parts of Australia. I would like to see all the traffic on the motorways stop, and drivers get out and stand beside their cars, as they used to.Dunno how you get on with planes, bit difficult to stop them for a minute. The ferries used to heave to, dunno about bigger ships.

[Usarka]

One of the most sombre and emotional experiences of my travels was at a visit to Ypres and Flanders Fields.

So many graves marked "A soldier of the great war".

[DougB]

Armistice celebrations in Cambridge are attracting ever more people and the NZ armed forces are there in strength. The three day event is now the second most attended function in the Waikato. Only the Field days are bigger.

Each year, as a tuba player in the Cambridge Brass Band, I get a grand stand view of the memorial service. The solemn occasion was attended by many high ranking officers and diplomatic staff from the countries concerned.

The only slight hitch was when a flag raiser, from half mast, lowered his instead. It did not matter as it was the Ausrtalian flag.

[Hitcher]

There are few things more sobering than the war memorials in small town New Zealand. Dozens of people killed in WWI from towns like Eltham and Inglewood. Nearly every country hall in central and south Taranaki has a Roll of Honour in it. Too many towns have War Memorial halls. War and its consequences has defined us as a nation. I hope we are richer for that.

I often wonder what our world would look like without all of the carnage associated with the 20th century's two great wars.

Lest we forget.

[jrandom]

I often wonder what our world would look like without all of the carnage associated with the 20th century's two great wars.

Much the same, IMHO. Geography, rather than ideology, has always dictated the fractured European political landscape. There's little to pick between how it is now and how it was a thousand years ago, or how it probably will be a thousand years hence.

Advances in technology simply created an increase of orders of magnitude in the number of young men getting slaughtered as that landscape went through its regular reshuffles.

[Scorpygirl]

They shall not grow old
As we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them
Nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun
And in the morning
We will remember them.

For the Fallen.