walkinaround

Fair enough and I want to apologise as when i reread my post, it was far snarkier sounding than I intended. I won't argue about your statement but I don't really understand it. Yes, I understand that it's one of those things that everyone is just supposed to shake their heads at with an emotional knee-jerk of poignant agreement but I like to know what i'm shaking my head to before I shake.

BritishCaicos

No problem walking, I was trying to make was a generalisation.

its difficult to apply logic to war.

Thursdaysd.

I’ ve been to every State in the South.

I love it..,. When I canoe through the marshes watching dolphins strand feed.

but hate to see many areas that are still essentially living in ways which pre-date the civil war.

PatrickLondon

That was neither my statement nor my implication.

​ My point, that perhaps I should have made more explicitly, was the mood at the time our concept of Remembrance Day was established, and became engrained over the decades. No sense of competition was intended. I purposely didn't want to venture on to the Vietnam experience, precisely because it is so raw and recent.

walkinaround

I am not an expert on this and I don't follow it intimately but although technically I believe remembrance day is about all fallen service people in all conflicts, I don't think 'they' have sufficiently moved it into the modern world to make it relevant for those involved in later conflicts. In most people's minds, it's firmly about WWI. Therefore, it's inevitably going to decline in emotion and passion with people. At 100 years now, it's moving beyond even remote touch of almost everyone.
British are arguably the best in the world with ceremony and pageantry. It can be very moving. But pageantry should not be mistaken for personal. In America school children are writing cards to service people and collecting treats to send over. It's very common to see people stop and thank those in uniform for their service. At Christmas and Thanksgiving, Americans are constantly reminded on television that there are many men and women who can't be with their families and are working in some of the most dangerous places and doing the most dangerous things imaginable. Yeah we can make an airport silent at the 11th hour for something that happened 100 years ago but every year that gets more and more abstract. I do like what Harry has done for the Invectus Games (as I said) but let's work this approach into how we celebrate war sacrifices. Why we're stuck with WWI is beyond me. Perhaps honouring something abstract is more within the nation's comfort zone.

thursdaysd

On that basis, the US's Civil War should be forgotten. It is an understatement to say that it is not. WWI not only led to the loss of many young men in the UK, but heralded a lot of social changes. The world of the '20s was not the Edwardian world, still less the Victorian.

PalenQ

Weird that Canada and UK have poppies - fake - on everyone's lapel I see on CBC TV and Americans barely know much about 11.11.11. except it's Veterans Day which is not even a holiday that schools or workers have off -just the post office and government jobs. I don't even think May 8th or whatever day the WW2 ended is even a holiday at all. I enjoy seeing those poppies and thank thursdayds for posting.

billbarr

I like to see the poppies being worn too Pal. Remembrance Day here in the UK is held on the second Sunday of November (the one closest to Armistice Day on the 11th of the month). Should Armistice Day fall Monday to Saturday it isn't a public holiday.

I'm pleased janisj bought one of the ceramic poppies something I regretted not doing. To compensate, I bought a poppy pin last year sold by the British Legion made from the brass of the artillery shells found at Passchendaele, with it's red centre having some of the soil mixed into it. It is especially poignant for me because grandfather, who I was close to, fought at Ypres. What was especially good was being sent with it a certificate with the name and service number of a soldier killed at the battlefield. I found his war records on Ancestry's database and could hardly believe he was born and enlisted in Glasgow, where I live.

I wore the pin with pride today. Details of it are here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-eng...shells-and-mud

Bill

kja

Thanks for sharing that, Bill.

PatrickLondon

Yes, that's more or less it.

bilboburgler

To be fair we Brits have been slaughtering people for far too many years to get very riled up about critical things like religion/bits of paper etc, so focus more on the abstract, like memories.