Rememberance Sunday

[smurf111978]

The Sunday nearest 11th November is when the offical commemoration and remeberance of fallen and injured servicemen and women takes place in the UK. I would like to take the time to remeber, say thankyou and pay tribute to our servicemen/women who have served or still serve. I extended this tribute to our allies past and present. A special mention to our cousins in New Zealand who had a new memorial dedicated in Hyde Park yesterday...long overdue.



When you go home tell them of us,
For your tomorrow we gave our today.

They shall grow not 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.

[JohnnyV]

Smurf,

Please accept my support for your remembrance. The end of World War I, like the end of World War II, was a time when imperialism and fascism were pulled back and stopped. It's so important to acknowledge and memorialize those moments.

It's also great to thank our military for preserving our democratic systems. This last Tuesday, in the US, we were saved from fascism again, this time through the peaceful means of a vote. The passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, a few weeks before the election, was pointing the US in the direction of a military dictatorship with a weak and superficial legislature as window dressing.

In addition to eulogizing all the soldiers who have defended our democracy, I also want to eulogize all the peaceful fighters who saved us from fascism in the US. For the early years of the Bush presidency, when the media was going in lockstep with the President and Bushites were intimidating professors, journalists, and protestors into silence, there were a few voices of dissent that kept alive the flame of free thinking: people on the Internet (political sites similar to this forum), people who carried placards at poorly attended rallies surrounded by cops, the handful of rebarbative hosts on AirAmerica, Jon Stewart, Janeane Garofalo, Barbara Lee and the African American caucus in Congress, Keith Olbermann. These were the nonviolent "soldiers" who had the courage to speak up when the vast majority of the country was afraid and quiet.

Those who carry guns are not the only ones who keep freedom alive, and I hope that in the UK, as in the US, you can find some space in your heart to remember all of them. :)

J

[Avocado]

I can't pay them enough tribute. They don't get enough respect nowadays. They fought so we can sleep safely in our beds at night with our freedoms intact. If it weren't for them Britain would either be under the Nazis or a Sharia state. Their lives and deaths will never be in vain.

[ukmale32]

The best way we could have shown them respect would have been to have no been at war today of all days. We remember - but we still do the same thing time and time again. We will never learn. To my american friends that read this. You need that man out of that white building.

[darkeyes]

I dont suppose that I shall make myself that popular Smurfie for it is daifficult for me, wll nigh impossible for me to thank servicemen for doing the job that they are paid to do in service of country?? I use question marks here excuse I am not convinced that this is or ever has been the reason that armed forces exist. While I do have real problems about the anti fascist war of 1939-45, I am firmly of the belief that the military is but the beef up of whatever political and economic system we live under, and not for the defence of the ordinary citizenry but of privilege and wealthy vest economic and political interests.

As a pacifist I abhor violence of any kind, and loathe the taking of life for whatever reason and am convinced that peaceful setlling of the differences between peopes and nations is not only desirable but possible. To often we have drifted into war in defence of the eite ruling class who through manipulation of the propaganda machine have always managed to get ordinary people to belive that that war was in fact in defense of their interests and way of life.

I do apologise for for spelling out how I feel, for I am not insensitive to remembrance day, and the tragedy that has been the lot of men and women who have lost their lives in war, for causes in which they believed, or in many cases because it ws just their lot.I observe silentlyand with respect the fallen of all wars, and think my own thoughts of the tragedy and waste of the ending of so many millions of lives. It breaks my heart when I hear of even one death of soldier or civilian in any conflict. My reasons may be different but they are real, and the real tragedy is that before humanity is finally done, is that so many more will have to lose their lives or be so badly maimed in the futility of any conflict.

So Im sorry Smurfie, I know that my views are a minute minority, and if I am unable to say thank you for the armed forces of my country involving themselves in wars which are not I believe what they and we are led to believe they are, I do echo all feelings of sadness when remembering those who have lost their lives or suffered because of the insanity of war.

My own preference as a tribute and testimony to the dead and insanity of war is a folk song written by Eric Bogle, and it never fails to reduce me to tears..

Floo'er's o' the Forest

Well, how do you do, Private William McBride,
Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside?
And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916,
Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Did they Beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fir o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you forever 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

The sun's shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

And I can't help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

[Avocado]

The best way we could have shown them respect would have been to have no been at war today of all days. We remember - but we still do the same thing time and time again. We will never learn. To my american friends that read this. You need that man out of that white building.

There may not be a war to protect our freedoms, but at least some of them do, deliberately or accidently.

[sexybicplinwv]

So!! I was wondering how every one's Holiday was? And I came a cross this thread... I have a Son and Daugther That lost a good friend a year ago... I thought of is Boy.. Would have been 25year old.. As for myself I to have one's I have lost so Memorial Day and every day is a day to remember the one's you Love... As for mind and the Mr:<<< :male: We had a great Holiday :) :female: