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A well written article and worthy of a read

Was well written - and avoided sentiment

Reminiscent of some stuff written by Vietnam vets - must be terrible to be in a war and hated by your own country....

Only skimmed it but it was good reading. In a similar vein, on tv yesterday I noticed for the first time that the Cenotaph at Whitehall is inscribed "The Glorious Dead" - and thought, I can't see anything particularly glorious about being dead.

Just a different way of looking at things.

Actually, take moment to compare the wording on ww1 and ww2 memorials

Gave and lost...

In 1995 I was privileged to interview about 90 ex-servicemen who'd fought in the Far East (an oral history project, to support an exhibition on the 50th. anniversary of VJ Day, arranged with the help of West Bromwich Burma Star Association).

To a man, they said (more or less) " it was something we had to do" . They were mostly lads from from very ordinary backgrounds - a grocer's delivery boy from Oldbury, who won the MC at the battle of Kohima; a glazier's apprentice from Tipton who was captured at Singapore, and spent over 3 years working on the Burma Railway; a carpenter's apprentice who served with the Chindits in Burma as a muleteer.

I particularly remember the comments of a group of three, ex-Worcestershire regiment, who'd helped drive the Japanese out of Burma. "After six months in the jungle, we became as bad as the Japanese - we had to; and, " There's nothing glorious about war".

Of all the things I've done in my life, that exercise is one of those which gives me the most pride - especially being given a vote of thanks by West Brom Burma Star Association; the ill-deserved gratitude they expressed, for someone showing an interest in The Forgotten Army, still moves me to tears.

At this time of year, I think particularly about those chaps, plucked from their mundane backgrounds and plunged into what must have seemed hell on earth to them.

I also think about my grandfather, who went through WW1 from beginning to end, fighting at one of the battles of Ypres, the Somme, and Arras.

And I think about some of the men I encountered when I was in the TA in the '70's, who really loved wearing uniforms, handling weapons, and would have given their eye teeth to get into combat and kill people; they could have done with a chat with those old guys from the Worcestershire Regt.

In this one I kind if like my US colleagues approach of having it as Veterans day and celebrating and remembering all who have served not just those who gave or lost

With respect

Most of my American friends are very jealous of our remembrance day.... Especially as the 11th hour on the eleventh day this country stops - and that's from the people , not the politicians

my father-in-law had served on HMS Hood before her final deployment, so that part was very close to home

at the going down of the sun and in the morning

My dad was due to sail on HMG Glorious on what became her last voyage. He wasn't expecting to come back and had arranged for my mum to take over their bank account and all the other running of the household. Mum didn't know his orders had been changed at literally the last moment and believed he had been lost with the ship - then he turned up on the doorstep two days later.

There is heroism also in being the ones left behind.

Lest We Forget

For me Remembrance Day is a day to remember how disgusting human beings can be to each other and hope that one day it will stop.

Martdude's comments rang a bell with me as I spent a week in September retracing the footsteps of my great uncle who had also seen action at Ypres, The Somme and Arras. Unlike most of his friends whose graves I visited, he survived the war, living to the age of 90. His good friends kindly scattered his ashes at Sanctuary Wood so that he could be reunited with old comrades. So, although like Nooj, I despair at the futility of war and the fact that we haven't had world peace since "the war to end all wars", I am deeply humbled by the misery and sacrifice endured by so many for their cause. The recent conflicts seem to have given the remembrance movement a boost and I certainly welcome that.