To be conflicted about Remembrance Services?

I have been watching the Royal British Legion thing, always do, I love listening to military bands. I think it is pretty clear the emphasis is on remembrance rather than glorifying war.

In fact, early in the show when there were short films of the remaining veterans, one of them said "There is no glory in war."

OP, all you need do is bow your head privately and briefly and think for a moment of all of the men and women who served and who gave up everything. Whoever they were.

Then you can get on with your life. A great many didn’t have that luxury.

100%This.
Shame on you @PaddlingSwan Shame on you.
If you don’t like how we “make too much of the whole thing” please feel free to leave.

A lot were keen to go back. I often think if my great grandmother. Newly married just before the conflict started. Her husband came home eventually, after being wounded, mustard gassed and left with shell shock. She lost two brothers and a sister (VAD nurse). Her husband lost one brother. You know that because regiments were geographical, all the young men from a village were sometimes wiped out in a single day and entire surnames were made extinct because there was no young man to pass it on.

Have you ever read 'Dulce et decorum est'? If you had, you would know it's exactly the opposite of glorification of war and written by a man who was killed at the very final days of WW1 who knew what he was writing about.

Why do you think Remembrance Day is about WW2?

I cry every year at the Remembrance Day ceremony here when they play the Last Post before the 2 minutes of silence. It is so moving.
Learned I had a great uncle who died in Flanders when I started doing family history research.
He was injured, "recovered", got sent back to the front and was KIA. He was 25.
Jesus.

The most moving bit of our village service every year is the reading of the name of those 'not on the memorial' aka those that were deemed cowards for having broken under the immense strain.

Remembrance isn't about sides, it isn't anti axis, pro allies.

That may be PTSD.

My paternal grandfather (not the one in the RAF) never spoke about his war experiences. We know he was an exceptional linguist and he was behind enemy lines. He had no problem with Armistice day, but he had a very strange relationship with stuff. He couldn’t abide holding into anything unnecessary and was constantly giving perfectly good, useful things away. He gave some family heirlooms away too, which caused a lot of hurt. He had a nervous breakdown and was briefly institutionalised while my father was at university.

Ww2 was such a huge topic during my education - i'm 33 now - that I am conditioned to think about all those who died fighting, as depicted by Wilfred Owen, and then all those who died during the blitz a la Goodnight Mr Tom

Then naturally I imagine losing my loved ones. Then I tell myself to focus, and get back to thanking those who fought

Its a lot of sadness to get through during the 2 mins silence 😭

Family on both sides is a weird thing to admit sorry 😭

What a mad post. You are aware the Germans also do Remembrance, and they're not mourning the Nazis. They - and the rest of Europe, and much of the rest of the world - are standing together to mourn the loss of life, the hatred, bigotry, and senselessness of war, and vowing Never Again. And you don't want to stand with them in case it offends fans of the Nazis? Right-o.

Totally agree

The causes?

What are you actually trying to say op?

Your vague, faux naive drip feed is very annoying and as clear as day.

This. So many times people who complain are missing the point. It’s not a celebration of war. It’s Remembrance Day.

This

We see you. Off you trot.

Remembrance Day is about remembering the dead of ALL wars and conflicts, not just WW2.
Both my DC have served, one in Afghanistan, and my DH’s Bestie was involved in the Falkland conflict. Several of his friends were involved in both Gulf Wars. We will remember, lest we forget.
It’s important so another WW doesn’t happen, which, if we forget, it’s more likely!

Indeed. That doesn’t reduce the need for remembrance. My German exchange’s mother told me how the invading soviets raped and pillaged their way across the country. She had a beautiful 18th century sideboard saved o it because her grandmother covered it in tar and shoved it in the cow shed. Everything else precious they owned was stolen.

I have dual nationality both sides suffered.

This poem remains moving over a century on. It sends shivers through my body. Two great frat uncles of mine died in Flanders fields. My children were taken on school trips and could give their names in advance, so they could see them. Lest we forget.

You’re conflicted about WW2? About whether it was a good thing the Allied forces defeated the Nazis?

fuck me.

We SHOULD remember it. For a while I didn’t think so, but the rise of far right ideology means that we must remember the hideousness of them. Of course, it isn’t convenient today for those of a similar mindset.

I worry that we are heading for an American style attitude to the armed forces, and not enough focus on the horrors of war.

I also don't really like that our local Remembrance thing is led by the local vicar and is too religious for our modern plural society. There's a church service afterwards too, which is fine as people opt in to that.

But the rise of populism across the world makes remembering war really important.

Then surely you want to remember him, any other conscripted German relatives caught up in WW1 and WW2 and your English relatives. Germany have a very healthy attitude towards WW2. They don’t feel conflicted. They remember their dead and thank God Hitler lost the war. When I was a child, my German exchange family took me to have tea with his grandfather who was a PoW in England during WW2. He had nothing but fond memories of his time here and there was no sense of awkwardness in my sharing that my grandfather had been in the RAF.

"Short days ago..
Loved and were loved."

🇨🇦🍁

I regard it as being for all the fallen, OP. My problem with it is that the marching bands and the emotions of the day are not directing hearts and minds towards peace and “never again“ but into, if people aren’t careful, a patriotism that does not put peace at its forefront. War, any war, all war, is horrific.

Also, whilst I’m aware of the benefits to children of organised hobbies and all that stuff, I simply cannot bring myself to get a poppy from children in military uniform. I know they’re cadets and I know that all this is good for self discipline all the rest of it, but the sight of children in uniform is repellent to me.