What do you think about during the minutes silence?

[NCTDN]

I mean, honestly. I stood there thinking 'what should I be thinking about? I know I'll ask mn'.
But should I actually be thinking about something specific?

I think about Wilfred Owen who died a week before world war ended. How he was sucked in by the lie about the glory of war.

I think about the children who have watched the devastation of war first hand.

I also think about how we never seem to learn.

Normally I while away the time, hoping I don't cough.

But yesterday I closed my eyes and thought about an old soldier I saw on the tv a few days before. Most of the boys, and they were boys, had died and he said he felt guilty everyday since.

I think about the ones who died, and how my sons and their mates would probably have joined up in excitement at that time, and how most of them would never have returned.

I think about how young they were. They were so young, so many of them. And I wonder how the hell I could have waved DH off and been brave about it. And I think about how little DS is and how vulnerable he’d have been back then. I was reading about the plans the Nazis had for this country if they’d won... the population would have been devastated and a small child like DS wouldn’t have stood much chance. And I feel grateful that we’re here and now, and safe, partly because of the sacrifices that others made. Being born when and where we were is like winning the birth lottery, when you look at some places in the world today, and things that happened in history.

GetTheGoodLookingGuy Those poor, poor children

I was reading Dear Mrs Bird in Westfield. There is a bit in it about the characters during the war, going about their jobs and having to get to and from work while bombs were falling. I remember my mum telling me what it is like.

That generation just had to get on with it. No excuse for not going to work (unless you were dead!!).

Thank you so much for starting this thread OP, although I can’t bear to read it all in one go. I often think about my dad in the silence, he was a kind of silent, ghost-like person, who I now understand almost certainly had PTSD from WW2 (I’m in my mid-60s and my parents were in their 40s when I was born) and he died thirty years ago now without me ever really feeling like I knew him. He was actually a gentle soul and I can’t imagine how he coped with war but he never said a word about it, nor anything else really. And very rarely he had the most massive angry explosions when he completely lost it and scared the bejazers out of me. I’ve got more and more like him as I’ve got older, which I struggle with. I think of much more but that seems the most important thing to contribute here. My memory of him.

@onalongsabbatical That's very similar to
My dad. He went to war at 18 in 1939 - it feels incomprehensible to me now. He married late and was in his forties when I was born. He was always very self contained and never talked about the war. He didn't attend any remembrance events although I'm sure he remembered in his own way. All he ever said was that he learned about man's inhumanity to man. He never looked back, only forward.

He died 10 years ago and I wish I'd got to know him better and spent more time talking to him. I miss him and I never thought I would.

I spend the whole time trying to not cry telling myself not to cry. I have always found people showing respect really hard I end up crying my eyes out.

This for sure.
Every year I tell myself I can maintain my composure - I’m usually really good at that. I didn’t let myself cry at the funeral of colleague so surely I can manage to keep it together during the remembrance service I’m at to remember him and the others right?

Oh no.
First blow of the last post and I’m a blubbering mess every single time.

I think about all those graves in Normandy and the young lives they represent, and the people I know who have served and still serve, and the parents I know whose children still serve and who live with the constant uncertainty... and I think about how easily we take for granted the freedoms that so hard fought for.

@bohemia14 thank you, that's interesting. I do think about my dad a lot and I wish he'd been around longer and I'd had a better chance to know him with me as a proper grown up.
War sucks, I know that much.
for all of us and all our dead and wounded of mind and body.

DH and I went to see the film Midway this evening.

OP if you do have difficulty knowing what to think during the2 minutes silence I can recommend that film as it brings to life what those brave men did for their country. Their bravery and courage was super-human, when they should have been living happy lives with their wives and children, but instead gave up so much to change the course of history.

If you can learn more about what those ordinary men and women sacrificed it would mean you aren't just standing there for two minutes, It would make it more meaningful.

I'm always at the busy ice rink when the 2 minute silence starts. I always spend the first few seconds in awe of how everything just falls silent and everyone, inc the skaters on the ice just stop and stand.

Then I think about listening to the sounds of the last of the fighting as the armistice came into effect, the noise of the bombing dying away and the sound of birdsong returning.

I'm a teacher and our topic this term is WW 1 and WW2 so the cause and effect of the fighting is always fresh on my mind from the work we have been doing.

Ooops....posted the link twice.

I sobbed through the festival of remembrance. Grandad fought in both world wars but died in the 1970s before I was born; my FIL is ex army and my DH is serving in the RAF. A girl I used to work with lost her husband 3 months after they were married, he was deployed and she got the visit while at work.

We’ve visited my dad’s cousin’s grave, just over the border into Germany, his entire flight crew are buried in a row.

I cannot bear glib remarks about how it glorifies war, how it doesn’t matter any more or is irrelevant. We must remember them. They were not unimportant.

I thou

I found myself imagining a world where ww1 was the last war, and how different everything would be if that were the case. How different families and bloodlines would be. How much happier we might all be?

I always cry. I think about the wasted lives, about how many people have died in wars, and about how angry it makes me. I also think about how we never seem to learn anything as I watch fascism rearing its ugly head again, and that makes me angry too. We're so quick to forget, even though we said we never would.

I don't know anyone who's died in a war, and although I had relatives who fought in WW2 I never knew them.

Thank fuck Pauline’s stopped talking.

My friends and colleagues who lost thier lives. Their children. Their parents and spouses. The suffering. How life just goes on and these people lost their lives at a time when alot of the UK considered us not to be a country at war. That hardly anyone actually gives a shit because it was an "illegal" war. I get a bit tense and angry.
I think of thier faces and have random thoughts like xxx you were bloody hilarious at X event or xxx always made me smile or laugh.

I try not to gulp or sigh too loudly as I fight back the tears hut I fail and people look and i feel embarrassed and like I don't have the right to be this hurt and this upset because these people were friends, it's not as if I'm thier widow.

This year I spent it thinking about my grandfather, he won an award during the war, but never mentioned it, we don't have a clue what it was for and I cant for the love of God find out why he got it.

I missed it altogether so can't say. I remember one year being in the Co op and there was a minute or two minute silence for something, I had no idea and chatted to a person, also dropped an item that I pulled off a shelf which made a noise . Things often pass me by so not surprising.

Being a person who spends quite a lot of time on her own, I do a lot of thinking anyway, I ponder over things I've read or seen on the news, imagining the scenes, many of which make me very sad or uneasy. I get what the poster said about Syria, that is heartbreaking.

This year is no different to any other from the point of view of thinking. I sometimes wish I thought less!

I think about my childhood. For the stress of my Dad being away at the Falklands, knowing he went on the QE2 and managed to lose all his kit when a ship went down.
I think about the young man who came back missing fingers after being caught in a blast.
I think of the family opposite whose dad never came home, and the soldier and his family who returned in a wheelchair.

I remember the normality of having to check under the car for suspicious devices and how strange it was not do this when we returned to the British mainland.
I think of the funny times- the workman who didn't follow the rules and had his car blown up for being suspicious.

I remember the camaraderie and the sense of belonging, and I think about the freedoms I now enjoy as a result of all the men and women who went before me and made this possible.
I thank God for keeping my Dad safe.

@Sobeyondthehills

You could try searching the National Archives if you are UK, and your grandfather served in U.K. Armed Forces.

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/british-military-gallantry-medals/

Victoria Cross (VC)
Distinguished Service Order (DSO)
Military Cross (MC)
Military Medal (MM)
Mention in Dispatches (MiD)

There are other records but I'd try the U.K. Gov website first as they will be validated records. Other sites you can find on google will change a fee and it's pot luck if they are validated, so they may take your money, who knows.

My grandad was haunted by the fact he killed another young man in hand-to-hand combat. I think about that young man. I think about how I’m only alive because he died. I think about how it affected my grandad.

I think about all the decisions that are made in war that have outward ripples and how differently everything could play out.

I think everyone should think of the soldiers in their own time not at a collective time as it really is difficult for some people I.e. businesses, old people that can't stand where they are for that long and hard of hearing people. I felt so sorry for a lady that didn't understand what was going on as she didn't hear the announcement.

@daisychain01 thank you we have done that, it tells us what he has won, but not what he won it for, I have requested his military records but it takes forever