To be conflicted about Remembrance Services?

[PaddlingSwan]

I have friends and family on both sides.

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 😭

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.

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.

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.

Why do you think Remembrance Day is about WW2?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

How do you know most people have no understanding of the causes? It’s probably irrelevant anyway as it’s entirely up to you whether you join in the remembrance or not. And pretty much none of your business if others do..

I agree.

I get what you mean OP. I don’t wear a poppy, don’t do the 2 minutes silence, don’t watch remembrance parades. I don’t believe we need any of these things to remember, be grateful or appreciate the sacrifices that were made.
There’s an awful lot of virtue signalling around Remembrance Day.

Ironic really isn’t it, when op is saying others don’t understand the causes, whilst really not understanding them herself it seems….

It's about respecting his.memory.

Doesn’t sound like your great uncle was on the other side, nationality doesn’t mean you are aligned with the views of the political party in power in your country

My great uncle was a Nazi. My mum (his niece) was with the Free French. She was born in Germany but was a naturalized British citizen by the time war broke out. My mum's cousins were in the German army but weren't Nazis. Not all Germans were Nazis.

And Remembrance Sunday is not just abut the two world wars.

This reminds me of the Jimmy Carr joke...

My grandfather was treated terribly by the Nazis in the second world war...

...passed over for promotion, time and time again.

https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/news-and-media/salute/june-2024

Scroll down to see pics of the virtue signallers.

Most of the Germans who died in battle were not Nazis.

Why should she leave? As so many are quick to point out, wars were fought for our freedoms; that includes the freedom to celebrate or observe Remembrance, or to believe that we 'make too much' of it.

I think that we're absolutely guilty of fetishizing the military in this country, but I wouldn't shame someone for getting involved if that's what they wanted. It does sometimes feel that sentiment doesn't work both ways though.

Remembrance day. Commemorate the dead.
Buy your poppy.
Question where all the millions they rake in go.
The dead dont need it
The living do.
What do they do for the living
Fuck all in my experience x

Are they the virtue signallers? I’m afraid I don’t agree with you there.

My grandfathers served in the trenches in WW1 and both of my parents served in the RAF in WW2. My father was captured at the fall of Singapore so was a POW for the rest of the war. To be honest I don't remember either of my parents being either engaged or disengaged with Remembrance.
As someone who has sung in church choirs since I was a child it's very clear that attendance at Remembrance services (in line with general church attendance) has dropped massively over the last 50 odd years anyway, so not sure why people seem to be raising it as a problem nowadays.
Personally I always take the 2 minutes silence to think about what my parents (particularly dad) went through during the war. That's my choice - I do think it would be nice if others would respect the silence out of consideration for others, even if it has no meaning for them personally.
This year, during the service tomorrow I'll also be thinking about the fact that the 9th November is the anniversary of Kristallnacht and wondering why we have apparently learnt so little in the last 87 years.

This thread is not a competition to see who can be more vile and stupid than the OP. But if it was, you'd be a serious challenger.