Here are two quotations that might cover the range of my response:
Now, Therefore, I, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States of America , do hereby call upon all of our citizens to observe Thursday, November 11, 1954 , as Veterans Day. On that day let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.
I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to fight in. -- GEORGE MCGOVERN
As for the rest of today, it will be the usual combination of work and play, and as usual, mostly work. I think I can actually get 100% caught up this weekend, the Says You! excursion notwithstanding. I might even - dare I say it? - get a little ahead!
3 comments:
When my son and I lived in Wales we were given a very different perspective on how and why people mark this day. The schools did quite a lot of activites around teaching children about wars and how they affected local populations.
During WWI in many Welsh villages, the entire male cohort would join the army on the same day, and then all be killed within one day a few months later. It would be as if every male in your high school class, and perhaps the year before and after, were all killed at the same time.
At 11:11am on the 11th of November EVERYTHING would stop for a moment of silence, and I mean everything. On one 11/11 we were on a train heading for North Wales and the train actually stopped on the tracks. They do not even allow planes to land at Heathrow during the moment of silence either.
Anyways, it may not sound like much, yet being in the middle of it felt far very profound.
Maybe it is simply 11am.....
Every time I am in England, I am struck by just how often "the War" is mentioned or you run across it. This does not have the manufactured feel of the constant references in the media to our "war on terror", but of responses based on the very real everyday impact of World War II on the British population and the residue of that. I have also noticed that the references are growing fewer as the years go by.
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