Remembrance Day 2020

[ninj]

My grandfather was a major in the 1st WW and didn't meet my mother until she was 18 months old. He came back alive, but his oldest son, my uncle, died.
My father did basic training at Camp Borden during WW2, but he had flat feet, which kept you from duty back then. As a licensed toolmaker, he did his part. He got a medal of participation.
My feelings about Remembrance Day are complex.

I am so grateful for the Peacekeepers who offer so much and represent Canada in the most dangerous places on earth....many have died...not just in the line of duty, but as a casualty of a devastating injury known as ptsd. Many of those heroes have also fallen from taking their own lives. They are who I hope never are forgotten.

Of course, I'm anti-war.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Mendalla]

I think it is quite possible to be pacifist and still remember and honour those who suffered and died in the various wars. I see no contradiction. The hope is that dying in war is going to be something we remember, not a present reality.

I am in the odd position of not having many real family connections to the wars. There's no known relatives with WWI service. For WWII, with Grandad being a minister, he didn't serve other than doing chaplaincy for troops stationed for training near Owen Sound, where he served a charge in the forties. Dad was born in the Depression so was a kid. Similar on Mom's side. Her father was a teacher and didn't serve. Health may have been a factor, too, given that he died young. One of her uncles (her mother had a slew of brothers) was an engineer in the Canadian Army but never served at the front. He was stationed in the UK working on equipment and such. I knew him in the seventies but he developed Alzheimer's in the eighties and died probably when I was in high school or university.

 

[Mrs.Anteater]

My father was not drafted until towards the very end of the war, he was missing three fingers of his left hand where the umbilical cord was wrapped around prior to his birth. Instead, he was put into administration, dealing with deliveries of supplies. When the war is about to be lost and crazy Hitler starts to draft everybody- teens as well as old people “ to defend Berlin”, he also gets drafted. He sits in a trench with three others in our neighbourhood to defend against the Russians. On April 20 th, 1945, he and the other three decide to take off. They pretend to be their own group marching through Berlin on orders and finally end up in a large bunker in the South of Berlin. Anybody who would have discovered them would have strung them up a lamp post (and they marched by those bodies during their escape. They were asked once, but could talk themselves out of it- my father showing his missing fingers, stating he was never drafted, his buddy, who also was drafted late because of a heart condition, found another reason to convince them. After 8 days in hiding, the war was finally over, the Russians had arrived. ( which also meant they had to convince the Russians that they were no Nazis).

 

[Mendalla]

My father was not drafted until towards the very end of the war, he was missing three fingers of his left hand where the umbilical cord was wrapped around prior to his birth. Instead, he was put into administration, dealing with deliveries of supplies. When the war is about to be lost and crazy Hitler starts to draft everybody- teens as well as old people “ to defend Berlin”, he also gets drafted. He sits in a trench with three others in our neighbourhood to defend against the Russians. On April 20 th, 1945, he and the other three decide to take off. They pretend to be their own group marching through Berlin on orders and finally end up in a large bunker in the South of Berlin. Anybody who would have discovered them would have strung them up a lamp post (and they marched by those bodies during their escape. They were asked once, but could talk themselves out of it- my father showing his missing fingers, stating he was never drafted, his buddy, who also was drafted late because of a heart condition, found another reason to convince them. After 8 days in hiding, the war was finally over, the Russians had arrived. ( which also meant they had to convince the Russians that they were no Nazis).

You know, the stories from "the other side" are often the most harrowing, I find. People like your father lived through Hell in a way most of us in Canada don't really know or understand.

I updated the header with a suitable image for today. I will switch back to Fall tomorrow.

 

[Mrs.Anteater]

My grandparent’s house after bomb hit the neighbouring building on November 26 th, 1943. This is supposed to be a suburb with buildings within close proximity. Several family members survived hiding in the basement. A memorial plaque, written by one of them, used to hang there for as long as I can remember, stating everybodies names.

 

[ninj]

My father was not drafted until towards the very end of the war, he was missing three fingers of his left hand where the umbilical cord was wrapped around prior to his birth. Instead, he was put into administration, dealing with deliveries of supplies. When the war is about to be lost and crazy Hitler starts to draft everybody- teens as well as old people “ to defend Berlin”, he also gets drafted. He sits in a trench with three others in our neighbourhood to defend against the Russians. On April 20 th, 1945, he and the other three decide to take off. They pretend to be their own group marching through Berlin on orders and finally end up in a large bunker in the South of Berlin. Anybody who would have discovered them would have strung them up a lamp post (and they marched by those bodies during their escape. They were asked once, but could talk themselves out of it- my father showing his missing fingers, stating he was never drafted, his buddy, who also was drafted late because of a heart condition, found another reason to convince them. After 8 days in , hiding, the war was finally over, the Russians had arrived. ( which also meant they had to convince the Russians that they were no Nazis).

That's a really interesting story MrsAnteater. A woman I worked with who was also from Germany was in her teens at the time. She told me about holding her little brother in a shelter while debris was falling during an air raid. (Can't remember which city she mentioned).
Sounded familiar.

 

[Mrs.Anteater]

View attachment 4362

My grandparent’s house after bomb hit the neighbouring building on November 26 th, 1943. This is supposed to be a suburb with buildings within close proximity. Several family members survived hiding in the basement. A memorial plaque, written by one of them, used to hang there for as long as I can remember, stating everybodies names.

My grandparents and farther’s family built a temporary place the size of a garage and moved into this until the house was rebuilt. It actually was the garage later on. They lived there with three families. The property was turned into a garden for vegetables. When I was a kid, most of it was still more garden than lawn, after all they had four kids to raise. When my father took over the house- he had wanted to study engineering, but after starting his studies, they had a shortage of teachers, so he was “ grandfathered in” to become a teacher. So he had a relatively good and steady income. His other brother lived with his family still in the garage building for a while, his parents lived in the the basement and my mom had to take care of them and the four kids she was going to have.She also had to look after an aunt who lived with them who had dementia and would go out and wander, or open up all the windows in the middle of the winter.

 

[Lastpointe]

My grandfather fought in WW1. Wounded at Ypres. He never mentioned it. I think he usEd to walk in the warriors parade at the. CNE

one thing I found interesting with him was that he was a married man with a child but signed up. He was a Scottish immigrant and joined a new battalion, the 48th Highlanders. At the start they were entirely made up of men who were born in Scotland. Had a unit tartan......

if you go into the Canada military site you can look up names and find info. I found my grandfathers enlisting papers, gave his height, weight, age, address...... found a newspaper article about him being injured

the 48 Highlanders have a regiment museum in St Andrews church in Toronto. With all our modern outdoor clothing, it is quite stunning to see the type of clothing worn by these boys

my dad joined in WW11. Was stationed in Vancouver and never went oversees. He also never spoke of the war, other than the fact that many men were f8nakky able to get dental care from the army that they couldn’t afford before

 

[BetteTheRed]

My Dad joined up at 17, in 1939. Saw the whole war, in the Indian Army, so he was all over the place - Italy, North Africa. He was in Corps of Signals - translators mainly. He got promoted to Sergeant a couple of times, then he'd get busted back to private over various high jinx, usually involving whiskey. He only ever told the funny stories, except once, near the end of his life, when he and I talked. It was an awful story about seeing his best friend catch a sniper bullet in the head right next to him, and about a friendly fire incident involving significant civilian casualties that particularly haunted him.

I actually went to church on Sunday, which I never do on Remembrance Sunday. I hate that awful McRae poem with a passion that ruins any attempt at bringing a pacifist focus to the service, which the Rev Susan does try and do. Covid or no, I won't be doing that again.

Just once, I'd like to hear this, my favorite, instead.

Dulce et Decorum Est​

Wilfred Owen - 1893-1918

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

 

[Mendalla]

Our office moment of remembrance included In Flanders Fields but it was Leonard Cohen's reading, which I find carries a weight some others do not.

That said, if I was doing a Remembrance service, I would be tempted to use some Owen. Sassoon is good, too, but using a poet from "the other side" might not go over so well.

 

[Graeme Decarie]

We are animals. Bur are far more murderous than other animals. A lion kills, but only for food. Having finisihed his meal, the lion trots home and lies down to sleep.
We kill without limits.

This, we are told, is because we are born with bigger brains than other animals. And some use their brains to manipulate others into mass killing. So it is that we have, for thousands of years organized other humans to kill for us. Thus the origin of kings and emperors and aristocrats of all sorts to plunder and kill for us. Thus the emperors of Rome. Thus the poverty and early deaths of the people of Rome, Thus, in our time, the rise of multi millionaires who manipulate the rest of us into killing for them - as in Latin America, as in the Middle East, as in the glory days of the British Empire, as in the careers of politicians who happily organized mass killing. Winston Churchill, for example, happily and quite deliberately, murdered millions of quite innocent people in India, in Africa..... George Washington murdered millions in a holocaust of native peoples (This, incidentally. is what inspired Hitler in his holocaust of Jews. He mentions it in Mein Kampf.)
Britain not only plundered and murdered Chinese. It forced enormous quantities of drugs on them to addict them and reward British drug traders. This went on even after World War Two when we supported Chiang Kai Check who was probably the greatest drug dealer in the world.

And the Christian church have always gone along with this. In all the wars we have fought, we are good - and the other side bad. (And that gets very tricky indeed in wars fought among Christians - like world wars one and two.

Think about Flanders Fields.
"Take up our quarrel with the foe. To you from failing hands we throw the torch...."Churches will recite that every year.
Who were we fighting when McCrae wrote that? It was mostly the Germans. What were we fighting for? The same thing as the Germans. Both sides were fighting to get control of trade in that war.
Hitler was evil in World War Two?
Yes, But how would you describe Hiroshima and Nagasaki that killed thousands of civilians including children, babies....?
And why did the U.S. enter WW2? To help the British? Get real. the British needed help desperately in 1939. So why did the U.S. wait until almost the start of 1942?
The U.S. entered that war in hope of conquering the gem of the British Empire - China. (That's why they just a little later attacked Korea.) They also wanted to take the British oil fields in the middle east. And that they did.)

Those splended lads of the U.S. army have been murdering Afghanis for twenty years. Why? Was Afghanistan attacking anybody? In fact it has just defeated Russian attacks on Afghanistan. So why did America (and it's chaplains) invade? It was to steal Aafghanistan resources. And why did Canadians go to die in Afghanistan? That was because we wanted Americans to like us.

A little later, Canadians invaded Haiti. Was it to bring the word of God to Haiti? Hardly. Haiti had been an independent government when the U.S. invaded and killed a large part of its army. Then the U.S. invited Canada to send troops. Why? To make sure that all those Haitians stayed dead and that democracy stayed dead.. We murdered them for our good friends in the U.S.
(That story never appeared in our news media.)

We now maintain troops in Eastern Europe, in part of Latin America, in Syria to ensure American capitalists know we love them.

"Take up our quarrel with the foe. To you from faiiling hands we throw the torch. Be yours to hold it high." And I bet lots of churches will recite that.

It's bad that the churches do this. And sad that The Canadian Legion unthinkingly supports every war and plays cheer leader for it.

Offhand, I can't think of any war in history that Christian churches have not approved of at least in their side.