What do/should the World Wars mean to us now & in the future?

[lazythursday]

The only way I really connect with rememberance day at all, is that I vividly recall the grief of my grandmother over the death of her brother who was shot down over the Netherlands. In fact he's remembered there in a ceremony because it's thought he managed to avoid crashing on the village. She still spoke about him a lot right up to her death in the 90s.

But that's still a fairly tenuous connection to the actual meaning of the day, and anyone younger won't even have that kind of second hand emotion. I do think it's important that we remember something about the sacrifices involved in defeating fascism, but the right have managed to obliterate all that in favour of something that's just about military and British Greatness.

 

[danny la rouge]

Oh, I definitely don't think remembrance is 'glorifying war'

It shouldn’t be, but sadly the official commemorations are in fact military, militaristic and imbued with jingoistic patriotism. It should be possible to remember and mourn the devastation, horror, human sacrifice and lasting damage of war without that colouring, but that’s not possible in the space created in our culture.

I therefore do not participate in the festival. I care, but I do it in my own way at my own time.

As a kid I remember people who fought in WWI, never mind WWII. People who were 18 at the end of the First World War were only 70 in 1970. Now, you’d need to be 96 to have been 18 at the end of WWII. As those wars recede and Armistice Day becomes more generalised into Remembrance of other wars, wars that did not have such a widespread Home Front here, wars that we did not support, it becomes harder still for me to relate to the flags, uniforms and volleys.

I have known men who fought in the First Gulf War, and the devastation left in their lives. The trauma they go through every day: the alcoholism, the inability to earn, the damage done to their family life, to their relationships, to their very sense of self. And the total lack of care from the state. They were abandoned to cope for themselves, which they did not. And I see the emptiness of the platitudes of the obligatory poppies on TV, and this makes me angry, not proud.

I absent myself from the spectacle. I don’t confront those who partake. That would be pointless and insensitive. I just abstain.

 

[Hollis]

Cloo I think you're onto something here. I think perhaps it should be put to bed on the 100th anniversay of the end of SWW and something like Veterans Day replacing it. Though I doubt this will happen.

I can remember in the 70s and 80s it was massive because there were still folks around impacted on it. Now they're virtually all dead is seems it's becoming more and more politicised by the right and I don't like it.

 

[danny la rouge]

One thing I forgot to mention is that my partner volunteers with street homeless people, and some of those are in fact people damaged by service in war zones. It may have been a “lifestyle choice” for them to sign up, Suella Braverman, but how their lives are going now is no choice of theirs.

 

[JimW]

I've mentioned here before about my dad's dad, he was with an anti-aircraft gunnery unit that was assigned to one of the airbases on Crete and was captured in the invasion, then spent some hard years as a POW and escaped close to the end of the war, so didn't get home until 1946. My dad had been born after he went off to fight so never actually met his dad until he was almost six. They had a bit of a rocky relationship. Grandad never talked about it to my recall though I was still young when he died and he didn't go in for Remembrance Sunday activities.
Mum's dad worked in Vauxhalls and they shifted production to tanks for the war so he was in a reserved occupation, and he was a bit older too. Was in the home guard working air defence around the factory though, and they did get bombed several times, mum remembers them coming over. They had their shelter as a garden shed still when we used to go and visit.

 

[krtek a houby]

So far as I'm aware, the Royal British Legion does some good work supporting veterans (and their families), many of whose lives have been curtailed or wrecked by their experiences and PTSD, etc. Lots of ex-military suffer from mental health problems are more likely than average to be homeless, etc. RBL supports them financially and practically.

Maybe, but some of them were on Irish streets intimidating/beating/killing innocent Irish people.

 

[oryx]

An interesting take from Radio London's Robert Elms on just how much WW2 seeped into the consciousness of those born in the 50s/60s and grew up in the 60s/70s. Starts 15 minutes in. It resonated very strongly with me even though I'm a bit younger than him - relatives' stories, the leftover gas masks people had, the Anderson shelters in back gardens, bomb sites, Army surplus shops etc. Fairly lighthearted but respectful.

Robert Elms - Passenger, Lail Arad and Geoff Deane - BBC Sounds

10 years of 'Let Her Go', marking Joni Mitchell's birthday and a memoir of a London life.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[ska invita]

all wars are fought for dubious reasons. it's not like aulder wars were fought for better reasons, a glance through the flashman papers demonstrates how flimsy were the excuses for many wars in the past eg the opium wars. the first world war certainly wasn't fought for any great moral principles even though many have been applied in retrospect. wars in malaya, kenya, ireland, libya, iraq, oman and so on have all been tawdry affairs in which neither the state nor the armed forces and its volunteer members emerge with their character unstained.

true but as cloo says the political class want to distance themselves and the establishment from the war crimes - cant see any of british invasions/bombings of the last 20 odd years being retroactively infused with pride and noble sentiments... which leaves a vacuum that reactionary sentiment fills

 

[Gromit]

We had the War to End War.
Now that led to the Second World War.

Now i use to buy poppies to support charity giving aid to those soldiers that took part. There was conscription. Many had no choice.

Anyone UK citizen who has taken part in a conflict since. It’s your own silly fault. Did you not learn from the first two wars that war is shit. Tell politicians to pick up a gun an go fight it out themselves and leave the general public out of it. It’s not like we get to see any of the profits.

Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Well I learnt and my money is patriotically being spent on Dutch booze and Indian curries not poppies.

 

[Pickman's model]

true but as cloo says the political class want to distance themselves and the establishment from the war crimes - cant see any of british invasions/bombings of the last 20 odd years being retroactively infused with pride and noble sentiments... which leaves a vacuum that reactionary sentiment fills

the way they want to distance themselves from war crimes is to amnesty the people involved. Didn't you notice the amnesty law passed some months back? Where was the investigation into the 1973 dublin and monaghan bombs?

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

While the establishment conflate the two world wars, both supposedly just wars, plucky British soldiers resisting tyranny etc etc, I can't possibly have any time for a ceremony which commemorates the two wars in the same way. When you add in the religious bollocks, the involvement of the monarchy, patriotism of the stupidest flag waving variety, all the militarism - nah, stuff Remembrance Day.

 

[Protag]

Actually understanding WWI (which is no mean feat) is most important I would say. I am just an amateur.

 

[SpookyFrank]

One thing I forgot to mention is that my partner volunteers with street homeless people, and some of those are in fact people damaged by service in war zones. It may have been a “lifestyle choice” for them to sign up, Suella Braverman, but how their lives are going now is no choice of theirs.

Poor fucking soldiers finding out that consequences can happen to them too, and not just to the people they went off to foreign lands to slaughter.

 

[dylanredefined]

I don't know the World War veterans are mostly gone. Do we end it or keep remembering all the veterans from other wars change it?

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Poor fucking soldiers finding out that consequences can happen to them too, and not just to the people they went off to foreign lands to slaughter.

When people think of 'child soldiers' they probably think it's a problem created by African warlords. But it's not.

The UK is the only European army that recruits 16-year-olds. Some join as kids, having been recruited (brainwashed/manipulated) as a result of being in the army cadets as teenagers.

"The British armed forces enlist personnel from age 16 and accept applications from children aged 15 years, 7 months.[237] Parental consent is required prior to enlistment.[238]

"As of 2022, 23% of enlistees to the British armed forces were aged under 18.[239] Most child recruits were enlisted for the army, where 30% of the intake in the year 2021-2022 was aged under 18; more new soldiers were 16 than any other age.[239]

Children in the military - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Many of them are recruited and signed up before they're legally allowed to vote or buy booze.

As I pointed out in a previous post in this thread, the army cynically recruits young working class kids from post-industrial towns, where there are few opportunities for kids from disadvantaged areas. There are many eg former mining or mill towns in Wales, North West, North East and Yorkshire with strong regimental recruitment traditions that persist to this day.

And while, yes, the army isn't normally supposed to deploy children to warzones, it doesn't rule it out, and it happens:

"As per the OPAC, the UK does not normally send child recruits to participate in hostilities, although it does not rule out doing so.[225]

The UK inadvertently deployed 22 personnel aged under 18 to Iraq and Afghanistan between 2003 and 2010.[245][246][247]"

Of course, war is awful for the people in foreign lands that they went off to slaughter [at the behest of politicians who won't spend any time at the frontline, and who probably haven't served and don't have any serving family members].

War is mostly fought by poor people on behalf of rich people/rich people's special interests. It's a huge class issue.