Why do we continue to write so much about ww2, so many years after the event ?

Brian

Click on to the lead story in your Daily Mail - which sums up exactly what I have been thinking and writing with the tale of the Father of his seven children buying a 2,500GBP television and telling the hard working tax payers to "go away" -

and illustrates one of the main problems in the decline of GREAT Britain.....another one not bothered !.....much more to the point - why did WE bother...?

Cheers
Tom

 

Well, I never thought the poem quoted by Ron would set you all off. Just remember to people like me, all who have fought are great heroes. The reason I tracked down the diaries my father told me about and turned them into a book was to ensure the names of good men live on. Governments may come and go but the stories.....well they are now part of our folk law.

And I called my book which contains the diaries "Not Forgetting The 9th" just to make sure no one ever does forget them.
Sylvia

 

Hi Tom. Oh for a few get up and go getter's that seem to have vanished from the scene. What we have now, is a land of ."We must not do that" " We must not say that" Someone may be listening...... We even had an old gentleman taken to court for quoting from the bible, when discussing homosexual marriage.... Cost him. so we also have "Don't quote the bible" attitude. A country making so many laws against its own people, that it will eventually drown in them . "Damn ! I should not have said that"..... The old gentleman protesting by using the bible passage was fined for "Hate talk"

By the way a spade is not a spade any longer.... its a bloody shovel...

The younger generation have no real idea of free speech Is. In our day in you did not like something you said so, and if the subject took offence then you could sort it out between you.. Now we have the situation where we are not allowed to criticize those that mean us real harm......

Come back Hitler... we knew exactly where we stood then......What this country seems to me is this . Do you recall Tom, Chamberlain waving a pit of paper in 1939 saying "Peace in our time" While all the time he had been appeasing the unappeasable...That to me is what this country feels like.

Political parties? A plague on all their houses. Our Generation Tom saw the best of this land...In my opinion it will continue to sllde downhill into an even greater horrible mess. And that saddens me more than I can say ...For above all I remain a fervent patriot, and that these days is plain daft!

 

Think we need to get back on track re Ron's post
thank you
Clive

 

TRUE We should...
With the anniversary of D day fast approaching, it is time to remember those we left behind 69 years ago'

The Flowers of Normandy

On Norman soil, they fought and died.
Now young men's graves in rows abound.
In Mother Earth's arms, now sanctified,
The fragrant flowers of our youth are found.

And yet, to rise again, as in a distant song.
Small voices that call, in dead of night.
Fleeting figures only in our dreams belong.
Alas, they fade, in dawn's bright light.

I see them yet, a sad, forgotten throng.
Shadowed, lost faces, marching on.
Over dusty roads, and high golden corn.
The call of long lost friends are borne.

We must not forget, the flowers of our days,
Lest they lay unquiet, in numbered graves.
For we lived, and loved, and life was sweet.
Still yet, for us, awaits our last retreat.

Flowers of our youth, now long since past.
Our sweet autumn days are fading fast.
We, who are left, flowered in our prime.
Enjoyed golden moments, on borrowed time.

Remember our friends, who passed this way.
For all our tomorrow's, they gave their today's,
On Utah and Omaha, Juno, Sword and Gold.
Oh! Dear Lord! See that they grow not old.
Sapper.

 

Clive

never did wander off Ron's original post as we do write about what we did in ww2 - and why - and as was pointed out some of us fought to retain the GREAT in Britain - and we obviously failed according to the Britain it is to-day- we shall

soon enough be dead and gone before long - and we shall leave the country in worse state than it was ever since Elizabeth 1......that is the problem - nobody is bothered to correct the situation- and we Veterans no longer have the strength

and can only watch and report on how a foreign religion is determined to inflict their laws on the British public - and no doubt they shall as ...."nobody is bothered "

So I thank you for bothering....

Cheers

 

That is just it Tom.... I yearn to be proud of the land that we fought and died for. I yearn for a leader that will lead the country forward. A land to be proud of once more. First, do away with hate and race laws, Why? because I am sure there is an undercurrent of deep resentment, that needs a safety valve...And we do not have one. So the pent up frustration remains. Happily I shall not be here to see the ends result of where we are heading.
Well not at our age Tom.
Best Wishes mate,

 

Sapper - indeed - I also yearn to see Britain become Great once more and like yourself I shall not see the end result which does NOT look too promising as long as SOME people confuse the poetry of Ron to the ACTUAL posting of Steve Mac

who posed the question in #10 - of what the Veterans thought of Britain to-day - so we did answer THAT query but are told that we are off topic plus the words of another who can't be bothered so the country is heading down a long

slippery slope - unless they start fighting...and I wouldn't take too many bets on that..

cheers my old chum and love to the saintly one

Tom

 

Because it was a big event in their life

 

Veterans? Veterans of ww2 or just veterans?
Assuming you are talking of ww2 veterans then I would of thought that the answer would be pretty obvious. The only reason NOT to talk about it would be to hide it away, bury it for it is too painful to recount or it is wished to be forgotten.
For too many generations ww2 was the most significant part of their lives. Not only that but it has gone beyond an individual experience and been elevated into some kind of collective culture which effects many day to day decisions in life.
Great question btw.

 

Hitler is just a glimpse of the future, of what will be. His idealology still exists repackaged as something else carried on by various cultures around the world. You can't take the man-ness out of man. The fight for freedom is only won when we succumb to a peaceful death.

 

Speaking as the son of a WW2 vet, who is currently writing his WW2 story, I have thought long and hard about this, and often been dragged into conversations with people who just don't get it. The common school of thought is that members of my dad's generation lined up to 'have a crack at Jerry', implying that that entire generation were a bunch of yahoos who simply wanted to comply and conform without really thinking it through. Having seen the effect of war on my dad for years after the end of the war, I can confirm that he really would rather have not had to do it, but that he would have done it again in a heartbeat if no alternative was available. In 1939, of course, they knew nothing of the death camps, the imposition of martial law, the wholesale annexing of neighbouring states for nothing better than a bit of real estate for the master race...all they knew was that our entire way of life was under threat and it should not stand. In the broader sense, should the governments of Europe, Asia and America done more to curtail the rise of fascism, not just in Germany but Italy and Spain? Of course, but lest we forget, right up until 1937 those same governments were jockeying for position with various alliances to feather their own nests. Most of the governments of Europe were quite prepared to jump into bed with whoever offered the best deal for them at the time. But it was the ordinary people, from whatever part of the world they came, who were always going to pay the ultimate price and it is that point that the current interest in the conflict highlights. The world had never before seen civilians targeted to the extent that they were in the 1940's, and it all stemmed from the weakness of politicians who had vested interests in allowing the wrong to appear right. For the world to avoid another conflict on this scale, access to real people's accounts of their experiences has never been more important

 

I spent 25 years as one of a dozen people collecting material on WWII for the Web.

Okay, got it all now.

Not really.

Otto's problem now.

 

Man makes plans and God laughs

 

Clive

or, as my friend Peter Ghiringhelli once reminded me, the Romans used to say
"If you want to hear the Gods laugh, tell them your plans "

Ron