h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My grandfather lied about his age to join the Marine Corps during WWII. He served in Japan, helping the clean up after the war. He also was shipped to Korea. By the time Vietnam started, he was a drill instructor at Pendleton. He retired rather than train young men to be shipped to a war he didn't agree with.

I miss you, Pappy.

There should be a salute emoticon. My family has very little military background to speak of. I am certainly thankful to those who have served.

B4 - that is a story and a half. We don't know we're born, these days.

My Ma edited and published the WWI letters of her father and his siblings some 30 years ago. Superbly, the Imperial War Museum had transcribed them for her and all ("all"!) she had to do was select extracts and add commentary. There were boxes and boxes of the things.

I'm thinking of asking the IWM for copies of the transcriptions and blogging them exactly 100 years later. It would be a big project, but a really interesting one.

B

My father served in Vietnam, along with his twin. They were the first in my family to have served in the military. Since that time, my next older brother (Army), my younger brother (Coast Guard), two of my cousins (Air Force, Marine Corps), and I (also Marine Corps) have served. None of the younger generation saw combat, though I nearly went to Bosnia. I am grateful for those that have served and who have given the ultimate sacrifice.

That would be interesting Ben. I would love to see that, given the chance.

I second GDZ's sentiment on the project. Do it! It's a veritable time capsule, waiting to be opened. I think a well-known author said that people (especially older folks) are the equivalent of a time machine.

On a related note: I "volunteered" to do event updates on the sign for the grade school my daughter attends. It entails dragging a bin of letters and numbers around in the back of my Jeep, so I can stop by after work and restructure the announcements in advance of the happenings. No matter the weather. Prop the glass front open with a broom handle; shuffle the letters around. Anyway, for this week's Headline (top line of text), I posted: "ASK A VET FOR A STORY". I can only hope some of the younger crowd take a moment to listen intently to a friend or relative who's been through 'the fire'. What a wealth of experience that could pass down.

B4istartusingthesignasmypersonalScrabbleboard

Indeed- but let's hope that they ask a veteran, not a vetenarian.

Mornin All

Clear, deep blue sky with a hint od sunrise to the East. Could be a nice day.

Thanks, everyone.

I marked the silence in my house, which was much easier to do than it ever is at the Library of Doom. Can you get silence in a library for two minutes? No you can not. My grandfather flew supplies in to Warsaw before being shot down and taken prisoner. He was proud to have served, but also pleased that he never had to fire a shot or drop a bomb. We have photos of him (and the other surviving members of his squadron) being presented with medals by the Polish people around 10 years ago. I remember him being deeply moved that they still remembered and wanted to honour them.

I had lunch with J, afternoon tea with the housemates and then a seemingly endless dress rehearsal. I did get a fully orchestrated rendition of Happy Birthday, though, which was rather nice (if a tad embarrassing). We were going to go out for a drink afterwards, but we didn't get away until nearly 11.30 and just wanted to go to to our various homes, curl up in bed and whimper. Hopefully the late night means we've sorted our various problems before tonight's performance.

Since Sweden managed to stay out of WWI as well as WWII there is no such thing here as poppy day.

I think Finland might have something along the lines because of the Finnish Winter War against Soviet - which Finland lost together with a good chunk of Finnish land including 10% of it's total agricultural area. Food was sparse when my parents grew up...

Goo Morning ! Good Morning!

Hey Ben thats a great idea, i used visit the IWM allot when i was youger, a fine place; i read somwhere of some of the letters that they have published; and this stuck with me now for some reason: there are alot of letters from the WW1 obviuosly and quite a number of those Tommies writing home would craft their letters, thier handwriting of many would be elegant copperplate written in ink and lovingly cherrished by those who sent and recieved. It struck me what a difference from today, i have an average kind of scrawl but many i know have no conception of writing a letter, we speak an abbreviated language on paper and with typed and texted words; with education free for all. And in trenches brave Tommies craft letters back home in neat copperplate.

Vip,
It matters not one whit to me if the kids talk to a Veteran of a foreign (or homeland) war, or if they have a chat with their pet's Doctor. As long as they open up a dialogue wherewith they learn something else about life.

loftyskywalker,
I, too, lament the degradation of our language due to the rise of txtspk. seems 2 B all the rage & da kids tink iz kewl - WTF!? LOL All right, I agree it's utile when you have limited space or bandwidth to transmit a message, but--c'mon!--it doesn't have to pervade your every communication. It troubles me most when I realize the quality of the dialogue becomes stunted and spirals in ever-smaller circles because of the limited vocabulary. I fear our children are losing their ability to effectually communicate their thoughts, and that CAN'T be good for any of us. Language is such a beautiful thing and we should revel in using it. It wouldn't bother me if the kids learned MULTIPLE languages, dialects, idioms, cyphers, jargon, or urban slang. What I don't want to see them lose is one of the core aspects of our culture--the English language. Maybe it's because I had to learn it when I came from Germany, in order to get into school. It was a source of pride to develop my understanding of it (as my second language) and then master it for in-depth communication. Perhaps we tend to take for granted the language we learn as children, because it's second nature to us.

B4thesoapboxcollapsesundertheweightofrecrimination

B4, what are you doing up at this hour, anyway? Are you back on some odd shift again?!

happy birthdays david and kerr.

david it is a set of pitch pipoes so you know what note to begin your day with

kerr its a self re filling beer fridge.

mini

The same question could be asked of you MR! What are you doing up at this hour?

My granddad didn't serve in the forces during WW2 Instead he was a policeman down in Plymouth and no doubt had to deal with the horror of the home front during the bombing raids. I sure that some of the previous generation to him did serve in WW1 but don't know much about that.

There are a small number of places in England that sent and lost no men during WW1, the thankful villages. Even fewer of them managed to be doubly thankful when all those who went to WW2 came back.

MR,
Yes, it's the Owl Shift for the other half of the crew. We're winding down our Refuel Outage, bringing the power plant back up to operating levels, and doing the final tests and evaluations before linking back into the national grid. I've worked three weeks on Day Shift, and have suffered the vagaries of Owl Shift for the last two-and-a-half. I'll be so glad to see next week and a normal schedule.

...and what are ~You~ doing up at this hour? I'd have thought the bar long closed by now. Studying? Grading?

Oh, someone made mention of monuments to the fallen, earlier on in the thread. I wanted to say I'd noticed this when I was stationed in Germany, during my USAF years. I toured my home country, Luxembourg, Belgium, and France, and noted some form of memorial or other in almost every town or village I visited. It pointed out to me the reach of the madness that is war. None are spared, especially when we--as humans--take into our heads to escalate our hate on a grand scale. So many lives unlived; so many loved ones left alone; so many homes standing empty. It boggles the mind. Perhaps someday we'll learn to discuss, versus "duke out", our differences.

B4youseejusthowmanylittlecratesIhaveatthereadyinallshapessizes&colors

For some daft reason I keep reading that as Fuel Outrage

I'm in agreement that proper use of English is preferable in most places, partly because I'm an old fart but mainly because I find it easier to read.

Text speak has its place in the universe.
The grandchildren in our family were very impressed to find themselves on the receiving end of abbreviated text messages from my mother. They thought she was being very modern and down-with-the-kids. Actually, she thought she was being charged per letter, rather than per message, and was trying to be economical.

>> They thought she was being very modern and down-with-the-kids. Actually, she thought she was being charged per letter, rather than per message, and was trying to be economical.



My grandma made my baby-boomer Big Sis some mini-skirts in the 1960s - Big Sis's classmates were very impressed: "you must have a dead mod gran" one of them said. Grandma was thrilled with this and went around telling everyone she was "a mod con gran".

My Great Grandfather was in the middle east in WW1 and my Grandfather was protecting first Scotland and then Wales against the imminant threat of invasion. He then missed D Day because he was in hospital with hepititus, but finally made it over to the continent for some very uneventful mopping up. Not a great military family ours.

B's family have more interesting war stories.

The females were dying in the seige of St Petersburg; his mother (age a few months), was having her house burned down around her ears by the advancing Germans and was rescued, along with her mother, by her father, who arrived just in time to break down the barriers the soldiers had put up to prevent people getting out; and one of his uncles was being forced into joining a 'suicide squad', who were essentially sent in in situations where noone expected him to survive. I think he'd tried to desert.

Did you know there's a Veterans Day in the UK? It's in June. It's new. It doesn't get observed much. Which is a shame as I do think that the problem with Rememberance Day in the UK is it honours the dead, but doesn't do much for the survivours. I mean, I understand why, historically, it has turned out like that, in fact I wrote one of my PGCE masters essay thingies on War Memorials essentially to find out, but it's a shame that here, really, supporting the troops is seen as the preserve of the very Jingoistic. In short, I see it as a bit of a cop out.

Which doesn't keep me from buying a poppy, you understand.

Actually, I turned the essay into a Guide Entry. It's being subbed the the mo, apparently.