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

I probably should have mentioned in passing that Remembrance Day in the UK is Veterans Day in the USA, a bank holiday on which Banks and Government offices close for the weekend.

On the American Civil War related links, there were more troops killed and injured in the American Civil War than any other conflict in American history. Talking about it with a young man with a strong Confederate background in his family history, he remarked that was because "it was a case of American on American".*

I'd have to say, as I'm quite sure he meant, that there was a bit more to it than all of casualties ultimately being tallied on the same side of the ledger. No conflict is so bitterly contested as an internecine conflict. The rhetoric on the American Civil War of "brother vs. brother" was often literal truth. There was, for example, a documented incident of the character during the storming of 'Little Roundtop' by the Confederates during the battle at Gettysburg. One of the Confederates who surrendered to the Union defenders was found to be a brother of one of the Union defenders.

(To the purpose of avoiding situations like that during WW II, as a rule American troops with Japanese ancestry were sent to the European theater, while those with recent German, Austrian and Italian antecedents were sent preferentially to the Pacific theater.)

On Woodrow Wilson, Dec 28, 1856 - Feb 3, 1924, was born in the State of Virginia before the American Civil War. Much of his political outlook was conditioned by the American Civil War and The Reconstruction Era. If you have ever seen photos, for example, of the Confederate capital, Richmond, VA, in the aftermath of the Union bombardment that forced the Confederate surrender at Appomattox:

http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/media_player?mets_filename=evm00001343mets.xml

http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/civ&CISOPTR=198&CISOBOX=1&REC=4

They're rather strongly reminiscent of WW II war damage.

Woodrow Wilson's vision of a world without war is something he realized was achievable only under a government of laws, the same insight that led to the beginning of English unity under Alfred the Great.

Wilson was strongly opposed in his own time and it fell to the WW II generation to bring his vision into application. Slow progress has followed.




*Americans with strong Confederate family histories even today still sometimes object to being called 'Yankees', even though they realize that outside the USA the term simply means 'American'.

Inside the USA its usually restricted to people from the New England states.

(Geographically, the New England plate is bounded in the west by the Hudson River and on the north by the Saint Lawrence, both rivers running along the course of plate tectonic rifts.

The Hudson River is unusual on the point that its actually two rivers, both originating in Lake Champlain, that make a continuous natural waterway between the St. Lawrence River and the Atlantic Ocean, near New York City.)

The term 'Yankee' is simply derived from the Algonquian word for 'English', 'Yanguese', the Algonquians being the total group of Native Americans native to New England.

re 60: "Currently BBC iPlayer TV programmes are available to play in the UK only..."

I shall follow Sho's advice and in future only think of Remembrance Day as being about people - and ignore any person or organisation who try to hijack it for other purposes

So far Denmark has lost 40 boys and one girl in Afghanistan. A lot more have been wounded and/or suffer from post traumatic stress disorder

6 wounded and 2 with PTSD recently carried through the New York Marathon. 4 ran, 4 had to use bicycle wheelchairs. One of the crippled ran all the way on a special artificial leg

http://politiken.dk/indland/ECE1443539/saarede-danske-soldater-gennemfoerer-new-york-marathon-paa-proteser/

It does my heart good to read about an achievement like this. Life will never be the same for these guys, but at least some seem to be able to adapt to their new situation

I think you have hit the nail on the head there, it's about the human and not the governmental.

I get into a bit of trouble for not going along with all the current hysteria (and refusing to call all soldiers heroes - I knew plenty of them, they are regular guys doing a difficult job but that's it)

Let's raise a glass to humanity today. We will persevere.

Our losses to Afghanistan count 158 uniformed men and women, one national news reporter and one consulate worker. For Canada, this outnumbers by far all of the losses since the UN Peace Keeping began from here. And the town that I live in, the Air Base that I work on, is where every one of our folks leave for far countries, ... and return.

Repatriations have become too common, and yet each brings out every able-bodied person to watch, to wave, to feel loss.

Yes, Remembrance Day is about the people, not the conflicts or the premises that began them. Always the people that are lost, ours, theirs, the folks that get caught up in the middle.

Reading this conversation has reminded me why I love hootoo so much. Intelligent conversation from people around the with different viewpoints. Thank you for that.

I agree with the that it is shameful that veterans rely on charitable monies raised the poppy fund. Incidentally, my ex was in the army and he refused to wear a poppy because of their link to the 'Haig Fund', which was imprinted in the centre. My personal opinion is that it's all very well to remember the dead but I resent the nationalistic and militaristic manner of its performance.

Black Adder's Baldrick's poetry summarises war movingly and adequately:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45dogApXnns

Pierce

My great uncles fought in the First World War all volunteers, two underage, one had been discharged from the Navy as medically unfit then the joined the Army - the three from my fathers family were all terribly wounded, all three of them were life long socialists - they had no animosity towards the German and Austrian "workers" they had fought but loathed the arrogant greedy fools on both sides who had started the war and then profited from it.
I remember them because of their humanity which they held onto in spite of being gassed, shell shocked and in one case buried alive by shellfire; put in a position where they had little choice but to kill men they did not know and had know reason to hate in the most horribly brutal manner; and then betrayed by the people who sent them. When I contemplate their ruined lives I think about the folly that led to that war and it shapes my beliefs and actions - I believe it was Edmund Burke who said "Those who do know history are destined to repeat it" - that's why I marched against the invasion of Iraq

The only soldiers (below the rank of General) they despised were the military police who shot dead those who hesitated or lost their nerve - don't believe the myth they were all arrested and tried, when the whistles blew the red caps were at the back of the trench with loaded revolves and orders to kill any "malingerers") So I remember those who were shot because they lost their nerve or just couldn't go on. It's because of injustices like that I support Amnesty International

I also remember my mothers cousins who died in the Second World War but for different reasons - they died fighting an evil murderous ideology not in a war between nations or about resources. One of them is buried in Germany where he died in the glider assaults on the Rhine crossings at the age of nineteen. It may be worth considering that his sacrifice didn't just help liberate France, the Low Countries and Denmark - ultimately it liberated people in (most of) Germany from that evil. That's part of the reason why I was active in the Anti-Nazi League and Anti-apartheid movement

Sadly here in the UK the Wars have often been interpreted in Nationalistic terms but I hope most people are moving away from that now. I share your discomfort with jingoism and the glorification of war but I hope I honour all those who were sucked into unnecessary wars and all those who stood up to gross injustice by trying to live an ethical life.