Better than I could say it
Nov. 13th, 2007 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI've taken, as I look at it, to annually saying Veteran's Day is a holiday which means not much to me.
I try to articulate why I prefer Armistice Day, but I fail.
Over at Orcinus Sara Robinson (an American, now living in Canada) hits it out of the park (the folks at Lawyers, Guns and Money do a good job too).
That part in the beginning, about how The Great War shaped Canada... I understand that. I was a strange child, I read a lot. I read a lot of history. My grandfather's being in WW1 is part of why I read so much about that war, which is practically forgotten here (Yankee Division, a Scout/Sniper, which meant company runner. He only lost one message. He was required to take it back to HQ, somehow it disappeared, only to turn up in a chest of drawers in Cleveland. It starts, "On the Eleventh Hour, of the Eleventh Day, of the Eleventh Month, of the Year 1918...).
In high school I read, "Generals Die in Bed", which is the Canadian novel of the Great War (combine that with "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "Goodbye to All That" and the poetry of Blunden, Seeger, Sassoon, Owen, Rosenberg and Brooke, and "Memoirs of An Infantry Officer." and the sense of place is strong. "A Farewell to Arms" left me flat). It was moving, in a more restrained way than "Storm of Steel", or "Johnny Got His Gun".
Canada, it seems, has not forgotten why we have a holiday on 11 Nov.
Anyway, go read those posts, and don't forget the comments.
I try to articulate why I prefer Armistice Day, but I fail.
Over at Orcinus Sara Robinson (an American, now living in Canada) hits it out of the park (the folks at Lawyers, Guns and Money do a good job too).
That part in the beginning, about how The Great War shaped Canada... I understand that. I was a strange child, I read a lot. I read a lot of history. My grandfather's being in WW1 is part of why I read so much about that war, which is practically forgotten here (Yankee Division, a Scout/Sniper, which meant company runner. He only lost one message. He was required to take it back to HQ, somehow it disappeared, only to turn up in a chest of drawers in Cleveland. It starts, "On the Eleventh Hour, of the Eleventh Day, of the Eleventh Month, of the Year 1918...).
In high school I read, "Generals Die in Bed", which is the Canadian novel of the Great War (combine that with "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "Goodbye to All That" and the poetry of Blunden, Seeger, Sassoon, Owen, Rosenberg and Brooke, and "Memoirs of An Infantry Officer." and the sense of place is strong. "A Farewell to Arms" left me flat). It was moving, in a more restrained way than "Storm of Steel", or "Johnny Got His Gun".
Canada, it seems, has not forgotten why we have a holiday on 11 Nov.
Anyway, go read those posts, and don't forget the comments.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-14 04:47 am (UTC)It is a holiday, in the original sense of the word. I think part of what bothers me is it ought to be that sense of dread importance. It's needs to be solemn, and it's not.
I, as me, shouldn't matter. It's not about "service" (that's why we have Memorial Day" it's not about, "sacrifice", it needs to be about something bigger than people.
America has lost that.
TK
p.s. "The stories they share,", yeah, a uniform (and for me, a combat patch) changes the nature of the stories they share.