Friday 16 November 2007
Remembrance Day Pt2
I sat and watched the service and cried. I was like a little baby, I was so pathetic. All I could think about was all my mates who have died. All the men who died in WW1 and WW2 to stop Germany dominating Europe. Who controls our destiny now? The memorial to those that have died since the end of WW2 has 16000 names on it! WHY!!!
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Yes me too. My father lost a leg in the 2nd world war which put an end to a sporting career.
he got on with his life though. He played cricket and drove a car with a manual gearbox, and his other passion was gardening. It never stopped him from living a normal life ostensibly, but life was far from normal, and we (his children) were also casualties of this war in that we felt his pain.
Because he was rendered disabled at a young age, he must have felt so angry at times, and we witnessed his temper many times.
No such thing as counselling in those days, you just got on with it.
Counseling is very much a modern phenomenon. Very few of the blokes that came back from WW2 got anything, I don't think anyone coming back from the Falklands did either unless you were wounded. I know that none of us coming back from Northern Ireland got anything. I am not sure what is right though. I come from a background where you got dealt a hand and played it. No point in whinging or bemoaning, just play it and make the best of it. I think that sometimes this makes me insensitive and unfeeling in regards to other peoples problems. I just expect them to get and do the best you can. I hate whining and wishing that things were different. They aren't, get on with life.
Talking of counselling.
I wonder if it can be counterproductive. I suppose it depends on the person but if I had a trauma I'd maybe want to talk to someone I knew and trusted but a stranger?
Mostly, though I work out my own solutions to anything bad.
GOM,
I don't know if it's a generational thing but I do know that there is no way I am going to talk to a stranger about anything that causes me difficulty. Great Scott man, it's undignified! I am unrectified, I don't even like showing feelings, hurt or pain with those I know well. That's why I attend Remembrance Day alone or watch it on TV. There is only the Thousandth Man who gets to see that side.
I'd agree with that.
You never hear about being stoical these days..........or that old virtue "The Stiff Upper Lip"
No, I agree. There is however a lot about nanny state and risk assessments and health and safety and litigation. Individual responsibility, facing up to consequences, indeed there being any consequences are I fear things of the past. They like the stiff upper lip, the blitz spirit are gone. Having watched the Panorama show the other day about the lads in Afghanistan I can happily say that the toughness, the courage and the resolve in hardship are still part of our make up and all it needs is the right environment and it shows through. It can rightly be said to all of us, "If you're not behind our troops, feel free to step in front of them!"
A related subject.
I read in the Sunday Times that one army wouldn't allow its troops to fly by helicopter at night in Afghanistan for health and safety reasons. The Danes or Germans I think.
A unit of Afghan soldiers they were supposed to support were left in limbo until some US Humvees came to the rescue.
Beggars belief............they'll be issuing rubber bullets next instead of metal ones.
Would be ok if the Taliban did the same LOL
I sometimes think we in the West are so up our own backsides in our arrogant assumption that everyone should think the same.
They don't.
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