The Magic Hour

[Blunt Force Trauma]

Friday the 11th

At 11:11:11

Or. . . 11/11/11@11:11:11

[FirBirGir]

That doesn't happen very often

[hitchcockgreen]

I hope you are planning to celebrate appropriately.

[Sno]

What was it like when it was 11-11-1111 at time 11:11

[FirBirGir]

Fleas, pestilence and bad dental hygiene...

[Ded10c]

No idea, it's nearly 30 hours away yet. I'll let you know.

[hitchcockgreen]

What was it like when it was 11-11-1111 at time 11:11

No idea, it's nearly 30 hours away yet. I'll let you know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKYQ5ibxslI



It will be Remembrance Day here. What is it in the U.S. now? Veterans Day? Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that it's a much bigger deal in the U.K. and Canada than it is in the U.S.

[Sno]

Veterans Day in the US. I wanted to mentioned coalition forces in a presentation I gave during a veterans ceremony at my school, but the d-bags thought it was a US-military only type deal and said they recommend against it.

[hitchcockgreen]

Veterans Day in the US. I wanted to mentioned coalition forces in a presentation I gave during a veterans ceremony at my school, but the d-bags thought it was a US-military only type deal and said they recommend against it.

And slowly, history slips away from memory, apparently.

[Ded10c]

I blame too many WWII novels, films and games that depict the Allies as nothing more than the United States, despite their indifference to the atrocieties in Europe throughout most of the war, and despite the fact that they were in fact a coalition of, amongst others, some of the greatest superpowers of the world at the time (the World Wars were, of course, the tail end of the UK's time as one).

[hitchcockgreen]

Agreed. Movies in particular. The Hollywood machine was long unparalleled so its definitely a skewed vision of history.

I know it's a rather big deal in the UK as it is in Canada (one need only look at the length of the Wikipedia notes for each country under "Remembrance Day compared to other nations) and I've been told by Americans that how we honour fallen soldiers from Afghanistan is enviable (just look up Highway of Heroes on YouTube).

My grandfather was in the RAF so maybe that's why I, personally, take the holiday as seriously as I do.

[FirBirGir]

The number of Russian and Chinese soldiers lost in WWII is mind-blowing. We often overlook this other than a statistic in a history book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

Eddy

[hitchcockgreen]

I almost see the two theaters as two distinctly different wars.

The Chinese lost so many to Japanese imperialism and occupation and the Russians in Hitlers poorly hatched plan to defeat them (seriously underestimated and had at that point spread themselves too thin). On top of that the extermination of all the Russian Jews and the rogue Soviet states that allied themselves with Hitler..... Yeah nasty war.

[Sno]

And slowly, history slips away from memory, apparently.

I was the president of my college's student veteran chapter during that time. I mentioned the coalition forces anyways and named the country's who are involved in the war against terrorism.

[hitchcockgreen]

Oh I didn't mean you, Sno. Just speaking in general terms odd how the wars are being forgotten. recently I was watching a video of a guy wandering around interviewing people about world war two and it blew me away how many of them were so clueless.

[Sno]

Ha, I know...the d-bag recommending against it turned out to be a royal PITA later on.

What do you expect, Hollywood makes bucks off misrepresenting how things really were in WWII. Some producers surprisingly do a good job in showing how things were (Saving Private Ryan comes to mind).

[hitchcockgreen]

Ha, I know...the d-bag recommending against it turned out to be a royal PITA later on.

Sounds incredibly stupid. Anyone should be able to tell the difference between honouring the soldiers from past wars and proposing/supporting some sort of imperial military colonialism (which I'm assuming his angle was).
Not cool.

[FirBirGir]

Another one is Band of Brothers. That gives you a real sense of what WWII was like from the inside. The same producers also did a series on the Pacific Front which is just as good as Band of Brothers. I highly recommend both.

Why WWII happened can't be ignored if you don't want to repeat history. It's easy to say that the world is different (of course it is) and that what brought about WWII can't happen now. It's interesting that this is what many governments said after WWI and you can see where that got us. Wars must be understood to be avoided in the future. Saying "Down with War!" doesn't do a thing to better understand global socio-politiical dynamics and what is happening in the world...

Eddy