WildBill wrote:CHLLady wrote:I love that video Wild Bill. Thank you for sharing it. I've never seen it before.
God bless our veterans.
You can thank Mark, for the video.
For my father [WWII] and my brother [Vietnam].
I know of a few folks that were involved in post WWII conflicts, but nobody from WWI or WWII.
The thing about this tune is that is directed towards a guy that was probably part of the cannon-fodder troops for the Commonwealth (i.e. British) Empire. Being from Canada, were normally controlled mostly by the Brits and, like the Irish and Scottish, were considered part of the pawn troops. Back in WWI, my home province of Newfoundland was its' own Republic under the oversight of the Brits. The Newfs were absolutely torn apart and nearly wiped out due to their commanders stupidity and their own pride & honor of following orders. Look up "The Danger Tree" on Wikipedia as an example.
During any conflict, folks from my province have always been involved in some way shape or form where either the Brits or Americans are involved. The British link is pretty obvious. Newfoundland also has pretty strong ties to the US as there were large naval stations located at the province during both world wars. Many of the locals ended up marrying American servicemen and there are still strong ties between places like Argentia (in Newfoundland, not a mistaken spelling of Argentina!) and many ports of call in the north east US. The bases are gone, but there are still stories about U-boat patrols on the south and east coasts of the province during the war years.
Without even discussing the more modern conflicts, many of the allies took major losses during the initial invasions of WWII. Certainly the Americans formed a big chunk of the spearhead alongside the Commonwealth nations, so I find it kind of odd that the 'holiday' is not followed as rigidly here as it is back in Canada. I don't know what it's like now, but it used to be that everything shut down (schools, govt, certain businesses) on 11/11 and there were always memorials and such at 11:11 in the morning. It's just that there are so many here that have served or died in conflict that you'd think everyone would just shut-up and get together for an afternoon and gain an understanding why war is such a bad & nasty deal. Perhaps it's just become too commonplace.
Anyways, the tune just kinda strikes a chord with me, just like "Waltzing Matilda" does for others. Like I said, just give it a few minutes of your time and thought. I always hope we'll never see the likes of that stuff again, but I'm not feeling too optimistic lately.