Time to let them rest..

[Dextrous63]

I wish I could download part of one of Alexi Sayles' Radio 4 "Imaginary Sandwich Bar" broadcasts, as he does a wonderful and appropriate piece about Santa Claus Bearded Old Bastard who at the heart of an awful lot of conflicts.

[Scrumpy]

War is a place where young people who don't know each other and don't hate each other, kill each other by the decision of old people who know each other and hate each other, but don't kill each other.

Well said...

[ansu]

As to the wars going on at present - it's a different situation. But regarding to WW II I can tell you the following. At that time my father was a teenager and cinema fan. Before starting the movie they showed pictures of soldiers - heros. My father was very impressed by this and I suppose he dreamed of being a hero, too, one day. When he was a soldier then, he was confronted with reality and disillusioned and his luck was that he was captured soon and prisoner in an American camp in Germany. After having been sent back to his family in Hungary he became a pacifist.

[Vlad]

very well put

Not mine, I saw it somewhere and can't remember who the author was sorry

August 17, 2025, 12:26:13 PM
The war to end all wars ......

" What is our task? To make Britain a fit country for heroes to live in. I am not using the word 'heroes' in any spirit of boastfulness, but in the spirit of humble recognition of fact. I cannot think what these men have gone through. I have been there at the door of the furnace and witnessed it, but that is not being in it, and I saw them march into the furnace. There are millions of men who will come back. Let us make this a land fit for such men to live in. There is no time to lose. I want us to take advantage of this new spirit. Don't let us waste this victory merely in ringing joybells."
 David Lloyd George. (He knew my father by the way)

[muddy]

Until the last survivors of this conflict are gone we should honour and remember them .

I couldn't give a monkeys what the Japanese and Germans feel , shame I hope .

[Michael Rolls]

wen they are all gone,  and so have they who knew them, or remembered them directly, remembering wil be difficulty, but I feel that they should still be honoured, - which I suppose is honouring the memory of their achievements.

[Scrumpy]

I couldn't give a monkeys what the Japanese and Germans feel , shame I hope .

... I think the visitors to our country be they German... Japanese... or Chinese..
should be made to feel welcome... 
They are mainly young people.. and whatever their country did .. before many were even born.. should not make them feel guilty... 

[Michael Rolls]

Yet there are those among us (I don't mean here)ever banging on about how we should be ashamed of our Imperial past and how we should recompense the descendants of slaves, etc.

[Vlad]

Until the last survivors of this conflict are gone we should honour and remember them .

I couldn't give a monkeys what the Japanese and Germans feel , shame I hope .

"No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away—until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence." Reaper Man. Terry Pratchett

[Michael Rolls]

very apt

[klondike]

So many died so young they had planted few crops and made little wine but the people who knew them would still remember. One of my grandmothers brothers was killed in the trenches. She kept a picture of him and I still have it and know who he was.

[muddy]

... I think the visitors to our country be they German... Japanese... or Chinese..
should be made to feel welcome...
They are mainly young people.. and whatever their country did .. before many were even born.. should not make them feel guilty...

How is honouring those who fought not making them feel welcome ?
Japan has never apologised for the atrocities it committed during the war nor does  it teach its young people how the Japanese behaved, it tends to gloss over that part of its history
It also has annual ceremonies for its fallen military as does Germany .
People still go and visit those countries .

[Vlad]

very apt

It will be difficult to forget whilst their are monuments, cenotaphs and gravestone bearing the names of the fallen, no doubt there will be someone in the future that will want them removed for offending something or someone.

[Dextrous63]

It will be difficult to forget whilst their are monuments, cenotaphs and gravestone bearing the names of the fallen, no doubt there will be someone in the future that will want them removed for offending something or someone.

But of course.  There is no defence for being a white supremacist (which is basically everyone who is white) and nothing we have ever done has been good.