So, read The Charge of the Light Brigade, by Tennyson and then The Last of the Brigade, by Kipling. Now you have so much of what Veterans Day is about - not the dead, but the forgotten and discarded. They aren't the 'thing' now. And I am tired of the 'thank you for your service', I have the one I never felt brave enough to respond to after Vietnam burned in my mind, none other will ever reach that level. But for you that really want to understand, go ask them for their story - ask them for their opinion about something just as stupid as your opinion of the worth of their war, reach out to them and LISTEN about their lives before the world centered on you and your friends and your things worth dying for... they will go quietly into the night and you will be left with a world you made poorer by your ignorance of worth. It will be yours... all yours.I still love the fact that in the 19th Century the British Empire stood for the best of Western Civilization and then look at them now. How do you get there from here?
What about "All Quiet on the Western Front"? (Which I will admit I never finished reading the book, so I am basing this question on the beginning of the book. Another book that I need to read all the way through.)
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the question about the book you haven't read, about a question about what I wrote in the post? or about the author's opinion- which you haven't honored by reading the work (I have)?
ReplyDeleteMy point on the post was to tell the reader to go and talk to a veteran, even reading about something isn't human contact, and you certainly have the time to honor their service and memory.
Good point Earl, and we had some of those discussions this weekend (sadly among ourselves, because no one else asked)...
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