11 November Again ...

[Flashermac]

Thanks vets.

 

[allistar]

Thanks vets.

 

If you are ever in Kansas City, try to stop by Liberty Memorial, where the largest World War I museum is located http://www.theworldwar.org/s/110/new/index_community.aspx

[Flashermac]

I'd love to see it!

 

When I was a kid, my grandfather's friends were all WWI vets. I used to get them to tell me their stories. My grandmother's brother was #2 in the American Legion in Missouri in the 1930s, a USMC vet who carried bits of shrapnel in his head to the day he died. My great grandmother's brother was 40 years old and in his last year in the reserve in the Austro-Hungarian Army. When the war began, he was called up. He was captured by the Rooshuns, but he and some of his comrades escaped and made their way back to their lines. Great gran used to tell us about his adventures. I also had family in the British forces. My relatives were doing their best to kill each other off.

[pasathai1]

Independence day for some of us.

[sayjann]

Thanks vets.

 

 

a sombre for millions around the world.

i joined the english Royal Marines when i left school and while i was discharged from the service before i qualified for the coverted green beret i remember my first rememberance ceremony.

cannot remember much of the occasion growing up but when in the Marines i do remember the service given when i was 16 years old on the parade ground at Lympstone...

it made me realise the enormity of the occasion and every year since i have stood silent at the hour.

 

i hope the british government goes through with their intention of arresting/jailing muslims this weekend for their plans to burn poppies at the same time as the ceremony at the cenotaph takes place.

 

IF MUSLIMS DON'T LIKE OUR CEREMONIES THEN FUCK OFF TO ANOTHER COUNTRY AND STOP TAKING MONEY FROM MY TAXES TO VENT YOUR OUTRAGE...............

[Julian2]

Prime Minister Julia Gillard honours US war dead

 

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard has paid tribute to America's war dead at a moving Veterans Day ceremony in Hawaii.

 

The ceremony at Honolulu's picturesque Punchbowl Cemetery was Ms Gillard's first official engagement of her trip for the APEC leaders' summit.

 

Just a few kilometres from the site of the infamous Pearl Harbor attack of World War 2, Ms Gillard was given a 19-gun salute as she arrived at the cemetery.

 

She told the crowd of veterans and their families it was a great privilege to be with them.

 

"In this beautiful and hallowed American place where so many of America's own lie in graves which they found too soon you would be well entitled to say: They died for us. This is a day and a place for ourselves alone," she said.

 

"But we Australians know that this is not your way.

 

"Because we know that so many of these buried here died for us too.

 

"When we were under attack in the Pacific, so many of these buried here were among those who came to our aid.

 

"They fought with us, together, side by side, step by bloody step."

 

It was US sailors during the Battle of the Coral Sea that eliminated Australia's fears of a Japanese invasion, she said.

 

"It is a battle which is immortal in Australia," she said.

 

The importance the US places on Veterans Day says something about the country's peace-loving nature, she said.

 

"It is not the anniversary of the onset of a great conflict.

 

"Not the commemoration of a great victory or great feat of arms, it is the day and the hour of the end of the Great War.

 

"You remember your veterans in the moment to which each one of them dedicated their dearest hopes - you remember them at the moment when peace began."

 

Australia will never forget the sacrifices the US has made for peace, she said.

 

Ms Gillard and her partner Tim Mathieson then joined local luminaries and veterans in laying wreaths at the memorial.

 

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/pm-gillard-honours-us-war-dead/story-fn7x8me2-1226193340828

[Flashermac]

I met an Aussie in his late 70s a few years ago who said he well remembered the war. He said Oz asked for its troops back to defend their country when the Nipponese gents were bombing Darwin and were already in PNG. Churchie told them Oz didn't matter. He would liberate Oz from the Japs after he had finished with Adolf and Benito. He said the Aussies were furious at Churchill. Then the US came to their aid. He said he didn't support the US going into Iraq and Afghanistan, but no Aussie who grew up in the war years would ever forget what the GIs had meant to them. He said everyone went out of their way to give them rides, invite them home etc.

 

Thanks GWB and Barry for effing that all up.

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Tv5gBa9DQs&feature=related

[Flashermac]

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1fv1YXS6MY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flashermac]

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxeTAflHl9k&feature=related

 

 

 

 

 

[Julian2]

I met an Aussie in his late 70s a few years ago who said he well remembered the war. He said Oz asked for its troops back to defend their country when the Nipponese gents were bombing Darwin and were already in PNG. Churchie told them Oz didn't matter. He would liberate Oz from the Japs after he had finished with Adolf and Benito. He said the Aussies were furious at Churchill. Then the US came to their aid. He said he didn't support the US going into Iraq and Afghanistan, but no Aussie who grew up in the war years would ever forget what the GIs had meant to them. He said everyone went out of their way to give them rides, invite them home etc.

 

Thanks GWB and Barry for effing that all up.

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Tv5gBa9DQs&feature=related

A lot came back to the Pacific for the worst of the fighting though.

I suppose a point could be made that if the Allies had lost North Africa through an Australian withdrawal, the Germans would have got at the middle Eastern oil and the Africa Corp would have been waiting on the beaches on D Day.