Sunday Roast: Veterans Day

Veterans Day, which is noted in other countries as Armistice Day and Remembrance Day, marks the end of World War I.  More particularly, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918.  On this day, we remember those who died while serving their various countries.

As I have done in past years, I’m posting the final episode of the Blackadder Goes Forth series, entitled Goodbyeee.

The final episode of this series, “Goodbyeee“, although true to the series’ usual comedy style through most of the preceding scenes, is known for featuring a purely dramatic and extraordinarily poignant final scene, where the main characters (except [the General] himself) are finally sent over the top. To the sound of a slow, minimal and downbeat piano version of the title theme, the four are seen in slow-motion, charging into the fog and smoke of no man’s land, with gunfire and explosions all around, before the scene fades into footage of a sunny poppy field and the sound of birdsong. The fate of the four is left ambiguous. Blackadder’s final line before the charge is also underpinned with an unusually reflective and poignant tone, offered after Baldrick claims to have one last cunning plan to save them from the impending doom:

Well, I’m afraid it’ll have to wait. Whatever it was, I’m sure it was better than my plan to get out of this by pretending to be mad. I mean, who would have noticed another madman around here? …Good luck, everyone.

As fantastic as this final Blackadder series is, I usually cry my way through Goodbyeee. Our amazing advances in technology, rather than being put toward the advancement of mankind, was instead used for unbelievable destruction and obscenely wasted lives of tens of millions of people, both military and civilian, but succeeded only in serving as an incubator for World War II.

I think humans could learn to live together peacefully, but there is money to be made from mayhem and war, and as long as that’s true, there will always be war; and there will always trenches of one kind or another, filled with honorable men and women, who are viewed as a means to an end — stacks and stacks of money — and used as cannon fodder, and if they survive, dismissed as a burden on society.

This is our daily open thread — Discuss.

Sunday Roast: Veterans Day

Veterans Day is a United States holiday which honors ALL military veterans, living and dead.  Remembrance Day is commemorated on the same day in Britain, Canada, and several other countries, to remember those who died serving their countries, and marking the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice by the Germans at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918, which ended World War I.

Please join TheZoo in honoring all who serve their countries in the military, and remembering those who never came home.

This is our daily open thread.

The Watering Hole: 11/11/11 Remembrance Day/Veteran’s Day

Once again, in honor of those who fought and died in war, this is the final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, entitled Goodbyeee:

Part 1

Part 2 (the last 5 minutes are the most powerful)

This is our daily open thread — What do you think?

Veteran’s Day/Remembrance Day: Blackadder Goes Forth

Blackadder’s stunning commentary on the stunning tragedy and absolute uselessness of war…this is the very moving last episode of the Blackadder Goes Forth series, called Goodbyeee.

Part 1

Part 2

Support the troops — Bring them home!

Blackadder Goes Forth, Finale: Goodbyeee…

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Blackadder Goes Forth | 06“, posted with vodpod

On this Veteran’s Day/Remembrance Day we at TheZoo pay tribute to our men and women in uniform, in full support of bringing them home from our two terrible wars.

In this final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, we’re shown the utter futility of war, the disgusting waste of humanity.

The four men line up, for their certain doom… as the guns stop firing. For a brief, shining moment, it seems like peace has finally been declared — but the guns are ceasing merely to prepare for the attack.
Just then, Baldrick has a plan. However, it is too late, and the order to attack comes through. Blackadder consoles him, saying

Whatever it was, I’m sure it was better than my plan to get out of here by pretending to be mad. I mean, who would have noticed another madman around here?

Who indeed…?

HT:  UKBristolDave for giving me the idea of posting this series.

Veteran’s Day Vietnam Tribute

My tribute to all the Vietnam Vets including my Uncle Gary and RUC.

Veteran’s Day Tribute

My Veteran’s Day Tribute to my Father, my husband, his brother Carl, & his brother Marc.  All four serviced in the U.S. Navy.  My husband served on the USS Kitty Hawk. The Kitty Hawk deployment was then extended two-and-a-half months to support contingency operations in the North Arabian Sea during the Iran hostage crisis. For their actions in the region, Kitty Hawk and CVW-15 were awarded the Navy Expeditionary Medal. USS Kitty Hawk is planning to be decommissioned on the morning of Jan. 31, 2009, in Bremerton, Wash.

My father went over to Japan six years after we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Dad was stationed out of the San Diego Naval Base.  Marc served in the U.S. Navy’s Submarine Service for 6 years.  Carl was stationed out of Norfolk Naval Station. (Pretty sure it was on the carrier USS Enterprise)

Veteran’s Day Remembrance

This is my tribute to three great uncles, Uncle Bill, Uncle Alex, & Uncle George.  They served in the U.S. Army under General George Patton during WW II.  Our family was very lucky all three brothers from my grandmother’s family came home and two of them lived to be in their 80’s.

With Solemn Pride

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, armistice began. World War I, The “Great War,” the war between the Entente Powers (the Allies) and the Central Powers (led by Germany) had finally come to an end. The next year, President Woodrow Wilson declared November 11, 1919, to be Armistice Day. His proclamation began, “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations….”

Parents’ Pain and Frustration on Veteran’s Day.

From The Bangor Daily News, via CommonDreams.

I found this article over at CommonDreams, and thought it was a very moving account of the Cotes’ anxiety over having a son serving in Iraq, but their unwaivering support of our troops.  As well as their frustration over Senator Susan Collins’ wobbly stance regarding, but continued support of, George W. Bush’s vanity war.

Veterans Day holds a special significance for us as the parents of a sergeant tank commander in the U.S. Army serving in Iraq.We could not be more proud of our son’s service to his country, and we could not appreciate more the sacrifices being made by families with loved ones in Iraq. However, we could not be more outraged by the Bush administration’s bungled handling of this war, or Sen. Susan Collins’ continued support for it.

President Bush has had more than four and a half years to implement a successful policy, but under his leadership the situation in Iraq has gone from bad to worse to where we are now. We have American men and women dying while policing someone else’s religious civil war.

Instead of accepting the reality of the situation on the ground and listening to the American people, the president continues to stand by a failed strategy and Sen. Collins follows him down this dangerous path, at times saying that she is against the war but refusing to support binding legislation to end it. She is the lone remaining member of our state’s congressional delegation to endorse the president’s failed policy.

In Maine and across the country, people are crying out for our leaders to change the course in Iraq and bring our troops home safely. Leading the charge are thousands of Americans who have served in Iraq or whose loved ones are serving in Iraq.

This is not a small group of activists calling for an end to the war; it is not the typical anti-war crowd. We have never been particularly political ourselves, but this issue goes beyond politics. Americans are firmly united around bringing our troops home, but President Bush and Sen. Collins stand in the way.

Sen. Collins won’t even explain her position to her constituents, having turned down an invitation to a community town hall to discuss Iraq in Orono this summer. As constituents of Sen. Collins, and as the parents of a soldier serving in Iraq, we find it personally insulting that Sen. Collins won’t answer questions from her constituents on the war in such forums.

Read the rest of the article here.

Support the Troops, Bring Them Home Now.

A pittance of time – a tribute to veterans

“A Pittance of Time”
Terry Kelly

Thanks to jodi DeLong at bloomingwriter.