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To all our friends in Canada and the U.K., a very happy Remembrance Day, and to all our friends in the U.S., a very happy Veteran's Day!* May those of you who are veterans bask in the goodwill of your fellow human persons, and may the rest of us do our best to appreciate you and all the others who have volunteered and fought and sacrificed in all measures.
* As an American, if I'm missing any other similar national holidays please let me know and I will add them to the calendar!
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Date: 11/11/2019 15:35 (UTC)no subject
Date: 11/11/2019 16:49 (UTC)I don't know that I have a favorite war memorial, but I think that has to do more with the fact that the ones I've seen are mostly the big national ones here in the U.S. which are all looming and make a statement in terms of being big and sleek and overbearing, which I think are powerful in that they're overwhelming, but lack a certain amount of humanity.
Anyway, this is beautiful, and thank you for sharing!
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Date: 11/11/2019 17:11 (UTC)(Though frankly, my favourite, if one can have a favourite for such things, is the SPITE put in by Quartermaster General Meigs in the Civil War. The Union had seized some of General Lee's wife's property because she couldn't pay taxes on it ((HOW?)), and Meigs literally buried his son who'd been killed by the Confederates right in front of Lee's front porch. ie, where Arlington got its start.)
Going to France though, is a whole other kettle of fish. You notice how in say BoB they're always leaning against a cenotaph. Those are in TINY towns, and they're covered in names from WWI, like whole families just gone, in every town, and in bigger cities like Nantes, it's a whole wall.
Like, it just went on and on, the wall, probably the length of a block, and in the middle of it, there was a tiny plaque for WWII and Vietnam:
(There was also a great naked lady with her arms raised in victory for the Marne at the other end of the square, because nothing says "yay!" like a naked lady.)
I mean, we also found a monument that the French had built to thank the Americans for showing up in WWI, the Germans had blown up in WWII, and the French had rebuilt thereafter. It said ""They have destroyed it. We shell restore it."
Which I like as an overall sentiment for the day as well.
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Date: 11/11/2019 17:02 (UTC)I wouldn't say it's a technically innovative or even technically professional poem, though Leckie has a good sense of internal rhyme and meter and a way with lyrical turns of phrase, but I like it a lot nonetheless and think of it often:
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Date: 11/11/2019 18:29 (UTC)I just watched The Hurt Locker yesterday night, and it's interesting to consider how different things are with endless wars far from home, where it's less a matter of short-term survival than adapting to a way of life.