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  1. #51
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    I'm afraid there will never be enough poppies to acknowledge society's true loss.

    My elderly father often speaks of his young friends who joined him in 1943 when signing up and never returned. Difficult to imagine during peacetime.

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    Thailand Expat Pragmatic's Avatar
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    All that money wasted on poppy wreaths. The march past I see as sufficient with the minute silence. But the wreaths must be the biggest waste of money going. Better to spend the money on ex servicemens welfare. Too many are neglected post service. Ex servicemen should be supported by the Government, not by charities.

  3. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brian Stocks View Post
    Rainfall I do not know where you originate from (you say expat) but you have just about rewritten the history regarding the second world war. Admittedly some of what you say is true but a lot is not.

    1) Hitler's peace with Britain
    The only reason he did not invade Britain was he did not have the where with all after the RAF had decimated Herman Guering's mighty Luftwaffa, this is not a criticism of German aircrews, they were just as courageous and skillful as our boys in blue, but of their management.
    Also his big mistake was that he did not follow through following Britain's retreat from France at Dunkirk as he was advised to do by his generals.
    Apparently, so history states, after consulting his Horoscope the stars were found not to be in alignment for a successful invasion of Britain.
    At this point Britain literally stood alone against the Naszi domination of Europe. (Some Nations simply capitulated to his whims and reign of terror). If he had crossed the channel we were virtually defenseless instead he chose to invade Russia (reneging on a peaceful non aggression pact he had with them) and opened a second front and this combined with the collapse of his allies in the south of Europe (Italy) was the real beginning of Hitler's eventual downfall. Not to mention the entering of the war by America and Canada and many of our Commonwealth Nations.

    Peace negotiations with Britain
    I refer you to Chaimberlin's visit to Berlin just prior to the out break of war - "PEACE IN OUR TIME" an agreement signed by Hitler on behalf of Germany knowing full well that if he invaded Poland Britain would come to it's aid. I think Hitler really thought we would renege on our commitments.

    Britains non aggression Pact with Poland
    Britain had a pact with Poland that if Poland were to be attacked, by anyone, we would go to her aid. Rightly or wrongly we did just that and declared war on Germany following it's invasion of Poland. That was the act which actually set the second world war in motion.

    Your final comments about France and Britain coming the aid of Poland by not declaring war on Russia over Poland is just muddying the waters. Russia was, believe it or not. part of the allied nations forces attempting to rid Poland and Europe of it's Naszi invaders (by doing so also protecting thir own southern boarders). What happened to Poland after the war will be debated far and long but basically it was the result of 'peace treaties' drawn up between the allied nations following the surrender of Naszi Germany.
    No, I refered to the 25+ peace proposals by Hitler to the UK between the occupation of Poland, and the start of the Blitz. You have no idea they took place. Interesting. I really have no problem with you clinging to your myths and legends if they give you strength, but the last section of your post is absurd. Hitler had at the time of the occupation of Poland the same treaty with the USSR as you did with Poland, and the USSR none whatsoever with you. Stalin used it to invade Poland, Finnland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania during 1939 and 1940. So now it's painted as Stalin trying to protect them from Hitler in British history.

  4. #54
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pragmatic
    All that money wasted on poppy wreaths. The march past I see as sufficient with the minute silence. But the wreaths must be the biggest waste of money going. Better to spend the money on ex servicemens welfare. Too many are neglected post service. Ex servicemen should be supported by the Government, not by charities.
    Agree wholeheartedly with your comment on lack of government funding.
    The wreaths and poppies are made in Royal British Legion factories and provide employment for disabled ex servicemen. The funds raised by wreath and poppy sales directly benefit service charities.

  5. #55
    Thailand Expat Pragmatic's Avatar
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    But ex-servicemen shouldn't have to beg from charities.

  6. #56
    Thailand Expat Pragmatic's Avatar
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    I'm an ex-serviceman who has to deal with the SPVA. Talk about incompetance. Everything I claim, or attempted claim, from them is a complete nightmare. They have a set of rules and there's no give. They're a complete disgrace as a government department. I've also had dealing with the RBL and I can't speak highly of them either.
    An illegal immigrant would have more benifits in the UK than a disabled ex-serviceman. My opinion.

  7. #57
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pragmatic
    But ex-servicemen shouldn't have to beg from charities.
    Like I said:
    Quote Originally Posted by chassamui
    Agree wholeheartedly with your comment on lack of government funding.
    As for SPVA I would speak in their defence. They now have less staff to deal with an increased workload due to ongoing operations. They also depend on a Government agency, ATOS for decision making. Caught between a rock and a hard place.
    Before the change in service pension schemes about 10 years ago, the SPVA was a well run government department. The government not only changed the pension scheme but also the burden of proof for entitlement to war pensions.
    I recommend you contact your local war pensions welfare officer, or the one nearest your UK base. They are a mine of help and information.
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  8. #58
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    As an ex servo myself, aussie at it, it's hard not to get a bit misty eyed about remembrance sunday- it's a tradition we carry on very well on oz, i warrant more than any other country. I got to thinking about it about in a different way though, thanks to an ultra PC intellectual libbie type GF who was hot in bed, so don't blame me. She basically lambasted it as a jingoistic thing, this being the mid 80's- and she had a point. Remembrance day is really about the victims of war, including military personnel.

  9. #59
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mr Lick View Post

    My elderly father often speaks of his young friends who joined him in 1943 when signing up and never returned. Difficult to imagine during peacetime.
    Err, perhaps that's why they call it Remembrance Sunday..........

    Honestly, though, this dwelling on the past in such drearily, predictable mawkish terms is becoming more and more absurd by the year.

    Can you imagine folk in 1950s getting all misty-eyed over the fallen of Sevastopol in the Crimean war? Or the establishment in 1910 weeping over the deaths of our brave servicemen in the Battle of Waterloo and the Peninsular War?

    War is stupid but fun too if you are into that sort of thing. Most folk find it a bore and quite tedious, and, for many, terminally frightening. The thing is, we do like it as a means of furthering interests which is why we keep on having them.

    Marvelling at a bunch of old codgers shuffling past a block of masonry is simply a ritual of self indulgence and a salve to some imaginary contrition masking the inescapable fact mankind is just a higher form of animal life capable of bestial acts.

  10. #60
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    Quote Originally Posted by thegent
    Can you imagine folk in 1950s getting all misty-eyed over the fallen of Sevastopol in the Crimean war? Or the establishment in 1910 weeping over the deaths of our brave servicemen in the Battle of Waterloo and the Peninsular War?
    Not quite in the same league as the Great War.....so rather a meek argument from you there thegent.

    Something about professional armies being commanded around the battlefield by commanders, in a similar way to a game of chess, that suddenly changed. The professionals were all but wiped out during the initial stages of the war leaving Tom, Dick and Harry to take their place. War was revolutionised and became far less remote and far less romantic....it suddenly became something that affected everyone's lives...from the highest nobility to the lowest pauper. In the latter respect, you are incorrect in stating that it was a matter for the working classes. That is far from the truth when it came to WW1. Many countries lost a great number of their nobility as a direct result of the war.

  11. #61
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    Each November we are distinguishable by the spot of red, absent from or attached to our coats and scarves. It’s is somewhat a contentious issue, this wearing of a Poppy and Remembrance parades or Veterans Days.
    Firstly. The view that anyone wearing a poppy is in any way glorifying warfare is wrong. Completely wrong. A poppy does not equal British nationalism in the same way a hi jab does not equal Islamic extremism. These are both reductive arguments that have no place in the overall debate. ‘History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I'm trying to awake’ (Ulysses, James Joyce), Aren't we all. Unfortunately though, the First World War will always unite Europe in a shared history,..... in fact WWI could be said to define modern Europe, the Europe we’re are part of and is part of us and the present borders will remain so for the long term future. Remembrance Sunday, Veterans Day, the wearing of symbols such as the Poppy does not glorify death or warfare....it recognises the senseless horror of our shared past.
    We’re joined by more than a communal currency (for the majority) but also a communal and colossal loss of lives, all of which deserve to be remembered. We must not forget our history, lest we are doomed to repeat it.The problem with history is that its perspective can get skewed and cause arguments, over things such as little paper poppies and remembrance or veterans days
    Approx Fifty Two thousand young Irish ( from north and south ) died during WWI,........ it’s the second biggest killer next to the Famine. It wasn't just a British war. Some seem to believe that the wearing of a poppy approves or condones the great and the powerful sending the weak and lowly, to their deaths: But it doesn't. If anything, it makes us remember why we should not go gentle into that good night, we should stand against our rulers if needs be. Men, from many countries that opted to fight for allied forces during the Great War did it for their families and their families’ futures.
    We must remember the atrocities that have marked our past and we must continue to try to prevent them happening again.
    If you go to Flanders, the Somme, Ypres or any of the other key battlegrounds of World War One you can see the poppies growing there. They are of that place, where men of ALL nationalities fell. To see the names written on towering marble plinths you would want to remember them in some way, ....you have to. Ultimately people should be allowed to mark or remember important occasions in the way they wish, as long as they don’t cause harm or offence to others, events which are symbolic of respect..... and if there are those who find such events offensive, they portray the impressions of a petulant children.
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  12. #62
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    Kevin2008 post # 66

    Kevin beautifully put and exactly right.

  13. #63
    Thailand Expat Boon Mee's Avatar
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    For Those That Sacrificed



    Lest we forget.

    Freedom isn’t free and all those who served paid the price...

  14. #64
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pragmatic View Post
    I'm an ex-serviceman who has to deal with the SPVA. Talk about incompetance. Everything I claim, or attempted claim, from them is a complete nightmare. They have a set of rules and there's no give. They're a complete disgrace as a government department. I've also had dealing with the RBL and I can't speak highly of them either.
    An illegal immigrant would have more benifits in the UK than a disabled ex-serviceman. My opinion.
    I cop't a piece of shrapnel in my left leg whilst serving in Aden (yemen) in the Radfan mountains during 1960. I was out of 'action' for about three months but thanks to the care given by the RAF hospitals in the UK (all now defunct thanks to military cut backs, although 70% of patients in them were local civilians) luckily I suffered no real long lasting disabilities (apart from a 9 inch scar on my thigh.

    For my troubles I was awarded a pension for my injury on leaving the RAF in 1968. This at the time was £8:10s per annum, it has now risen to £17:56 per annum on which, even though retired now at 75, I have to pay tax as non earned income.

    I am not complaining as I am strictly not disabled but I wonder just how present day service men cope with serious injury as a direct result of their service. As it appears to me that once out of the service (in fact while still in the service) they have to rely on medical treatment through the NHS (I am not criticizing the NHS but is not the same as being with your 'buddies' in a military establishment for support) and civilian subcontractors to the government to decide their level of 'compensation'.

    I do not know this for a fact but it appears the US looks after it's ex service members far better than the UK.

  15. #65
    Thailand Expat Boon Mee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brian Stocks View Post

    I do not know this for a fact but it appears the US looks after it's ex service members far better than the UK.
    I've heard that as well even with the constant drum beat from the Left how horrible the VA Hospitals are and the numbers of Vets on Food Stamps.

    My old man was held captive by the Japs for 48 months after surviving the Bataan Death March. They used these prisoners as slaves in Manchuria digging coal before shipping them to concentration camps on the island of Honshu.

    Me old boy didn't do as badly as some - only lost one tooth from a rifle butt and some back injuries suffered from beatings but he did lose a lot of weight. Weighed ~220lbs when captured and on Armistice Day was down to 98lbs or so.

    The VA gave him a nice disability and good care. Made it to the ripe old age of 85 so he had a good run.

  16. #66
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    Members of the RAF attend the funeral of second world war veteran Harold Percival at Lytham Park cemetery in Lytham St Annes. Hundreds of strangers attended the funeral of the former RAF Bomber Command ground crew member following an online campaign sparked by a notice placed in a newspaper by the funeral directors




    An impressive turn out for the veteran
    Last edited by Mr Lick; 12-11-2013 at 09:35 AM.

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    Thailand Expat Boon Mee's Avatar
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    Yep. You can be less than genius and make shitty decisions from time to time, but you can still be a loyal, patriotic, hard-working guy. His successor is loyal to only those who share his political philosophy and work to destroy those who don't, a strutting popinjay whose only sense of patriotism is to read words on special holidays that other people have written for him. And his concept of work is to redistribute wealth in the direction of no-loads, whiners, welfare-dependent minorities, and other parasites.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Boon Mee View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian Stocks View Post

    I do not know this for a fact but it appears the US looks after it's ex service members far better than the UK.
    I've heard that as well even with the constant drum beat from the Left how horrible the VA Hospitals are and the numbers of Vets on Food Stamps.

    My old man was held captive by the Japs for 48 months after surviving the Bataan Death March. They used these prisoners as slaves in Manchuria digging coal before shipping them to concentration camps on the island of Honshu.

    Me old boy didn't do as badly as some - only lost one tooth from a rifle butt and some back injuries suffered from beatings but he did lose a lot of weight. Weighed ~220lbs when captured and on Armistice Day was down to 98lbs or so.

    The VA gave him a nice disability and good care. Made it to the ripe old age of 85 so he had a good run.
    Well done 'the old man' I am sure he had his 'memories' of what WW11 was about unlike certain other people who seem to think fascism in any form is acceptable.

  19. #69
    Thailand Expat Boon Mee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brian Stocks View Post
    Well done 'the old man' I am sure he had his 'memories' of what WW11 was about unlike certain other people who seem to think fascism in any form is acceptable.
    He did.

    Took a couple of reunion tours back to the PI & I've got a pic of him pissing on a Japanese grave.

  20. #70
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boon Mee
    Freedom isn’t free and all those who served paid the price...
    Yes, including those on the 'wrong' side. But many who didn't serve paid the price too.
    It would be nice if we could put soldiers together on a big muddy field to go slug it out together at the politicians behest, 17th century style, but the reality is that war involves far more than just soldiers dying or being put in harms way. Not much chivalry attached to modern war at all- maybe that's why they are trying to replace soldiers with robots and mercenaries.

    Heck- Jap POW & Death march survivor, your old fella had quite a story to tell booner. What an experience- but glad I didn't experience it.
    Last edited by sabang; 12-11-2013 at 10:30 AM.

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    Thailand Expat Boon Mee's Avatar
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    In the end, it's always Political.

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    Quote Originally Posted by sabang View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Boon Mee
    Freedom isn’t free and all those who served paid the price...
    Yes, including those on the 'wrong' side. But many who didn't serve paid the price too.
    It would be nice if we could put soldiers together on a big muddy field to go slug it out together at the politicians behest 17th century style, but the reality is that war involves far more than just soldiers dying or being put in harms way. Not much chivalry attached to modern war at all- maybe that's why they are trying to replace soldiers with robots and mercenaries.

    Heck- Jap POW & Death march survivor, your old fella had quite a story to tell booner. What an experience- but glad I didn't experience it.
    We all know this but lord help you and all your kind if no one stands up to dictatorship and fascism. At the end of it all there is no 'glory' in war for anyone (soldier or civilian) who is unfortunately involved.
    Last edited by Brown Sugar; 12-11-2013 at 10:40 AM.

  23. #73
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    ^^^ Hard for me to go along with this kneejerk 'we're always in the right' stuff, especially now that we're in bed with al qaeda trying to depose a secular government in Syria. Sometimes we're right, sometimes we're wrong. Right or wrong, sometimes we go to war. Should I think more or less of a soldier according to whether I think his government was in the right, sending him to war? Should I think less of a person defending his homeland, if we are the ones invading it?

    Sorry, but I have nowhere near that amount of respect for any politicians word.

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    Smile

    Quote Originally Posted by sabang View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Boon Mee
    Freedom isn’t free and all those who served paid the price...
    Yes, including those on the 'wrong' side. But many who didn't serve paid the price too.
    It would be nice if we could put soldiers together on a big muddy field to go slug it out together at the politicians behest, 17th century style, but the reality is that war involves far more than just soldiers dying or being put in harms way. Not much chivalry attached to modern war at all- maybe that's why they are trying to replace soldiers with robots and mercenaries.

    Heck- Jap POW & Death march survivor, your old fella had quite a story to tell booner. What an experience- but glad I didn't experience it.
    Sabang. thanks for editing your original post that last entry puts you into a totally different category as to what came across from the original posting.

  25. #75
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    I could be wrong but i thought this thread was dedicated to remembering those brave soldiers who lost their lives in battle during the 2 World Wars, not a conflict on words on who to blame since the year dot.


    Civilians who lost their lives, as quite correctly pointed out, should also not be forgotten.

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