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On this, Remembrance Sunday I always find it difficult to watch the old soldiers on their march past the Cenotaph, it is they, not the politicians, who lay everything on the line for our freedom. They didn't all volunteer but they all played their part, today we honour them.
And now, for something completely different - a new chapter of Nena! well not actually that new, it was written in 2005 and is the third part of the Fourth Nena book, Four Star - for reasons lost in the mists of time I stopped posting after chapter 2! So here for your delectation and delight, a return for our intrepid coach crew!
There will be more from the guys at Global over the coming weeks before the next Gaby book debuts here on BC. Of course i'll be starting to write Book 18 shortly although I doubt it'll be finished this year.
ttfn
Mads
Comments
Those who gave
can have a piece out of my heart, especially at this time.
Good to see our coach crew back on the road!
"Reach for the sun."
My dad went from D DAY plus 2
My dad went from D DAY plus 2 to end of the war.His mate went to Belson dad followed up few days later bloody bad.They were good blokes my granddad went right through ww1.They all did ther bit .My dad took me when I was a kid to a place called Madinly outside Oxford 8 Army Air Force graveyard sad but beautiful.They gave their tomorrows for our today.
Same here
My Father was part of the team that 'liberated' Belsen. He never spoke about it until he was close to death. I guess that it was his way of dealing with what we now call PTSD.
Dad went over on D-Day + 1 and apart from a short break he was near or on the front line until the end of the war.
I attended the service that was held not far from me. All the children from the school (the war memorial is built into the school wall) attended. To my surprise a squad of Gurka Vets marched up the road just before 11:00. Very moving.
Veterans Day
Here in the US we had Veterans Day last Friday. I was in a convenience store and the girl asked the man ahead of me if he was a vet. He answered yes and she was asking if he'd gone to one of the many restaurants in town that were giving any service people or veterans a free meal as a way to say thank you. He seemed a bit reluctant then told us his grandfather served in WW2, his father in Korea, and he was in Vietnam. Then he added that one didn't matter, they got a pretty bad reception when they came home. I told him "It mattered to the ones that went." He replied quietly, "Yeah it did".
A Longer War is maybe helping us to understand a bit of what a veteran goes through. I want to say Thank You to all that have served or are serving in the armed forces. We will always be in your debt.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Remembrance UK style
Unlike other countries Remembrance in the UK is one day only. Ask any serviceman past and present and they will in the majority agree that the UK pay lip service as far servicemen and women go. Once they have done they're duty and served they're time they are discarded as so much rubbish.
Oh yes during the Gulf wars and Afghanistan they showed support but now they have returned they are forgotten until remembrance day comes around. You won't see servicemen getting freebies in the UK it doesn't happen.
We do not a Veterans Administration or any other department do give support to Ex service personnel. For men and women who have served they're country they are 3rd class citizens 2nd class being the white indigenous population. Immigrants have more rights in the UK. between 100,000 and 150,000 ex service personnel are living on the streets by the last govt report.
I won't carry on with this as it infuriates me the treatment we ex servicemen and women get in a country we fought for.
A Longer War
It's been mentioned, and I am honoured. I used to live just up the road from Bergen, where what is left of that awful place is now a memorial site.
I am trying to do my best to honour those who actually went through those experiences, as well as to show how it affected them. As Valerie put it a few chapters back, "You feel GUILTY?"
I started to write this as a tribute to those who went through it, and the original short story came in a rush, a combination of a miserable winter's day and memories of the "Gerald" I actually did pull out of the Ouse at that spot, back in the late 70s, in May, in daylight. Too many men have sent decades, often the majority of their lives, dealing with such issues alone. As someone with PTSD, it permeates my daily life, and it is not a delight in any way. I sometimes wonder if today's generation could ever rise to such a challenge in the way our fathers and grandfathers did, but that is something that is commonplace amongst older folk.
I don't know if they could. I hope they'd be up to it. I pray we never have to find out if they are..