Remembrance Sunday

I'll be at home probably, thinking about the stories my grandfather told me about going over the top, struggling to run through the thick mud which could suck your boots off, while carrying your pack and equipment that weighed more than you did and watching people go down all around you.

He was buried alive when a shell hit the trench he was in and shot through the hand, which caused him to be discharged in May 1918 after 3 years service. I consider myself lucky to have had a direct link with the past in this way and be able to have some idea of the suffering of those poor men. I also think of our former neighbour who was Polish and worked with the Home Army in Warsaw during the latter stages of the war. I found out after he died that he was caught and tortured by the Gestapo. He always used to say "There's nothing glorious about war boys" when he saw his boys and me and our kid playing soldiers together.

He was right and I cringe when I see or hear the phrase "The Glorious Dead".
 
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Prestwich_Blue said:
I'll be at home probably, thinking about the stories my grandfather told me about going over the top, struggling to run through the thick mud which could suck your boots off, while carrying your pack and equipment that weighed more than you did and watching people go down all around you.

He was buried alive when a shell hit the trench he was in and shot through the hand, which caused him to be discharged in May 1918 after 3 years service. I consider myself lucky to have had a direct link with the past in this way and be able to have some idea of the suffering of those poor men. I also think of our former neighbour who was Polish and worked with the Home Army in Warsaw during the latter stages of the war. I found out after he died that he was caught and tortured by the Gestapo and always used to say "There's nothing glorious about war boys" when he saw his boys and me and our kid playing soldiers together.

He was right and I cringe when I see or hear the phrase "The Glorious Dead".
Click to expand...

The Polish were outstanding in WW2. My grandfather was a newsagent and when he died (stomach cancer) we realised that no Polish customers had ever been charged a penny for newspapers (over many years). Just because he served with them.
 
I always think of my now departed relatives. My great uncle James who was captured by the Japanese and endured three years of hell. He returned but was never the same. We found out after he died about how he helped other comrades survive, he never mentioned it.

Others from the Great war in the Highland Infantry who also managed to survive it, my great grandfather and his two brothers.

You like to think you too would step up, but when you see what they endured you think fuck, could I have? I'm not always convinced I could have.
 
My Uncle died in Burma 1943 aged 21
What a waste of human life .Sadly sfa has changed with peopel dying in wars ( sorry conflicts)every day
 
Will be at home, watching and thinking of my dad and Grandad, involved on the front line in both wars.
My grandad, a Bolton lad, had already received a civilian award as a young miner of 15, walking back home from the
pit, in November he saw a little girl fall into the canal, or river, I forget which, but he dived in, fully dressed with his boots
still on and rescued her. He was, apparently, a brilliant, strong swimmer. He served in WW1 with the Lancashire fusiliers in
what was then Mesopotamia, crossing a bridge over the Euphrates, the bridge was shelled and two teams of horses carrying armaments
were pitched into the river, he repeated what he did in Bolton, and rescued a sergeant, sadly the others were swept away.
He received a medal for this, but nobody in the family knows what it was, he died when I was 7, and I remember a fun loving warm
and kind man, always playing pranks on me.
These lads never whinged or complained, my thoughts and love for them will be foremost in my mind come 11 November.
 
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