[Xmca-l] Re: Armistice/Veterans, what's in a name?

[David Preiss]

This poem of Denise Levertov came handy to illustrate the point:

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/california-during-gulf-war

And it was written in 1992....

On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 8:46 AM, David Preiss <preiss.xmca@gmail.com> wrote:

> People is smiling because people forgot that war means people dying. For
> many countries now (USA, France, Russia, the UK) involvement in war has
> became an everyday matter and just a risk for a few professionally trained
> soldiers which do that as one does other job. On the other hand it can be
> carried out from home using drones from your office space after which you
> do your grocery shopping or sending superb planes which bomb villages using
> video-game like screens. Would a drone operator qualify as a war veteran in
> the same way than a WW2 veteran? Both suffer incredible damage but the
> former never "engaged physically" or immediately with its victims or put
> his physical life at stake. People smile in those countries because they
> are at war and they don't know it.
>
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 3:49 AM, Tonyan, Holli A <Holli.Tonyan@csun.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> I contribute seldom to this list and am a bit more of an observer, but
>> Mike, your statements and questions prompted a contribution.  You reminded
>> me of my time in Australia when the history of 11/11 was so present in so
>> many towns and cities and memorialized in many neighborhoods of Melbourne
>> where I lived.  The formal city memorial held a lovely ceremony and the
>> city stopped to honor the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.  I
>> understood the meaning of the day so much more clearly from just a few
>> short years there than I had from all of my life in the US before those
>> years.  That may have been more true because I was an outsider there.  Yet,
>> I am struck at how the renaming you point to so erases the history of the
>> day as also illustrated by the Google image and the many advertising
>> campaigns that now so mark the holiday here in the US.  NPR did a nice
>> story about veterans' responses to the green light campaign Walmart has
>> begun and the yellow ribbon campaigns.  Many Veterans said they did not
>> want to be memorialized, but wanted opportunities to provide leadership,
>> support for the healing and grieving and opportunity for those who are not.
>>
>> So, you ask why are the Google vet faces smiling and we can also ask why
>> there is so little memory of the grief and support for the grieving.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Holli
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: xmca-l-bounces+holli.tonyan=csun.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
>> <xmca-l-bounces+holli.tonyan=csun.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of
>> mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
>> Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2015 8:41 PM
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: [Xmca-l]  Armistice/Veterans, what's in a name?
>>
>> A few days ago I commented on the names given to a national holiday on Nov
>> 11 which, in the US, have changed during my life time from armistice day
>> to
>> memorial day to veterans day. I noted that the BBC has a big spread on
>> Armistice day.... images of death, commemoration, grieving. On google,
>> when
>> I log in, there are pictures of a rainbow coalition of young adults in
>> uniform, smiling.... at what? at how wonderful it will be to become a
>> veteran?
>> Why are they smiling, have they forgotten to anticipate the grieving?
>>
>> mike
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
>> object that creates history. Ernst Boesch
>>
>>
>