All too often these days, many people have taken to thinking of Memorial day as just another long weekend in which to have a party, and laze around a bit. They have forgotten, or perhaps were never taught what the Day stands for. Its not disrespectful to have a party,and hoot n’ holler, just do some extra for those who paid for the party, but can’t attend themselves…
Down here, a lot of us take our equivalent seriously, but a few don’t.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-25/thousands-turn-out-for-melbourne-anzac-day-march/5411550 (Proud to note my son marched as a returned serviceman in this year’s march.)
The dying wreaths are disappearing now from all the memorials in the countless towns and suburbs around the nation where where they were laid reverentially a month ago to honour all those who served, and especially those who fell.
In Russia we have a few of military-theme holidays per year, devoited to different historical events, but under the one general line - tribute to fallen soldiers!! The 23 febriary ( the day of Russian Army) , the 9 may V-Day ,2 august ( tribute to the fallen in Afghanistan and Chenhia) the 12 june ( day of Independence) , the 4 november ( Patriotic day). One can think it’s too much, but not for a country that weaged a wars most time of its existence. I can’t say it’s becouze the BBQ, but BBQ is a essential FIRST part of it, as later vodka , fight and bathing in the fountains
Most of the Memory days has a military parades of different form and mass.
“The temple bell stops
But the sound keeps coming
Out of the flowers.”
-Matsuo Basho
We have only one holiday, Anzac Day 25 April each year (date of Gallipoli landing in WWI) which commemorates all our wars. Also a minute’s silence at 11 a.m. on the 11th day of the 11th month each year, being the time the WWI armistice came into effect, but no holiday.
How many days of public holidays do you have each year, apart from the five military ones?
The U.S. has ten National Holidays where the Banks, and Post Offices are closed. Including all Federal, with Regional, State, and local Holidays where nothing much closes, totals nearer to one hundred.
Ours are generally state rather than nationally decreed holidays, but they work out about the same number of days for various occasions. We have 11 days in my state. http://www.business.vic.gov.au/victorian-public-holidays-and-daylight-saving/victorian-public-holidays
We have an…totally 17 days of official state holidays per year. Not bad for the former “communist dictatorship”. The longest are the Winter holidays (1-8 jenuary) like little vacation, but most interesting the may holidays 1-4 and 9-11. The weather is enough warm and good for travel somewhere around caucasian buatiful places with car.
BTW how do you gents usially spend your holidays and vacations?
For myself, I am not a great fan of “national holidays” or “bank holidays”, generally. Bosses over the years have been amused by my assumption that I was coming on Monday, when nobody else was. Indeed, when the building would be locked. Most public holidays in Ireland are connected with significant civil landmarks (such as 1 May) or religious landmarks (Christmas, Easter etc.). At least one (October Bank Holiday) makes no real sense except in terms of celebrating the ancient pagan feast of Lughnasa. Appropriate, perhaps, for a nation that, in spite of an extraordinarily combative history as far as its people are concerned, is of very little military significance in the present day. That is, perhaps, a blessing …
Yours from the Garden of Remembrance,
JR.
Well, the USSR was supposed to be ‘the workers’ paradise’. That was certainly the way it was presented by the Australian Moscow aligned communist party (but not the Australian Peking aligned communist party, whose greatest enemy was the Moscow aligned communist party, and vice versa, rather than our conservative capitalist government and system which were only their second greatest enemies) here in my youth.
At that time we had full and well paid employment; a strong democracy; great personal freedoms; and no gulags. Imagine how much better things would have been if the commies were running my country. ;):rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
Working.
Like many Australians, when I’m not working for money, I’m working on my home or, in the case of some of the more fortunate of us, my beach shack (sort of a seaside dacha). The latter being where I am now, repairing 20 years of neglect.
Converse here.
My bosses have been not been amused by the mistaken assumption that I would come in on Mondays, when everyone else was. 
For me at least it was actually quite fantastic. I went to a service and the theme was ironically the E company of the 506th reg on d-day (since the 70th anniversary of Operation Overlord). It was great but what made it special was one of the men that jumped with E company on that night was there! (though I don’t know who since I was sitting further away from the front.
Just turned on early morning (1 a.m.) TV to find Memorial Day Nascar race, with some dedications by drivers to American / family troops which, alas, were given rather less time and emphasis than ads for Coke sponsor or whatever Coke is doing to merit so much adulatory time and mentions.
Down here in past couple of decades we have seen the clever creation by our football league of a ‘traditional’ football game each Anzac day, with the moronic press drawing nauseatingly offensive parallels between the hugely pampered and overpaid sporting ‘heroes’ who just have to run around a paddock for an hour or two and those who fought a real war for years with bugger all in food, comfort, and often weapons and ammunition and, unlike football players, the risk of being killed or seriously wounded, and frequently damaged one way or another for the rest of their lives. Had there been a proportionate amount of newspapers devoted to the deaths, wounds, treatment and recovery time for service people in WWII and WWI, to the relatively trivial footballers’ etc anterior cruciates and other minor injuries and minor surgery, global warming would have been complete by now as there would have been no forests left by 1945.
Our football rubbish is same rubbish as Nascar, with superficial military involvement as endorsement for a money making entertainment which has everything to do with a day off work and nothing to do with honouring those who served.
I find hijacking a veteran’s remembrance day for a money making football game, car race, or any other entertainment offensive and disrespectful.
Separately, when I was a kid in the fifties and early sixties, my grandmother worked on the basis that children, pets and ‘decent people’ were kept off the streets on Anzac day as the returned servicemen often got pissed and out of control, which I think might in large part have been due to her experience in, or belief about, the previous four decades or so of the behaviour of seriously damaged WWI returned servicemen.
Here Here !! No better way to put it.
