"If we never tell kids of WW1 - it won't happen again."

[uralxium]

that is the statement made by a assistant on my school trip the Belgium. From April 8-10 my school organised a trip to Belgium and France to see the trenches and graves of those who died in WW1 - both German and allies.

As we walked towards the German graveyard ( a great contrast to the allied graveyards ) the assistant came out with this remark of if we never tell children about WW1, if we bury it and keep it a secret it will never happened again because no one will be aware of the possibility or the horror.

I strongly disagreed with this statement and i wish i could have the courage to tell the woman this. for a start, the people who fought in WW1 had no idea of the horrors they were going to face and yet they still managed to find themselves there. Secondly, it is more of a danger of happening again if we don't tell children about it because they are unaware of it. In telling them we are making them aware that trench warfare is pointless and while we may never stop war altogether we can prevent it from being what it was in The Somme.

As a history student and therefore a historian, i was horrified at what this woman said. its similar to people who want to pretend that the holocaust didn't happen - its disrespectful to the people who died for us and who fought for us to cover them up and forget them.

your thoughts anyone?

 

[Cajun Niglet]

People like this sicken me, burying something and forgetting it never works. Even when we teach about it, we make the same mistakes.

We make several of the same mistakes today that we've made before, and humans will invariably humans, so if we don't teach it, it's going to happen again.

I can't really say I blame you for not saying anything; anyone ignorant enough to believe that won't change their mind about anything. Anyway, what could she possibly mean by "the possibility"? She acts as if we wouldn't be aware how to kill each other and fight pointless wars. As long as you know what should be known, people like her won't get the history censored... it should never be.  

[GeneralFishSama]

I"m going to throw away my intelect for a moment and say,

EL OH EL!

Okay I'm good now but, seriously. That lady's ******** stupid as all hell and I can't even imagine that someone would say that SERIOUSLY. Damn...

Sorry I'm baffled by the sheer stupidity of that person right now...  

[uralxium]

fishsama999

I"m going to throw away my intelect for a moment and say,

EL OH EL!

Okay I'm good now but, seriously. That lady's ******** stupid as all hell and I can't even imagine that someone would say that SERIOUSLY. Damn...

Sorry I'm baffled by the sheer stupidity of that person right now...

me and my friend were too.
we couldn't believe that someone would say anything
like this at all.

and she was talking to one of the history teachers who has a
deep passion for history so i wonder what he was thinking.

 

[GeneralFishSama]

Yeah that's probably some of the stupidest things you could ever say to a history teacher.

Because no matter what, history repeats itself.

To paraphrase Gundam Wing Endless Waltz,

"History is likened to an Endless Waltz.

Three beats of War, peace, (insert the one I forget here because I can't remember)"

I love history but no matter how much we teach and learn it we're doomed to see it repeated.  

[Darth Lord Impy]

You should have confronted them. If you do not at least attempt to try and change their thinking then it is a guaranteed fact it is never going to change.

She was probably viewing life in a more idealistic view point. That if we somehow erase the past it will change human nature.

Human nature is unchanging because history gets lost. We are however approaching a point where history isn't lost. If we fight a war, all we have to do to save documents is save it onto this itty bitty little device. In the past it was in thick books and scrolls that were impossible to transport. So in that time the conquering army would destroy the information since it would be easier to keep the people subjected.

The ultimate problem is things never really do change. Everything now can be likened to the past. The only way to change things is to keep people informed. That becomes a chore however because the general populace is more wrapped up in their day to day survival then anything else.

So to change things you have to keep the people in power reminded of past events: which in their arrogance they forget. Which is ultimately the problem is our own intelligent arrogance. "oh we know such and such happened, but we are smarter and can prevent it from happening." Thus in our folly it re-occurs.  

[XDcoco puff_100XD]

Everyone is in tilted to their own thoughts. But I feel that this woman was wrong as well. The way to stop people from going into another war, or at least to make them think twice about going into a war, we need to remember the sacrifices that others have made. For example, every time I visit my Grandfather, I ask him about his experiences in WW2 because pretty soon he won't be around to tell me about it. No one else in the family has asked him about it so when he dies I get his metals because I was the only one that took an interest.  

[x-Genghis-x]

I think that's a pretty stupid theory. If we don't learn our history then we are doomed to repeat it.

At least knowing about it gives us some knowledge of how to stop it from happening again and how to deal with it if it does.  

[Nasuko-San]

Decaff Commi Coffee

that is the statement made by a assistant on my school trip the Belgium. From April 8-10 my school organised a trip to Belgium and France to see the trenches and graves of those who died in WW1 - both German and allies.

I wish my school kicked this much a**. We DID get to take a field trip to a prison in a different class...

Decaff Commi Coffee

As we walked towards the German graveyard ( a great contrast to the allied graveyards ) the assistant came out with this remark of if we never tell children about WW1, if we bury it and keep it a secret it will never happened again because no one will be aware of the possibility or the horror.

As long as there are humans, there will be a thirst to learn about such things. Thus, people will learn about it.

Decaff Commi Coffee

I strongly disagreed with this statement and i wish i could have the courage to tell the woman this. for a start, the people who fought in WW1 had no idea of the horrors they were going to face and yet they still managed to find themselves there.

This is highly disagreeable, too. I mean, nowadays we know the horrors a war can induce because of media apparatus like TV, radio, and internet. Back then, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) wasn't known about, and war was glorified and romanticized. It was seen as a very romantic thing to go away from your family and loved ones to fight, and potentially die, in a war. It was also a dishonor. Think about it. You're the mother or father of a young eighteen year old man. He's strong, healthy, and while all of his friends are going off to fight in The Great War, he's pouring himself into books. It just wasn't very honorable to be the guy left behind when you had no reason.

Decaff Commi Coffee

Secondly, it is more of a danger of happening again if we don't tell children about it because they are unaware of it. In telling them we are making them aware that trench warfare is pointless and while we may never stop war altogether we can prevent it from being what it was in The Somme.

Listen, no type of warfare is pointless. Look at how long World War I lasted! The French and British lasted, what was it, two, three years before the United States showed up? The point of digging a trench in a war, or any similar structure (Like a bunker or foxhole), is to give cover and concealment. Add barbed wire, machine guns with overlapping fields of fire, artillery, and mine fields, you've got a defensive line that can withstand anything. The Germans even used troops that came from the Russian front in one offensive that nearly worked, but didn't, called the Saint Micheal's offensive.

Decaff Commi Coffee

As a history student and therefore a historian, i was horrified at what this woman said. its similar to people who want to pretend that the holocaust didn't happen - its disrespectful to the people who died for us and who fought for us to cover them up and forget them.

It is disrespectful, but everyone is entitled to their own opinions and imagination, no?  

[GeneralFishSama]

Nasuko-San

Decaff Commi Coffee

I strongly disagreed with this statement and i wish i could have the courage to tell the woman this. for a start, the people who fought in WW1 had no idea of the horrors they were going to face and yet they still managed to find themselves there.

This is highly disagreeable, too. I mean, nowadays we know the horrors a war can induce because of media apparatus like TV, radio, and internet. Back then, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) wasn't known about, and war was glorified and romanticized. It was seen as a very romantic thing to go away from your family and loved ones to fight, and potentially die, in a war. It was also a dishonor. Think about it. You're the mother or father of a young eighteen year old man. He's strong, healthy, and while all of his friends are going off to fight in The Great War, he's pouring himself into books. It just wasn't very honorable to be the guy left behind when you had no reason.

That was true early in the war, think 1914 and early 1915. But as soon as Passchendale and other horrific battles began to hit and there were men coming to Britain and France on leave I think they'd start getting the picture from having dinner with their sons that the Western Front was no big ******** picinic.

Read the book called "Hard Jacka" for proof of this. Good book btw.

PTSD wasn't understood well enough then because it was the first time war had been so ******** horrific. It shattered men and turned them into shells. The French fighting at Verdun who had, as I previously stated, earlier on being idealized by the vision of a glorified war ("this is what it must have felt like in 1794", French Officer onboard a troop train in 1915) latter were the ones who had to turn off all emotion to walk into the most veribale decription of hell ever created by mankind untill the aftermath of Hiroshima. It destroyed men so completely it was unfathomable. And when these men would come home with no arms, no legs, and very little sanity after being discharged, the home front no longer thought of it as much of a glorified war.

At the outbreak of WWII most people had very little will to be involved in it because of knowing about what had happened in the trenches of WWI from their fathers, uncles, and brothers.

Nasuko-San

Decaff Commi Coffee

Secondly, it is more of a danger of happening again if we don't tell children about it because they are unaware of it. In telling them we are making them aware that trench warfare is pointless and while we may never stop war altogether we can prevent it from being what it was in The Somme.

Listen, no type of warfare is pointless. Look at how long World War I lasted! The French and British lasted, what was it, two, three years before the United States showed up? The point of digging a trench in a war, or any similar structure (Like a bunker or foxhole), is to give cover and concealment. Add barbed wire, machine guns with overlapping fields of fire, artillery, and mine fields, you've got a defensive line that can withstand anything. The Germans even used troops that came from the Russian front in one offensive that nearly worked, but didn't, called the Saint Micheal's offensive.

Stop thinking tactically for a moment Nas and you'll look at WWI and realize it was probably the most pointless war fought in years upon years. The Germans (this is very common knowledge) lost sight of their objective of taking France out of the war so that the Balkans (which in all honesty was supposed to be the main front of the war since that's where it sparked) would be free for Austrio Hungarian military movements to punish those who were there.

The German High Command lost sight in that and (I'll argue just as much) that the Allied High Command lost sight in that as well and came to the idea of fighting nonstop to defeat the enemy in the field. It became less a war about an objective or an ideal but very quickly, as you ironically showed, a war to fight just for the sake of fighting to kill the enemy untill there was nothing left. That IS the priniciple of attrition. If you look in ANY history book on the Great War you will see that attrition was the main military "tactic" (if you can call it that) for both the Allied and Central Powers.

It's pointless to look at a war such as WWI and try to figure out why it was being fought just from gound level as you just seemed to do.

Nasuko-San

Decaff Commi Coffee

As a history student and therefore a historian, i was horrified at what this woman said. its similar to people who want to pretend that the holocaust didn't happen - its disrespectful to the people who died for us and who fought for us to cover them up and forget them.

It is disrespectful, but everyone is entitled to their own opinions and imagination, no?

True but some thought can be corrected. That is dangerous thinking and lke Decaff said, very dishonorable to those who died.

You know me. I'm very libertarian. But when it comes to veterans I have a lot of respect and I believe others should too. That's the kind of thought that brings forth calling Vietnam vets "baby killers" and spitting on them in the street when they beg for some food.  

[Nasuko-San]

I think I juts got owned... sweatdrop  

[GeneralFishSama]

Nasuko-San

I think I juts got owned... sweatdrop

It is alright my young padiwan. You are but the learner. I AM THE MASTER!  

[connielass]

All I can say is, shame on her.
I must agree with everything that was said before this.
I also, like fishsama, am a liberal who very much honors those who have and are fighting for my liberty. I further honor those who fought in Vietnam, because they mostly didn't have a choice when the draft came up. They didn't volunteer, they were shoved into it.
But Fishsama, what you said about reluctance to enter WWII: while I'm young enough not to know about that firsthand, I do know that it was still glorified in its own way.
While our "boys" stormed beaches and were shelled to within an inch of their lives, witnesses to the carnage that their friends, relatives and sweethearts would never know, at home in America, newspapers and movie theaters circulated the message that "all is well, the boys are having a heck of a fun time, rejoice in the heroes of liberty!"
I believe it is a fact that at the outset of any war entered into, the people are optimistic and hopeful that it is just, perhaps righteous, and that it will be over within the year.
Certainly it is harder to be so now, now that we have the technology that shows us the truth, stark as it can be.

But where was I?
Yes, her disrespect.
Quite frankly, there's a reason we keep our history recorded.
There's a reason we use it as warning.
Might as well say, "If we don't tell anyone about cigarettes, then they won't smoke and get cancer the way we did."  

[Lhuv-Kerapht]

Oh, ugh! Nothing disgusts me more than willful ignorance. It's plain stupidity, is all it is, and an "Ooo, it's scary! Hide your heads in the sand, everyone, and maybe the scary will go away!" philosophy. Putrid. Absolutely putrid. Reprehensible. Vile. Irresponsible. Moronic. I hope somebody hands that twit her keister on a silver platter, with extra sauce for dippin'. 'Cause, seriously.... What could she be thinking? IS she actually thinking at all?

Now personally, I think everybody needs to know and understand more, not less, about WWI. And I think at least a part of that should probably be a viewing or several of "All Quiet on the Western Front." Quite simply the most amazing war film ever made, and in my opinion, no film since has captured the hell of war half as starkly at that one. Reading is one thing, but they went for brutal reality when they made that movie. And I don't think any film has held up to the passage of time as well as that one has. Seriously. The story is powerful, the emotion raw, and the effects are jaw-droppingly amazing. And not just for 1930, either. Jaw-droppingly amazing. Run, don't walk. Rent it, buy it, Netflix it - whatever. Watch it. Share it. Discuss it. Never forget it. Trust me. Once you've seen it, you won't be able to. It's a film that so expresses the horrors of war that even to this day, there are countries the world over than have banned this film, because of how powerful and effective the anti-war message is. (Don't worry, folks; it's a "talkie.")

And first in line to get it shown to her needs to be Ms. Ignorance-is-Bliss. That idiot needs the cover ripped off for her.  

[Trelayne]

I must agree with the general opinion here. That's an appalling and reprehensible attitude.