Less said the better
The bill unpaid, the dead letter,
No roses at the end
Of Smith, my friend.
Last words don’t matter,
And there are none to flatter.
Words will not fill the post
Of Smith, the ghost.
For Smith, our brother,
Only son of loving mother,
The ocean lifted, stirred,
Leaving no word.
John Pudney
This was anthologized in the Norton Book of Modern War, edited by Paul Fussell. If you want to understand the depth of the failure of tragic imagination in the current wars, any of Fussell’s books on war are well worth a read.
I think the answer to DougJ’s question about the commemoration of December 7 is that there was so much death in that war — on average, 419 per day. When every day was a terrible day for so many people, commemorating one would be pointless. More importantly, the day worth remembering is the day the war ends, not the day it begins.
J
Worth linking to a previous Balloon Juice about the poetry and sadness of war.
https://balloon-juice.com/2008/11/11/veterals-day-aka-rememberance-day/
I’m going to link, as I did then, to this brilliant Steve Bell cartoon, which captures the callousness of the attitude towards war in the Bush era as nothing else
https://balloon-juice.com/2008/11/11/veterals-day-aka-rememberance-day/
SiubhanDuinne
Agreed. Which is one of the many problems with declaring “wars” on abstractions like poverty, illiteracy, addiction, or terrorism. With no way to measure absolute success or victory (such as a peace treaty or unconditional surrender) there’s no way to ascribe a date certain — something to celebrate or observe year after year, let alone dance in the streets and indulge in random sailor-kissing-nurse activity in Times Square.
fucen tarmal
i think the whole 9/11 thing mostly satisfies a generation or two looking for some great event to mark their existence. its a population horny for a d-day, a kennedy assasination, something on that magnitude. part of the reason the need to memorialize that day, and not the thousands of americans more who died since, to speak nothing of the civilians, for wars we “had” to fight, because 9/11 that’s why. we are a nation that is pot committed to this tragedy, we have to follow through with what we have thrown into being upset, and having our lives changed, and our world view altered, we have spent so much time effort and energy convincing ourselves that our “safety” is the most important thing. and that we have some control over the matter.
meh, the memorializing to me represents how we were so easily cowed into believing anything, just like the terrorists expected we would be.
Xecky Gilchrist
I think for a few people Sept. 11 is a day of memorials, but for the loudest ones it’s “We has a club to beat liberals with” day when they remember how everyone who was ever mean to them was terrified into silence for a while.
gnomedad
@J:
Oops. Found it for you:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,1082536,00.html
Alwhite
A hundred years ago Mark Twain wrote the proper prayer for the idolaters of 9/11:
“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@fucen tarmal: I don’t know if this will make you feel any better, but the kids I teach every semester now–and for the last 4-5 years, really–don’t see 9/11 that way, mainly because they were in their early teens at best when it happened. I have a poem on my syllabus, Jay Parini’s “After the Terror” (which Julia Alvarez talks about here), and every year I find myself having to give more and more context because my students don’t actually remember the post-9/11 world as different from the pre-9/11 world. I suspect they’ll look at my generation the same way I looked at my parents when they talked about the day JFK died.
SiubhanDuinne
@Alwhite #6: Okay, this confirms it: Mark Twain was the bestest genius this country ever had. Seriously, that prayer is what should be inscribed every place there’s a blank surface at the Pentagon, Congress, and White House.
Linda Featheringill
This is a first-person account of 9/11 in NYC, by Steffie, a twitter friend.
The picture is nice. The text underneath is better.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefaniepetersen/1357185331/in/set-72157622487844450/
Nick
@fucen tarmal:
You’d think we’d have enough of those already.
Athenae
Molly Ivins wrote a column about being in France, and seeing flowers left at the US Embassy with a note in very, very shaky handwriting that said, “Lafayette is still with you.”
And the Buckingham Palace Guard played our national anthem.
So much love, we had, from all over the world.
A.
Maude
December 7th, the US was attacked. It is remembered because of that. People were shocked and afraid.
It’s important to remember what has gone on before.
VE and VJ days are still mentioned.
There’s something wrong that schools don’t teach the history of the US and what the country has gone through. Pretty soon, nothing has any meaning and as we see with the media, just about everything is cheapend. It’s all about drama and conflict.
It’s the old if you don’t know where you’ve been, how do you know where you are and how do you know where you are going?
Nick
This sorta reminds me of when, I think it was the Discovery Channel, was running a program showing the first videos from inside the Trade Center on 9/11 right before the collapse and in the videos you can hear bodies go splat outside. That same night the Screen Actors Guild Awards were on (Halle Berry won) and I’m an award shows geek. So while my entire family was sitting, catatonic, staring at that 9/11 show. My mother walked into my room, saw I was watching the SAGs and gave me this look like I was raping Uncle Sam while wiping my ass with the American flag.
I will note, however, that the weather that day was exactly the same in New York as it is today.
Nick
Happy Birthday Rudy Giuliani!
Nick
@Xecky Gilchrist: btw on this;
From a teabagger friend’s Facebook status
Another words; Why can’t we go back to when everyone agreed with me?
He lives less than a mile from my parents, whose house I’m currently at, and there are flags on the front porches of almost every house.
Omnes Omnibus
@Nick: I don’t need to wave a flag around every couple of minuted to be a proud American. [rhetorical question] FFS, are people that insecure? [/rhetorical question]
asiangrrlMN
@Omnes Omnibus: I also see it as such a minor thing to base someone’s patriotism upon. Are you waving a flag or not? Are you wearing a flag pin or not? And, it takes no effort at all to sport a flag pin or raise a flag. It’s an easy way to proclaim oneself as patriotic without having to do anything…well, patriotic. I actually now have negative associations with the American flag when I see it. It’s an instinctual flinch in reaction to all the neo-Patriotism that has evolved around waving/carrying the flag.
scav
@asiangrrlMN: yup — I’m now beginning to flinch at fireworks too which is really really sad because I loved those.
Svensker
My cousin in Texas and all his friends in Alabama, Arkansas and Washington state are all hyperventilating on FB about this “Sacred Day.” When I said I was there when it happened and knew 5 people who died there and thought calling it sacred was idolatrous, they were unimpressed. But I am a liberal coastal elite, so I guess they are right.
Fucking fuck.
But hey, we kicked Iraqi butt, amirite?
asiangrrlMN
@scav: Well, I never liked them because they go boom and make big noises! But, yes, I can see how the same reaction might occur. (And, they are very pretty).
@Svensker: You know that 9/11 gets to be defined by everyone except those who were actually affected by it. Silly you for expecting anything different.
Linda Featheringill
Comments by LunarMovements, who was on active duty on 9/11.
You know LunarMovements. She posts on BJ occasionally.
http://lunarmovements.blogspot.com/2010/09/memories-of-911-how-far-we-havent-come.html
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of this on the internets today in memory of 9/11. That’s about what it has descended to, I think.
Nick
There is a man burning the Quran at the site of proposed Islamic community center and the media is following him around like Lindsay fucking Lohan.
Johnny B
I strongly urge anyone to pick up a copy of Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second War. It is a brutally honest assessment of the war and our failures culturally to recognize what it was: a bloodbath. Fussell is particularly well suited for the task as he’s a former Marine who served in the Pacific during WWII.
For those who insist that we celebrate the events of September 11, 2001 (let’s not kid ourselves, that is what is being asked. Not honor, not remember, not even commemorate, but celebrate), Fussell is a good antidote. The final two pages of the book are a testament to what good officers can do when they confront honestly the task they are asking their men to perform.
Do you know what I’m doing to “celebrate” September 11, 2001. Nothing. I know that is so wrong, as I’m suppose to be curled up in a fetal position crying while listening to Glen Beck read his latest tome. But it’s the truth.
Do you want another truth? Know what I did on the anniversaries of the Battle of Gettysburg, the Invasion of Normandy, and Pearl Harbor Day? Again, nothing. Sure I remembered the fallen on Memorial Day, but on the anniversaries of those battles, I didn’t have even one thought about the people who lost their lives. What did you do on those days?
The fact is, like those bigger and more momentous days in our nation’s history, I’m over September 11, 2001. I don’t feel grief or sadness. If there was no “celebration” going on over every cable news channel, I might forget what anniversary occurred on this day.
I realize that others aren’t over it. I also realize that there are some who never will be. I respect that. But I am. And I think it’s okay for other Americans to feel the same.
Death Panel Truck
I cry but I can’t buy
Your Veteran’s Day poppy
It don’t get me high
It can only make me cry
It can never grow another
Son like the one who warmed me my days
After rain and warmed my breath
My life’s blood
Screamin’ empty she cries
It don’t get me high
It can only make me cry
Your Veteran’s Day poppy
Don Van Vliet
Lunarmovements
@asiangrrlMN:
I understand well why you flinch. The ‘flag waving’ crowd has quite effectively co-opted patriotism and redefined it as a chauvinist world view that is both blind and blissfully ignorant to reality. There are numerous people who believe that you are a patriot only if you are waving a flag and hold “my country, right or wrong” as your personal motto. That model has done more to damage the word ‘patriot’, in my mind, than anything else to date.
Is it okay to love what is lovable about this country, and despise what is despicable about this country, and be fully aware of what is both beautiful and horrifying about the land I was born and raised in? I hope so – because that’s the kind of patriot I see myself as being. I love my country. But I am not blind to her faults. I know they are myriad. But that doesn’t diminish my joy in her virtues.
That being said, I don’t feel the need to prove to my neighbors how I feel about the ‘amber fields of grain’ or ‘purple mountain majesties’. I don’t need to prove to anyone that I am profoundly grateful to be born in a country where I am constitutionally entitled to speak my mind freely and worship as I please. Nor do I need to prove to anyone that I am aware of the havoc the US government and military and intelligence community has caused around the world.
And because I don’t have to prove these things to anyone, I do not wave a flag to show my patriotism. But I do try to teach those coming up behind me that there is room for improvement. I try to show the young people in my sphere that, while there is certainly plenty of American history about which we should be proud, we must also learn form our more heinous errors throughout history – or be doomed to repeat them. I do my small bit to try to change what is wrong with my country. I do this out of love, and I call it patriotism. The ‘flag waving’ crowd can call it what ever they like – because they, too, have freedom of speech. They will just have to wave their flags without me.
moe99
I’m sort of going off at this at a 45 degree angle, but I wonder if the fact that we never had a day officially designated as the ‘end of the Viet Nam War’ day added to the lack of closure on it. We can’t celebrate a victory, but it was ended.
Blonderengel
Them Cats Are Fast
By implanting an electrode into the brain of a person with locked-in syndrome, scientists have demonstrated how to wirelessly transmit neural signals to a speech synthesizer. The “thought-to-speech” process takes about 50 milliseconds – the same amount of time for a non-paralyzed, neurologically intact person to speak their thoughts. The study marks the first successful demonstration of a permanently installed, wireless implant for real-time control of an external device.
History Lesson No. 2 (No. 1 is out there, some place sunny and warm—at least in Second Life—enjoying a real rest with no compulsion to do anything other than rest). Considering the nature of war and its fleeting alliances between good and bad and right and wrong or evil or post-evil, in other words, good or bad, we leap at the new-born panda baby Habbibu in Stuttgart’s Städtischen Zoo. A get one might say, in the rough newspaper biz the new age demanded. But zoos, being zoos, had caged animals for sale, and we, the reading public, ate that up. Elizabeth Taylor’s horse, Black Beauty, and NASAs sleepy monkey came – came to in 1000 thread count cloth, silk (most likely) and cuffed with ivory, not pearl—pearl being a whore’s accoutrement. They came too. They came thru. They came true. And in Nashville some church bells ring. Pay Attention. Pay close. Attention. Remember last time.
Larry Signor
The worst is yet to come. Next year will be the 10th anniversary. Decile-rama. Fucking stupid shit. I’m going to mow burnt hay. It will be better than a snowball in February and maybe a calf will live.
Mnemosyne
@Athenae:
That, frankly, is the thing that absolutely fucking enrages me all over again every time I think about 9/11. We had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to unite the world against radical terrorism and get our former enemies to ally with us. Iran made a friendly diplomatic move towards us for the first time since 1980 when they sent formal condolences.
And then we pissed it all away on a war in Iraq and made all of those people who had been so sympathetic think that we had deserved it.
Fuck George Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and all of those assholes who decided that 9/11 was a God-given opportunity to play empire games. May they burn in hell.
Ruckus
@moe99:
We could have a “We Lost a (stupid) War Day” celebration, but what date would be right? And all the patriots who think we should kick ass and leave dead bodies unless you agree with us would be pissed off that we were doing any celebrations at all. The people that served might like it but I’ll bet most of them want to forget having been there.
Because we sure didn’t, as a country, learn that war is a last resort, not a preemptive concept, maybe a day to remember that is worth more than we know.
Ruckus
@Lunarmovements:
Very, very nicely stated.
Until my country learns some reasonable lessons from the last decade or three, I’ll keep my flag furled as well.
I see this country in need of a vast amount of soul searching and growing back up to do before I feel the need to celebrate it’s goals and supposed ideals. I hope that I can help with that but I hold no illusions that we will get there in my lifetime.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
Fuck George Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and all of those assholes who decided that 9/11 was a God-given opportunity to play empire games. May they burn in hell.
I’m not sure that is enough of a penalty, as in my world there is nothing after this one. So I like to see them pay a price while still breathing. Preferably lingering, painful and public.
Bill Murray
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
fasteddie9318
Not when you throw a war that’s never, ever going to end! WHEE!