Remembrance

[domino]

Just watched the programme on BBC. We certainly have a lot to be grateful for and owe a debt of gratitude to many,many people.

[MadPict]

Sorry but I cannot watch the service from the Royal Albert Hall any more - it has lost it's solemnity with the 'singers' (does anyone understand a single word that Jenkins girl sings?) and the military bands playing pop songs. Seeing a military musician playing an electric guitar while pulling the usual grimaces has no place in what is meant to be a service of remembrance.
I know they are doing this to appeal to a younger and wider audience but what will be next? Cheerleaders? Rappers doing a hip-hop version of “For the Fallen”?

If I can't get to my local memorial I will watch the usually good coverage of the service and parade at the Cenotaph. At least that hasn't been jazzed up. Yet...

[Kevin Milkins]

They played the last post and had a minute silence before the kick off of the Wales V South Africa game today in Cardiff and it fair brought a tear to my eyes.:~(

[brokencross]

Sorry but I cannot watch the service from the Royal Albert Hall any more - it has lost it's solemnity with the 'singers' (does anyone understand a single word that Jenkins girl sings?) and the military bands playing pop songs. Seeing a military musician playing an electric guitar while pulling the usual grimaces has no place in what is meant to be a service of remembrance.
I know they are doing this to appeal to a younger and wider audience but what will be next? Cheerleaders? Rappers doing a hip-hop version of “For the Fallen”?

If I can't get to my local memorial I will watch the usually good coverage of the service and parade at the Cenotaph. At least that hasn't been jazzed up. Yet...

I still watch, but agree, we don't need all the "modern" add ons. Some producer somewhere has the misplaced idea of "trying to keep it relevant and include youth". I appreciate many of our services are young men and women but this is not the time or place for "pop".

I too would prefer a more solemn and sober service with suitable hymns, readings and the parade of the armed and civilians services and approriate music.

(leave all the fancy showbiz stuff to the Edinburgh Military Tattoo)

[percy toboggan]

....I watched some of it, and was moist eyed as is usual.
I also watched some of the 'X' factor thing, including their 'Heroes' video...moist eyed again. I'm becoming over sentimental, and perhaps should get out more.

Personally I think the ceremony -call it what you will - has to move with the times but rappers would be a step too far. The utter tragedy is that young lives are still being lost so long after those years of total carnage. No longer industrial scale casualties but the wounds are under-reported if the deaths are not . I don't know how much longer we can attract our finest young people into the Services in defence of a country which is changing so quickly and seems sometimes to float on a moral ebb tide towards an abyss. Anxious to give away our freedoms which, paradoxically we still defend so valiantly. A country which is failing to educate many of its young to the required standards of a modern world, and pushes 'heritage' to the margins in a quest to make everyone feel at home.

Right! I'm off to the local cenotaph to fill my lungs with air, my ears with the sound of a brass band and eyes with yet more moistness.

[Bad Manners]

Having lost three good friends withint the space of two days bring it all home two further friend were seriously injured but we did what we did for our country this was our job and our task. No matter what the ceromony I still see all the faces as it were yesterday.
Every thing moves with the times and in a way I am all for that but the armed forces is steeped in tradition and with that in mind remembrence day should uphold the tradition. By all means celebrate there passing in the way you seen approprate but for me it is traditional its what made us they way we were and the way we are.
as long as one person remembers they will never be forgotten

[Kenn]

I am fortunate that I have never lost a member of my family in any field of conflict but still find the need to observe.
To remember that my father gave up six years of his life so that I have been able to live mine in freedom along with all of us that inhabit these islands.
To pause for a moment and think of all the families that have not been so lucky and to share their grief.

[percy toboggan]

Right! I'm off to the local cenotaph....
by gum it was cold out there...a chill wind blowing.
More than 500 gathered under sombre, ominous skies.
The names on the cenotaph bearing testimony to the sacrifice of those of
this little town which is close to nestling in the Pennine foothills.

All age-groups were represented in the annual homage. May the ritual of remembrance go on for generations as yet unborn, and their descendants. It has a continuing relevance - like the 44 dead since Remembrance Day 07.