{"id":2730,"date":"2013-11-11T09:35:17","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T17:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2730"},"modified":"2013-11-11T09:35:17","modified_gmt":"2013-11-11T17:35:17","slug":"when-the-lights-go-on-again-at-sea-11112013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2730","title":{"rendered":"When the Lights Go On Again \u2013 At Sea \u2013 [11\/11\/2013]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Legendary_kiss_V\u2013J_day_in_Times_Square_Alfred_Eisenstaedt\"<\/a>If you could know, if you could see
\nThen you would not repeat to yourself the old lie
\nDulce et decorum est pro patria mori
\nHow sweet and honorable it is to die for one\u2019s country<\/i><\/p>\n

It not only feels right that it isn\u2019t raining, that we\u2019re making our way eastward in the glare of the Caribbean sunshine, that it\u2019s warm and humid and actually somewhat sultry \u2013 but it feels wrong in that it\u2019s going almost unacknowledged. I\u2019ve become used to standing in the showroom on this day, pressed and polished in dress blues with a poppy on my collar. But that\u2019s the flagship; here this is very nearly another day.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just another day. It\u2019s never ever just another day.<\/p>\n

Another year gone and I still don\u2019t understand. I don\u2019t understand why the world continues to tear itself apart. What I do understand is that this belongs to all of us. There is not a single one of us in the world today that has not somehow been touched by the tragic folly that is a world at war, the thing is the world has been at war for so long that we have honestly forgotten what it\u2019s like not<\/i> to be. Gone are the days of Vera Lynn, of air raids and the home front, now the constant battles are so much a part of daily life that I sometimes think we don\u2019t even know how to have a home front anymore. We go home, we watch the BBC and CNN or whatever other news channel we tune into, we flip through the channels, shake our heads and go on with our life.<\/p>\n

We have lost our innocence and we didn\u2019t even notice it was gone. It\u2019s as if it packed a rucksack and snuck quietly out the back door while no one was looking, never to return.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m convinced sometimes that they look down at us in sorrow, those who have gone before, wondering if this is what they died for all those years ago.<\/p>\n

I do not believe that they rest, any of them, no matter how old or new. Have we done as they asked? Have we kept faith? I don\u2019t know. Sometimes I don\u2019t think so at all, sometimes I wonder.<\/p>\n

No matter where I am in the world on this day, no matter what I am doing, there will always be a part of me that is standing, head bowed, feet cold in patent leather party shoes on the half-frozen mud-slicked ground, clutching my grandmother\u2019s hand and trying to understand. That part of me battles with the part that understands more than she wishes she did.<\/p>\n

And no matter whether I\u2019m working, sleeping or in the middle of a busy street, my world will fall silent at 11am, a partner to the silence that echoes down through history, reverberating in the very absence of noise.<\/p>\n

And I saw my future, in that moment when the guns fell silent<\/i><\/p>\n

And also, though I realize that it may sound hypocritical as I yearly \u2018honor the institution\u2019:<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t trust people who make bitter reflections about war Mrs Barum. It\u2019s always the generals with the bloodiest records to shout what a hell it is. We shall never end war by blaming it on admirals and generals and all the other banal bogies.\u00a0 It\u2019s the rest of us that make shrines of those battlefields and name boulevards after those generals. We wear our widow\u2019s weaves like nuns Mrs Barum and glorify war by exalting its sacrifice. [\u2026] My brother died at Anzio, an ordinary soldier\u2019s death no special heroism involved, they buried what pieces they found of him. But my mother insists that he died a brave death and pretends to be very proud. The result of this? Now my other brother can\u2019t wait to reach enlistment age\u2026that\u2019ll be in September. What has my mother got for pretending that bravery is admirable? She\u2019s in constant sedation, terrified that one day she\u2019ll wake up to find her last son has run off to be brave\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

It may be ministers and generals who blunder us into war, but the least the rest of us can do is resist honoring the institution.<\/i><\/p>\n

~ The\u00a0 Americanization of Emily<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you could know, if you could see Then you would not repeat to yourself the old lie Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori How sweet and honorable it is to die for one\u2019s country It not only feels … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,48,17,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-below-the-waterline","category-med-2013","category-reflections-below-the-waterline","category-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-I2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2733,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730\/revisions\/2733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}