As I seem to have initiated this discussion:
Yes, I think the issue is more complicated than from my initial statement might be deduced. My idea was just to indicate that there are people out there who take a different stand due to their upbringing and their daily encounters.
However, even with those encounters in mind I guess a lot of people could join me in my daily life and just not see those relics I referred to. It is a matter of perception.
Yes, that education is important. Yes, I do look at tanks. But to me there is a difference between a tank at a museum site and a tank nicely polished at a war-re-enactment event with all that cheerful people around. Over here one (still) cannot find such events. But just crossing borders I’m confronted with those non-veterans riding around in summer with their army trucks decorated with cables, ropes and flags. I even saw a Dodge light truck with a German helmet with a bullet hole bolted to the motorcar.
Watching those school kids (even) at a war museum having their greatest time playing with the armour is sickening. Why not take them to the woods over here in winter, give them a spade and let them work further on those huge tank ditches soviet girls of their age taken from their homes were forced to dig. Because it’s no fun?
However, this all is complex. I too as a kid would have joined playing with the armour. And I did build scale models of guns and bombers. Strange enough it was that which led me to my historic interest of today and my anti-military standing. I am anything but sure that such a development is compulsary.
There are thousands of Commonwealth war graves around where I live. Many, many of them bearing an inscription like `he fought for our freedom´. However I found a single one saying `Mummy cries for you´. I leave it that.
