On Fri, 24 Dec 2010 20:05:07 +1100, Geoffrey Heard 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:


>>Anne
>
>Hmmm -- on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 
>11th month, we in Oz have Remembrance Day ... 
>marking the end of WWI, a war in whcih between 
>50,000 and 60,000 Australians (well, Australian 
>residents, a lot of them were immigrants) died. 
>In fact, more than twice as many Australian died 
>in WWI than in WWII. Amazing carnage in WWI.
>
>Cheers (or something), geoff

I seldom go to this 11.11. Carnival thing, but it happens. Once, around 1990, 
there was this old gentleman standing there, and saying the same thing: on 
11.11 one should remember the dead of WWI, where he had been a young 
recruit during the last months of that war, the worst carnage anyone had seen 
up to then.
It was very impressive, because one of the organizer then climbed on the 
shoulders of another in the three minutes silence which precede the 
11.11.11.11 cacophony and said:
«Can anybody play a funereal march?»
Somebody could.
So when 11h11' came, this group played the march, and the whole place went 
on its knees.
And then there was a long silence. And then there was the cacophony. 
Switzerland, which was neutral, «only» lost a couple of hundred people in WWI 
(either on the border or because they were fighting in foreign armies).They 
are quite forgotten now, I must say.
But that day, it was very moving.
(By the way, the 11.11.11.11 tradition was already there before WWI, or so I 
have been told).
Season's greetings again.
Anne