Anyone know is anything is happening in Sheffield? I'm involved in both the TA and the ACF and am most suprised that (as far Im aware) there arent any parades or such like happening.

Its Sheffield, why would they want to celebrate something like D-Day ?

The Council suck big time when it comes to things like this....

Thats probably because we're all bored to tears with the whole D-Day thing!
Im not disputing the fact that they were all great heroes and did a wonderful thing by beating the germans, i just think that enough is enough and when it's on TV 24/7 for hours on end it gets really tedious. Can't they just let it rest now? or am i the only one who's abit sick of it all?

I can't stand the hypocrisy of all the rulers/politicians who attend the ceromonies. For 9 years and 364 days they couldn't give a sh*t about the OAP's who saved the country. For one day every 10 years they jump on the bandwagon.
"War pension sir - sorry that means your council tax rebate will be taken off you" etc etc.

I've utmost respect for those who gave their all in both world wars.

I was listening to Radio Sheffield the other day and they were posing the question: "Is too much fuss made about D-Day" in order to play devil's advocate and spark debate on the subject.

The thing that struck me was the fact that none of the callers I heard were actually veterans and could be placed into an age-group of between thirty and maybe forty years old, all people far too young to have actually had any living memory of the horrors of the Second World War.

The prevailing theme they raised was the notion that we don't do enough and that the youth of today should be forced to understand the sacrifice the men of that era made for their freedom...basically they wanted the young people of today to be forced to follow an example that they believed had been set by those who died in the war...despite the fact that this would deny the very freedoms that the sacrifices of the war won for those alive today! When you give someone freedom, you have to accept that they may use it in a way that you don't like, and that's a fundamental aspect of democratic freedom.

When you hear veterans themselves saying that it's time the whole thing was left alone, when you see old men shedding tears on the beaches where their friends were slaughtered, then maybe we should listen to them.

The sacrifices and heroism of D-Day and of both World Wars will never be forgotten, but maybe it's time we began to see them as history and stopped trying to wear them as a badge of national identity.

Maybe "D-Day Commemorations" would be more apt than celebrations?

Maybe "D-Day Commemorations" would be more apt than celebrations?

Very good point. The veterans are there to remember their lost friends. The "VIP's" are there to celebrate and pontificate. The media is there to drag the whole thing out to make cheap TV.

The very fact that George Dubyah compared the situation in Iraq to the struggle of the Allies in the Second World War should have cemented his reputation as an opportunist warmonger the second it reached the ears of the masses...because what people who saw their friends killed sixty years ago really want is for the same thing to happen again and again and again...that day should have been for the veterans alone, no politician can claim the right to speak on such a day and nor should they.