re: The Christmas Truce of 1914-with pictures, video, music

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This generation was a "we" generation, than it became a "me" generation.

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This generation is also in the thick of an information revolution in a Long Peace. Things are changing so quick it's hard to keep up. And we are so privileged. So lucky. I'd doubt that any of us truly knows what true hunger is. Or what it's like to have tens of thousands of your countrymen killed week in and week out.

Most of those soldiers were mere boys, thrust into the midst of some of the most brutal fighting ever seen. The war made them. Changed them. Molded them. And they took it back home.

This current generation by and large has no idea of what War actually is. They live comfortable lives with hurt feelings being the biggest threat to their day to day. And are sold sunshine and rainbows from every angle. That everything has to be accepted and the tiny minority must be pandered to.

These things are luxuries not afforded in truly hard times. We lack true leviathan threats. The hardest blades are forged in the hottest fire, and the world we live in today is barely embers.

Maybe we should be thankful that our young people aren't being sent off to die in droves.

That's pretty much my point. Both sides on the western front had aspects of shared culture through socio-religious aspect of Christmas. It was that that let the profound beauty of humanity shine through on that cold December day.

It was an unique set of circumstances that we have not seen replicated in scale since.

When an enemy has declared jihad on your culture, when their values are antithetical to yours, when nearly all aspects of culture clash, there aren't warm fuzzies to be had.

And also, as you pointed out, technology has shifted lines of battle. There's a world of difference between pushing a button and blowing up a dozen highlighted enemies versus putting a knife through his chest.

Thank you for posting this, first I've heard of it.

Hard to believe it's been 101 years since the Christmas Truce. I've always been fascinated by WWI. It's aftershocks live with us to this day. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's the single most transformative world event since the discovery of the new world.

The redrawing of borders in the Middle East after the world wars is one of the main causes of the turmoil there today.

We tried to put too many different ideological groups under 1 country..had we left it alone and let them from their own countries the ME would likely be more peaceful.

Nice thread, thanks for posting.