"War memorial over reacting?" Topic

Respite rooms at the war memorial.

Now I've heard everything.

As ridiculous as safe spaces at scary old Comic Con?

Probably.

Not looking forward to the next war. If you need a respite room just looking at a museum, how are people expected to go in a real battlefield?

Oh, yeah, that's where counselling comes in.

We're done for.

About 20 years ago I got to see the Pearl Harbor memorial. As I watched the movie about the WWII attack I began to tear up and, well, cry over what had happened. Because of that I decided not to go to the Arizona memorial to avoid embarrassment. I did not directly lose anyone in the attack but the sacrifice needed for the war affected me emotionally. The memorial area was pretty open and I wanted somewhere to "dry up". I don't know what "respite room" means, but I would have used one that day. I was born in Nov. 1950, but I grew hearing stories and feeling that the war was "yesterday".

My game room is painted in a color from Sherwin Williams called "Respite." The room is my respite from life. I don't see the problem with a respite room at the memorial--a place to relax and contemplate. We're not escaping reality, as with safe spaces. Just my opinion.

I was born in 1946. When I was ten I had been reading a book about Wake Island and quoted to my grandmother their line about "send us more Japs" which I thought was cool. And she burst into tears, crying oh those poor boys. Which was the point I realized it was REAL, not just a story, and she had lived it. It was a pivotal moment in my education as a historian.

Until I visited Auschwitz, I would have agreed with you, H man. That broke me. I can relate now to why folks may need respite rooms. Everyone's break point is different.

I was fortunate that my Dad caught malaria during jungle training. He was a chindit. His unit went in on the Broadway glider landings. After a week there were 12 men left out his company. All his friends who he'd known for 4 years died. Pretty sure he suffered survivor guilt but I never had the heart to press him on it.

War is awful.

Whatever.

I thought respite was implicit in war memorials. If you don't want to think about the war, don't go there, o rdon't read the plaques. Or leave. You go there to revive appropriate emotions, right? Is someone forcing people to visit the memorials? You can't just leave? Are they somehow aggressive?

But this is how we do things today. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's always been true of a lot of things.

We live in a strange time. Soon it will get stranger.

I'm not sure how I'd define respite but I defy anyone to stand and read the names and see the oil at the Arizona memorial or read a friends name at the Vietnam Wall and not feel a sense of loss and waste that is almost painful.

I went to the November 11th ceremony in downtown Vancouver on a rainy day, standing on a grassy slope. I had a wide umbrella and a woman, a complete stranger, took shelter beside me under my umbrella. Not a word was exchanged. During the ceremony she was quietly weeping. I said nothing but wondered who she was weeping for? Was it someone in particular or the horror of war at all? When the ceremony ended she turned to me and said thank you and walked off into the crowd. I never saw her again but I did do a mini-comic about it which was set to music: YouTube link

Exactly.

Now imagine if all these stories were hidden in a back room for no one to know about.

What a sterile emotionless place a war memorial would be. Hardly an accurate portrayal of things.

"Public displays of human emotion, no, can't have that."

I suspect they would always have seats or benches, bathrooms too.

A respite (which I've always attributed to the care of the elderly) rooms would have to be more private to be effective, judging by comments above. Private rooms for the emotionally distraught could prove.., problematic.

Stranger?

On site counselling? AI lost soldiers?

Lots of good comments, wasn't sure of the outcome, thanks.

PS

Onsite counselling by AI lost soldiers!?!

"Respite rooms at …"

"Conveniently located next to the snack bar and souvenir shop…" ;-)

I am the kind of guy that will tear up at a good war movie (Like whern Boromir runs to his death to save the hobbits) – self sacrifice gets to me.
A few years ago I was able to walk where my father walked in Normandy while with the 1/507/82. I got very emotional when I saw the house they put him in when he was wounded.
Same when I saw the church where the two 101 PIR medics worked on men from both sides. You could still seee the blood dstains on the pews. How does one not get emotional?

People have been getting emotional at military memorials for as long as they have existed.

I don't recall hearing of respite rooms, and certainly this is a first here apparently.

I have seen the Brady bunch go to the pearl harbour memorial.

If people hide their emotions from public view then future generations will learn not to be emotional as they don't see anyone doing it.

I really don't see the rooms getting much appropriate use, outside the odd wailer who may ordinarily just step out side or leave anyway, if they don't hang around.

"Getting misty eyed, I'll just pop into the respite room for a couple of minutes."

"Where did John go?"

Again, they only work, if there's only one person in a room at a time, I'll assume. Or you just have a room full of crying people because they don't want people seeing them cry, or because they are trying to stop crying. Fail, fail.

People have been getting emotional at military memorials for as long as they have existed.

I don't recall hearing of respite rooms, and certainly this is a first here apparently.

I have seen the Brady bunch go to the pearl harbour memorial.

If people hide their emotions from public view then future generations will learn not to be emotional as they don't see anyone doing it.

I really don't see the rooms getting much appropriate use, outside the odd wailer who may ordinarily just step out side or leave anyway, if they don't hang around.

"Getting misty eyed, I'll just pop into the respite room for a couple of minutes."

"Where did John go?"

Again, they only work, if there's only one person in a room at a time, I'll assume. Or you just have a room full of crying people because they don't want people seeing them cry, or because they are trying to stop crying. Fail, likely fail. It also draws more attention to minor issues if someone is dashing for the respite room.

What even in a respite room? Four blank walls? War pictures to keep people stirred up? Food and beverages everyone else will be sneaking in to partake of? A comfortable couch while the homeless use the retaining wall outside? Probably some vet while a generals grand daughter swipes left and right while sitting comfortably.

Handy for a heist, I'm sure. I've seen hussle.

Also takes up valuable space.

We just had Bondi 2 and now they are building rooms for people to cry in over things that (mostly) happened 20-80-100+ years ago.

Are they also building rooms at Bondi?

I can see a construction company making a mint out of this. All prefab, built in a factory, just pick your interior, pool table? Jacuzzi? Hmm..? Then just roll it off the back of a truck and bolt it in place. I can see the television advertisements now…

PS

It's a bit like they don't want people there crying and competing with the audio/video exhibits.

Everyone is talking about how emotional it is, but where is that vibe if everyone is hiding in the "not a loo?"

It becomes just another war museum and not a war memorial.

PPS

And it also gives the vibe that the people above, and anyone else, are doing something wrong and should be hidden away. I'm sure they won't force people to use the rooms, but it may become like the choice of peeing behind a piller or using the provided toilet. People will come to feel it's the appropriate thing to do. Plus it would chew up their time there and cause issues with their group as they break up, run off, wonder where people are.

I feel they will go mostly unused.

Many will probably feel to embarassed to use them. Then feel embarassed not to use them. "If you are crying, you should be in a respite room", that will become the unspoken rule. Until it becomes the rule. Then there will be other rules, as the people forget the pictures are supposed to make them up set. I can see it now…

I think there are two key differentiators compared to our history of war memorials.

First, is that the WW2 generation is now in EXTREME advanced age. A 100 year old getting weakened by their emotional response may indeed be a life-threatening situation. See my story below…

Second is that we are more observant and more careful now than we were in the past. Some folks prefer not caring. In fact they are offended by caring for others. I'm not one of them. I prefer to be respectful and to care for the wellbeing of others. Oddly, though, I don't care if I offend those who are offended by caring.

Now the story. This was about 15 years ago now, but I think it is an even greater cause for concern today. I was visiting my widowed mother, who came of age during WW2. She lived with my aunt, her sister, who was 5 years older. Both were already quite old and frail.

My aunt was what in prior years might have been called "a spinster lady". From the upper mid-west. She never married. Lived with and cared for my grandparents in their later years. And worked her whole life.

I was sitting and talking with my aunt, and somehow we got to talking about earlier days in her work. I think maybe it was my mother criticizing her for being hard of hearing (they bickered constantly), and the topic of her hearing going bad due to working in a weaving mill during "the war".

And somehow that got her onto the story of the time that a Navy officer came to visit their mill. He presented them with an award for their war production, and recounted a story. He had been aboard a Liberty ships crossing the Atlantic. They had been torpedoed, and the ship sank. All aboard wound up in the water (none got to the remaining lifeboats before it went down).

He held up one of the blankets from the mill. This was the blanket that saved his life. He said that the weaving was so tight and perfect that the blankets from this mill held air and did not sink. Those (like himself) who had not had time to put on life vests were lucky that the ship had been carrying a supply of blankets, and the men in the water clung to the blankets because they would not sink, and they survived.

And as she told the story of this man coming to tell them this, she literally broke down. She cried and cried, and could not even support the weight of her head as she sat at the table. She just put her head down on the table and wept.

Memories held deep inside, that have not been shared or even thought of for decades, can spur extremely powerful emotions. And frail and elderly people can be physically weakened by such emotional rushes. And I am all for giving them a quiet place to rest and recover from that.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

I was so overwhelmed at the Menin Gate, during the last post ceremony a few years back I honestly had bite my tongue and clench my fists to hold myself standing tall.

"the WW2 generation is now in EXTREME advanced age. A 100 year old getting weakened by their emotional response may indeed be a life-threatening situation."

So let's not shove them in a room away from people.

"Second is that we are more observant and more careful now than we were in the past. Some folks prefer not caring. In fact they are offended by caring for others. I'm not one of them. I prefer to be respectful and to care for the wellbeing of others. Oddly, though, I don't care if I offend those who are offended by caring."

Do you care for people of colour?

Would you like them to go to another room?

I'm waiting for the grieving wife who refuses to leave her seat on the bench at the front of the exhibit.

"And I am all for giving them a quiet place to rest and recover from that."

It's called a bench.

At the front of the exhibit.

"I was so overwhelmed at the Menin Gate, during the last post ceremony a few years back I honestly had bite my tongue and clench my fists to hold myself standing tall."

But I sure you didn't want to cry like a baby in the cupboard, right?

Ever watch dance moms?

"Save those tears for the pillow."

And I thought soldiers were supposed to be tough.

Now, there's some crying, poor kids.