[Info-vax] OT actors being treated as their screen character Was: Re: Nice

[Dirk Munk]

Paul Sture wrote:
> On Thu, 09 Aug 2012 16:04:05 -0500, Bob Koehler wrote:
>
>> In article <9vddf9-5e31.ln1 at news1.chingola.ch>, Paul Sture
>> <paul at sture.ch> writes:
>>>
>>> It made me realise that those of us whose countries weren't occupied
>>> don't fully understand what occupied countries went through.
>>
>>     I've heard stories about French complaining that American tourists
>>     act like the French still owe us for coming to thier rescue.
>
> The British don't take kindly to that either.  Certain Hollywood
> interpretations grated on my parents' generation.

Like the film where brave US navy men captured an Enigma machine, while 
in fact it had been a Royal Navy lieutenant.

>
>>     I've head stories about French critcizing anyone who uses thier forks
>>     concave side up.
>
> I'm pretty sure that is a British thing, not a French one.  And yes, when
> I lived in France I used to delight in irritating my mother by using
> French table manners in front of her :-)
>
>>     But I look at what France actually does, and I see they know there is
>>     a reason thier government made certain cemetaries legally US soil.
>
> I never saw any of the ones in France but I did visit one in Holland.  It
> was a very moving experience.

That must have been Margraten, in the very South of the country. Every 
grave there (or almost every grave) has been adopted by a family in that 
area.

In September we remember the Battle of Arnheim. Schoolchildren will lay 
flowers on the graves of the British and Polish soldiers in Oosterbeek. 
British veterans will visit the events, and there will be parachute 
droppings over the former battlefields. The Polish soldiers helped to 
evacuate the British, but the Polish commander general-major Sosabowski 
had foreseen the debacle and had told Montgomery the operation would 
fail. As a result he was blamed for the failure by the British. He died 
as a forgotten man. Just before he died prince Bernhard of The 
Netherlands gave a television interview where he mentioned the grave 
injustice done to the general and the Polish troops. He pleaded to 
correct this, and after some political debate in 2006 the 1st 
Independent Polish Parachute Brigade was awarded the order of William 
(the Dutch equivalent of the Victoria Cross), and general Sosabowski was 
posthumously rewarded with the Bronze Lion, a decoration just below the 
order of William, and the same decoration the British general Urquhart got.

The North of the country was liberated by British, American, Canadian, 
French and Polish forces. However the Canadians stayed after the war 
ended to help us out. The Dutch just love those Canadians. In 1995 they 
came over to remember the 50 year anniversary of the end of WWII. These 
veterans expected a bus tour to the battlefields and war cemeteries. 
Instead they got the same reception as when they liberated the country. 
They couldn't believe what was happening. And they returned in 2000, 
2005 and 2010. No such event is planned for 2015 because just a very few 
will be alive by then, and they will be very old. But some of them visit 
us at liberation day (May 5th) in other years as well.

>
>>     Except for three attacks, killing a total of a few thousand people,
>>     Americans haven't had a war on out own soil since the 1880s.  Most of
>>     us don't know what it's all about.
>
> Indeed.
>