They Shall Not Grow Old

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homesteader

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jun 7, 2019
209
543
Recently I viewed the documentary They Shall Not Grow Old (2018). It is restored and colorized film footage of British soldiers in WW I. Lots of smoking by soldiers, mostly cigarettes, but a lot of pipe smokers were in there too. They even discuss at one point getting tobacco to the troops, and donations of tobacco.
I would recommend this movie. It is narrated by audio recordings of veterans of that war, and a lot of study went into the accuracy colorizing it.


10710
 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
My wife's dad was late to fatherhood after serving in World War One and much of his life he struggled with after-effects of poison gas exposure in the trenches. So she was particularly interested to see this film as soon as it was available to us, and I was starkly impressed with its sources and the effort to colorize and present the material so it would register with current viewers. Various aspects still echo in my head, one of which was the reaction of front line troops to the armistice. Rather than feel elation and celebration, many felt a strange sense of letdown and purposelessness, they had been so psyched and ready to give their all. It's an amazing documentary and well worth seeing from time to time. We saw this after seeing an excellent WWI exhibition at N.C. Museum of History, with recordings, a facsimile of a trench line, arrays of weapons and equipment from various nations on both sides, really a spectacular effort to remember that war. There are many wonderful stories of my wife's dad Charlie, called Happy as a boy, and remarkably upbeat all sixty-some years of his life despite his war disabilities. After the war he was in a works project program for vets and won a pancake eating contest that was in the news nationally. At Vets Hospitals he met and spent time with Bess Truman and Abbott and Costello. When in service, he met General Pershing who greeted him as a fellow Missourian. Charlie had quite a life with such a difficult start.
 

condorlover1

Lifer
Dec 22, 2013
7,995
26,613
New York
I saw the film and it made quite an impression on me. As I have remarked elsewhere since my Father was a lot older than most of my contemporaries parents pretty much everyone one on his side fought in that war. As a result I grew up surrounded by Uncles for whom the Somme and Thiepval were events that were relatively fresh to them even if it had been 60 years ago. Growing up everyone had an Auntie who had lost a brother in the Great War. I remember well my Auntie Mary always going on about her brother Bert who was killed at Thiepval and is listed as having no known grave. He was studying to be a doctor and wound up getting blown to bits by a German shell. He was one of the unlucky ones as a surprising number of my lot made it through that war and were still kicking around in the early 1980s.
 

blues4goose

Starting to Get Obsessed
May 15, 2019
243
720
30
Bethlehem, PA
Various aspects still echo in my head, one of which was the reaction of front line troops to the armistice. Rather than feel elation and celebration, many felt a strange sense of letdown and purposelessness, they had been so psyched and ready to give their all.
What struck me the most was how many of those interviewed seemed to enjoy the experience overall. I remember one even saying that he would do it all over again if he could.
 

danimalia

Lifer
Sep 2, 2015
4,385
26,440
41
San Francisco Bay Area, USA
I will have to watch this. Growing up, I don't feel like I learned much about WW1. What little I have learned is really very impactful and important historical context. I do recall being assigned All Quiet on the Western Front in school. I didn't finish the book but I recall the passage on tobacco rations and the soldiers trading among themselves to suit their preferences.
 
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magicpiper

Part of the Furniture Now
Jul 9, 2018
580
1,536
MCO
This was a fantstic film. I very much want to see the new 1917 movie that’s out now.
Our schools hardly teach anything about WWI. I would be surprised if the current history classes spend two minutes on it. WWII is slowly slipping away from our history classes as well Now, we’re re-writing our history and teaching our children that our country was & is horrible. We’re teaching them that nothing was accomplished for the good of mankind. And what sucks the most is that kids aren’t proud of their country. Our families have spilled their blood to create the world we live in now and I’m quite proud of that.
 
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Jan 8, 2013
7,493
733
I still have yet to see this, though I've been planning on it since before the release. I've always found WWI very interesting. The world was changing in so many ways at the time with new technologies and inventions... it really was the end of one age and the beginning of the one we now find ourselves in. And the clash of these two ages is evident in photos. And it's not taught in schools as much as I believe it should. I honestly don't recall much if any teaching on WWI when I was in grade school or high school.
 
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mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
blue4goose, yes, I noted the upbeat attitude and optimism of some of the most elderly survivors. First, they are survivors, so felt lucky for that. They've had some years to digest and distance the experience, which probably helps. Also, I suspect that optimistic people live longer and recover better from trauma than people who tend to be more pessimistic. As mentioned before, I was a little astonished by the comments about how many of the soldiers near the front were actually let down by the Armistice, since their whole purpose by then was to fight. What now? They seemed to say and feel. In "my war," there was an odd moment on the slow voyage back to a U.S. homeport when I realized time was running out on the war, and that perhaps the likelihood of surviving had improved. I hadn't been in the jaws of it like some others, but definitely lived in uncertainty.
 
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