Way to go, you Flemish asshats. Why bother planning to route this highway elsewhere? Too difficult; too demanding? Yeh right. If it wasn't for the British Expeditionary Force, you'd've all been cell-block biatches of the Kaiser.

Maybe the Belgians are actually on to something. The USA should consider a Disney Pearl Harbor, with an exciting log-flume ride incorporated into the wreckage of the battleship USS Arizona. What a way to rake in the bucks.

While we're at it, just abolish education of our youth about past wars. Why would they need to know about them, anyway? After all, Emperor Dubya, Prince Halliburton, and their leadership will bring "peace in our time."

Of course, I'm only kidding.

Except for that patriotic jingle at the end. Of course.

Sick: digging up the dead.
Just as Sick: putting them in the ground in the first place.

Cultures without major hangups about death dispose of corpses in less "permanently bothersome" ways.

How sad. Desecrating the dead for modern convenience?! Just a sign of the times. We are all doomed!

do any of them have gold teeth?

Whatever happened to the Blake epigram, "Drive your cart and plow over the bones of the dead"? As has been pointed out already, it's a far greater crime to have sent them to early graves in the first place.

"Im not dead! Im feeling Better!"

Lousy war vets

because in Soviet Belgium--the dead bring YOU out

I'm going to be cremated. Or stuffed, whichever is cheaper. Actually, I'm hoping to blown to so many pieces that no one will ever find all of them.

In soviet russia the dead dig up your motorways.

Skwidd - that is precisely why there are so many unfound bodies on these fields. They were literally blown to pieces. Lions led by donkeys.

Man I LOVE those soviet Russia posts!

WOOPS! Forgot to not put these things "<>" around this thing

"/I don't know why I like it... but I DO!"

In some parts of continental europe, this sort of thing is a fact of life. I'm from Doorwerth, right to the west of Arnhem, and almost 60 years later we still find a body every now and then. Actually, when this happens, people feel good about it. All efforts are made to identify the soldier, and to lay him to rest at the war cemetery with full honours. It means a great deal to us, and to the families.
So has this spot in Belgium been declared a communal wargrave, like a sunk warship? I don't believe so. No existing cemeteries will have to be cleared. I am sure that any remains found will be treated with respect and that serious efforts will be made to identify them and contact the family. Furthermore, the men found will be buried with the honours they deserve.

It there are reasons for building the new road that will keep people form being killed in stupid accidents, I'm all for it. You can't really blame the belgians for wanting to get on with living. When people fight for freedom, yours or mine, they're not fighting to establish musea.

The road is a good idea. The next time the Germans go through Belgium on there way to invade France, they will have a good road to go over.

Iturbide - if anybody has ever stood beneath the Menin Gate as the Belgians play the Last Post every evening - every evening since the end of the war - or walked around the war graves, they could not help but be moved by the way the Belgians honour the dead.

Oh well, Stamford.
I'll just cede the floor to the yanks for stupid Belgian/French surrender jokes. The sooner they return to their strange fascination with naked asian women, the better.
I wonder if losing the vietnam war has anything to do with that? Coming up in the next yar or two: a deluge of websites full of naked arab women.

"There are families who never had the chance to go to a graveside and grieve over their father, brother or son. They never got that opportunity. I think that is quite sad."

That's what you build memorials for, sheesh. Didn't anybody suggest this in.. ohhhh.. I dunno.. 1925?

If we don't build upon battlefields, I'm fairly certain we wouldn't have very many places to live at this point. We're all sitting on blood-stained earth. That's history and I can't help it... so I got over it.

That's pretty sad.

You guys are sick. Hehe.

I think the dead soldiers would have wanted it this way.

I'm surprised there's a debate about this. In Europe, it's common for cemetaries to have no grass and have multiple graves stacked on top of one another, just because so little room is allotted. It's also not uncommon that the top few people's remains be dug up and thrown away so that a new person can be burried there. I have to agree with Iturbide's 08-03-02 01:20:15 PM post.

I live in Ypres. Really, I do. And the people in this area do have great respect for the hundres of thousands who gave their lives here in World War I. Even me, and I'm just a 17-year old nobody. But I also know that the road in question needs to be built in that specific location; there are just way too many accidents around here because of bad transportation planning in the past few decades. So yeah, it's sad but necessary.

fuk the roadway. god, i swear, some people cant think..

Hey Flathead,

I just sent a letter to the editor pointing out my views in a reasonable manner.

thanks for standing up and be counted.

you'all might want to read my "pipco" fark info. 'tis a groundbreaking scandal.

I think we should all boycott Belgium by not eating waffles for a week. That will show them! Damn Belgiumonians.

Now you go back and be quiet and dream about farking vietnamese girls.

Who gives a flying fark. Those who were blown to pieces so Serbia could fulfill its now defunct dreams of a Greater Serbia, France get back German Lorraine, Russia hope to divide up the Habsburg Monarchy etc. certainly - NOT.

And you people should start to get the war propaganda from 1 century ago out of your heads.
"these men gave their lives that people throughout Europe can enjoy the freedoms and liberties they do" - my ass.
They gave their lives because the imperialistic alliances of the time "stumbled" into a stupid war.

AActually, vstick, you have a point.

That's the sad thing.

WW1 was a horrible thing. And what did we get next? WW2!

I'm not looking forward to WW3. Could you change president, please? It would make many people breathe easier.

Wait...the dead war vets are going to build the highway after they dig them up?

good point Stamford

Let's just call the Germans and tell them we're sorry about throwing them out of Belgium the last two times. If they want it back they can have it now.

08-03-02 01:32:10 PM Iturbide
Oh well, Stamford.
I'll just cede the floor to the yanks for stupid Belgian/French surrender jokes. The sooner they return to their strange fascination with naked asian women, the better.
I wonder if losing the vietnam war has anything to do with that? Coming up in the next yar or two: a deluge of websites full of naked arab women

wtf? most asian women aren't from vietnam, and we didn't get our asses whooped by korea, japan or china. many men think claudia schiffer is/was hot, and we kicked the germans' asses. most men have a fascination with naked women, unless they're gay, wherever the women are from, as long as they're purty

Actually, I think the fascination increases when they're gay. You can watch two women go at it and not have to worry about naked man-cheeks spoiling your view.

Back on topic...Yes, young men from all over the world made the supreme sacrifice by getting blown to bits at the command of inept generals fighting an essentially imperial war. What the shells didn't get, the rats did. Odds are all the bodies that weren't recovered were..I was gonna say 'rat shiat,' but that's insensitive...shall we say 'disposed of' before the war ended.

Zenmaster We should all be Zoroastrians and leave our dead on poles for the vultures. Saves taking up vast acres with cemetaries or polluting sacred rivers.

[artsy]

Anyone familiar with the poem "In Flanders' Fields" by John McCrae? Its writing during WW1 is very closely related to this very area.

Part of the poem has graced the locker room of the Montreal Canadiens for several decades: "To you from failing hands we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high."

Artsy types, WW1 history buffs... and Habs fans, Click here for the story...

[/artsy]

Ah, Belgium. The screen door of Europe.

"Pray you'll never know the hell where youth and laughter go."

I can see why the brits have a bigger deal with this than the belgians do themselves, the UK doesnt seem to've gotten over Flanders any more than the French have gotten over Verdun, they still publish books on the battle. heh. crazy tommies.

When i was at the somme and flanders there were tons and tons of brits, classes of english school children on field trips etc. incredible how much its still alive in their minds.

The germans have forgotten ww1 almost completely it seems, they have fresher memories of stalingrad and kursk and all those millions in russia to think about.

Latrina, i sneeze coffee all over my keyboard reading your post. well done.

Iturbide great post as well.

The children of England would never be slaves
They're trapped on the wire and dying in waves
The flower of England face down in the mud
And stained in the blood of a whole generation

Well, if they treat the 'found bodies' with respect and dignity and rebury them, more power to the Belgians.

But oddly enough, why aren't the American Farkers screaming about the building along the Potomac River in Maryland that displaced a 19th century graveyard? Or the building in Virginia on Civil War battlefields? Why give a fark about Belgians disturbing their 'sacred ground' when Americans are disturbing American sacred ground right now?

In Belgium waffles, big bertha eats you!

The whole asian thing probably is related to military, but not losing the vietnam war. For decades, millions of American men have been stationed in bases all throughout southeast asia, to this day. Lets think, millions of men whose wives/girlfriends are back home... Do you see something in this?

In Lafayette Indiana Subaru/Isuzu built an assembly plant on SR38. This road USED to carry the honorary title of the "Batan death march memorial highway". But, the Japanese threatened not to build the plant unless the name was changed. Many veterans were/still are extremely PISSED over that.

Talk about your strange irony.

Actually the whole "asian girl thing" exists because, well, they're purty...

Then again if you're obsessed with finding political motives to everything, then likelihood is that you'll find one for that.

The whole asian girl thing exists because, well, they're girls and there's a whole lot of them. Put a few million pictures of naked women of any ethnic origin and we'll be fascinated. As a wise man once said...

..."boobies!"

Have we had our Boobies dose today?

"Considering that they're all dead, I really don't think they care much."

I do, though. My great-grandfather is one of them. He was drafted at age 38 in 1918 and died at the third battle of Ypres. He had eight children when they called him up. No grave, no report of how he died, just a telegram and a medal with a ribbon on it.

Yeah, put the farking road in. Who cares, right?

sounds to me like the beginning of Poltergheist 4. ya know they built their highway over indian burial grounds....