For me, the French have always exemplified a kind of continental ‘make love, not war’ mentality. I just never knew they’d take it so far.
According to reports coming out today, Canada’s monument at Vimy Ridge has become a hotspot for swingers and exhibitionists. Apparently, old WWI trenches and unexploded ordnance does it for some people. Just stay on the paths…or your petit mort will become something of a grander variety.
I know the Vimy shenanigans are going to piss a lot of people off. And I am by no means endorsing getting lucky on a giant statue (phallic though it may be) covered with the names of dead soldiers. Still, I hope people will keep this in perspective. At the end of the day, the Vimy memorial doesn’t have huge significance for the people of France. Very few French people were involved in the actual battle, and while strategically significant, the battle doesn’t have the same imaginative cachet as the invasion of Normandy. I’d be a lot more angry if Canadians were flying to France to hook up on the monument. It actually means something to us.
At the end of the day, the Government of France recognizes and is grateful for what Canada accomplished. And I’m sure the exhibitionists at the monument will be punished (if they’re caught, anyway). Grousing over another country’s indifference to our wartime sacrifices has always struck me as a little un-Canadian. If Vimy Ridge demonstrates anything about the Canadian spirit, it’s that we just get the job done. Need an impregnable enemy position captured? Send in the Canadians. No fuss, no muss, and no parade required. As a nation, we should alwats remember what we’ve accomplished and the sacrifices we’ve made. But perhaps we shouldn’t be too persnickety when other nations don’t follow suit.
Where’s the ‘exploring trenches’ pun?
I was leaving that to you. And I was not disappointed.
Sorry, but I can’t be as laissez-faire about this as you seem to be. Vimy (and Beaumont-Hamel, and Tyne Cot, and The Menin Gate, and all other memorials to fallen soldiers of all stripes) is no less sacrosanct in my opinion than a church graveyeard, or for that matter, the church itself. Yeah, yeah, I know - people have been making out in graveyards for eons, but that doesn’t make it right.
The French authorities take a strong stance on this, and so they should.
C’mon. “Impregnable enemy position?” You’re killing me here.