Public disrespect for Historical Artifacts

When I last visited WASHINGTON, I was appalled at the lack of respect shown national MONUMENTS . There was a group of folks cruising ( for want of a better term ) Through ARLINGTON . They dropped candy wrappers and snack wrappers on the graves as they cruised through .I did NOT see them even try to read the stones or plaques .I don,t know about you , but to me that was desecration of the most special place in all of what is considered monuments or MEMORIALS . to dirty a gravesite at ARLINGTON is to me , to be likened to the act of spitting in the face of the person who is interred there . !!   tankerbuilder

Occasionally, we all do.

Ray Marotta

Having lived on Oahu,  I have been to the Arizona Memorial many times.  I once took a young woman from a remote corner of the former British Empire there and, on our way out to the Memorial on a Navy Mike boat I mentioned to her that there are over 1100 crew members entombed within the wreck.  At first, to her, it was just a number.  After disembarking on the Memorial she saw the wall with the names and turned to me white as a sheet with eyes as big as dinner plates and said "All these?" and burst into tears.  While I never saw any gross disrespect from anyone,  it was the Japanese tourists that showed the most respect and sadness...

Ray

In October 2002 , my wife and I were visiting her parents in upstate New Jersey. One afternoon we went into the city ( NY,NY of course). It was the first time we had been there since the 9/11 attacks, and I wanted to visit ground zero. Not so much as a tourist but to pay respects and maybe bring some closure. Having had dinner at WIndows on the World and seeing the Twin Towers so many times , the events of that day still had a surreal feeling for me. Just couldn't get used to the hole in the NY skyline.

While there I was moved by all the names of missing , killed, remembered posted every where . Flowers, pictures, letters, memorabilia from loved ones, etc.

At ground zero itself I was struck by the enormity of it all and saddened and the "tale my pic in front of" attitude of many tourists  . My wife asked to take a pic of me in front of that 16 acre hole in the ground. I told her " It's not that kind of tourist site."

 Another time while visiting West Point ,there was a Japanese family letting their young kids climb and run all over the WWI memorial with all the names of the men we lost .

 I finally spoke up ," It's a memorial to our war dead, not a playground children. " The father must have heard me and realized and remembered how sacred a place as that can be. He reigned in his kids , gave me an apologetic, knowing nod and continued on their way. I saw this same family around the campus several times during the day viewing the different memorials , the father would be reading the various bits of info and telling his kids about what they were viewing. Maybe he just needed to be reminded. 

 Howard 

yes that is a serious OOPS, and I visited twice.

What a jurk !

  Montani semper liberi. Happy modeling to all and every one of you.

                                  Crackers                        

I farted in the National Air and Space Museum once...

I think you mean the boat that was found in the Sea of Galilee, at Kibbutz Ginnosar. I went there in November 2010 and it is impressive. But you do see people completely ignoring the "no photo" signs and taking flash pictures.

I didn't mess with Israeli police while I was there, that's for sure and this is near a border area.

The Sea of Galilee is a beautiful place.

heading back toward the comments about the Monitor not in public viewing while "those who no better" decide what to do.

The Israeli's have what is called the "dead Sea Boat" found during a drought when the water was extremely low, a fisherman went to find an outboard motor he lost overboard, in the search he also found the boat. they sealed it in foam and brought it ashore. It sits at the Kibbutz where where they found it. You can see it in a water solution while they work on a formula that will be absorbed by the wood so it will survive in the air. OH and they have a location of a second one so when the procedure works, they can get that one too. Oh again, these are special because they plied the Dead Sea DURING the time of CHRIST.

BUT the big thing is we can see it WHILE they are working on the solution.

Dan

Mark,  What you say about visiting sites often has a profound affect. I worked at a College before retiring here in England. Each year a coach load of our students went to visit one of the concentration camps to learn about the holocaust, and it was always a very moving experience for them.  We also have a Battleship that is a designated war grave. It is the Royal Oak, and she lies in Scapa Flow right up in the Orkney and Shetland Islands north of Scotland. Very few people visit because of the remoteness, and she also lies a lot deeper down than the Arizona does in Pearl.

My 30-year-old daughter and her fiance visited the Arizona Memorial for the first time last year.  Although she knew all the facts about Pearl Harbor from her history classes in school she said that actually seeing the ship had a profound influence on her.  Especially when she thought about how both her grandfathers went from high shool straight into the Navy during WWII. 

I think that Memorials are important, but they lose their significance unless we can educate successive generations on what they represent.

Mark 

Having lived on Oahu,  I have been to the Arizona Memorial many times.  I once took a young woman from a remote corner of the former British Empire there and, on our way out to the Memorial on a Navy Mike boat I mentioned to her that there are over 1100 crew members entombed within the wreck.  At first, to her, it was just a number.  After disembarking on the Memorial she saw the wall with the names and turned to me white as a sheet with eyes as big as dinner plates and said "All these?" and burst into tears.  While I never saw any gross disrespect from anyone,  it was the Japanese tourists that showed the most respect and sadness...

Ray

 Yes there is a lot of disrespect out there these days, but I’d like to note the other side. Several years ago the wife and I were visiting Fort Morgan, on Mobile bay. It too is a National park, and the fort played a role in the Battle of Mobile Bay during the civil war. There were few people there other than the staff. As we walked into the “quadrangle” area of the Fort, there was a rather young park employee wearing a period soldiers uniform (confederate actually). He looked over, pointed at my “Viet Nam Veteran” hat and said “is that for real”. When I said yes, he came to a stiff attention and snapped off a very sharp salute and said “thank you sir!” I still get a little misty eyed remembering that one. There’s still plenty of good one’s out there, we just have to look a little harder now days.

Unfortunately we have moved at least 2 generations on from WW2, and I guess that is part of the problem. Younger people cannot relate to it. This does not however, excuse disrespectful behaviour. My late father survived the that war, and like most veterans did not want to talk about it. Over here in England, due to metal prices rocketing, we have had a spate of thefts of lead from church roofs and even worse, bronze nameplates from many of our war memorials listing the fallen. Those perpetrators are just sick individuals that deserve 10 years in jail for such despicable thefts, along with any scrap metal dealers who accept and pay these individuals in cash.

The general consensus seems to center on respect, or lack thereof.

Respect should be taught through the generations.....      it worked for me.

Manstein's revenge

Rich:

I just visited the thread "USS Monitor turret water tank drained" which has been locked because of conflict between posters. The issue revolved around the alleged "elitist" attitude of conservators in protecting historical naval artifacts from the public while undergoing restoration. I don't want to resurrect that particular argument, but it brought to mind my poignant experience when visiting the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

I stood with my wife on the deck below which rested the remains of more than 1100 of her crew, before the wall on which their names are engraved. She stood struck silent, moved to tears, I following close behind. Around us the floor littered with trash: chewing gum, cigarettes, candy and food wrappers and such. Loud conversation, raucous laughter, smoking, eating, and a lot of general grabassing surrounding us.

Call me elitist. The boorish, insensitive general public does not deserve other than very tightly controlled access to these treasures. In the instance of USS Arizona and her 1100 lost souls, the people responsible for the administration of the memorial are, IMHO, not nearly "elitist" enough.    

 

The behavior you cite has nothing to do with the fact that these people were at a memorial (although when I was there I saw nothing of the sort).  It has everything to do with the trend in bad behavior/lack of manners/etc. we see in every corner of life today.  Whether in a library, theatre, book store, pro ball game, etc....And it gets worse every year, IMO...

You're absolutely right.  But if you suggest that people raised that way are boors, you will be accused of imposing your own morality on others, which is anathema to the "modern", relativist way of thinking.  "Who are you to tell me how to behave, man?  Just be yourself, man!  If it feels good, do it, man"  "Personal responsibility?!  Oh, ho, ho, you've obviously used a term that doesn't exist"

I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said above, but this is simply symptomatic of the decline of civility in our society.  Everything from political discourse on down has become nothing but a shouting match.  Witness a member of the House of Representatives who interrupts the President's speech with the shout "You lie"!  Whether you agree with Obama or not, that is hardly appropriate.  The Glenn Becks, Rush Limbaughs and the other screaming heads, whether on the right or the left, are setting the tone and it is neither civil, nor productive.

I also agree that much of this starts at home.  Children are not taught today to respect their elders.  They are left by parents too busy maintaining a certain lifestyle to occupy their time with video games such as "Grand Theft Auto" which are nothing more than violence and trash. 

Schools also must bear their share of responsibility.  Respect for teachers, or at least respectful behaviour, is not demanded.  Even worse, whether due to political correctness or just the fact that compared to the rest of the first world we have a crappy public education system that caters to the lowest common denominator, children are not taught about this nation's history, and certainly not about the wars fought and sacrifices made to purchase and preserve our freedoms.

Certainly, we can't have our kids taught about the violence of war before the go home to play Grand Theft Auto, now can we?  We might just cause them to grow up to be violent if we taught them about that.

It is up to each and every one of us who are parents and grandparents to do what we can to instill in our children the proper respect for their elders, for their country, and for the sacrifices made for it, and for those who made those sacrifices.  I would be very interested to see, if you polled any given group of public school high school seniors, how many could tell you what "D-Day" was, or what happened at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  I bet it would be less than half.

The bottom line is this - if we the people do not do what we can with our own kids and grand kids, and if we do not demand better from our public schools, then our society will continue to slide ever closer to the abyss.  We need to turn off the screaming heads on radio and television, we need to limit the time our kids sit in front of their play stations and we need to spend the money and above all the time to take them to various monuments and explain to them what they mean.

IMHO,

Bob

Whether a person is respectful or disrespectful, all points to the once sourse of this attitude....the home environment. Parents are too permissive and lazy to teach their children. They want to be their children's pals, not a teacher of how to behave in a civilized society. The result is a social breakdown as was seen in the riots in London, England. At one time, the English were noted for respect for property and people. In the last two decades, this attitude disintegrated into,"what's yours is mine, even though I never earned it" and "I have a right to do what ever I damn well please. The hell with your feelings". The results of this social poison,  turns people into a pack of feral  savages, like the novel "The Lord of the Flies."

  Montani semper liberi !    Happy modeling to all and every one of you.

                       Crackers                

No kids at home. I'm 62. I have 4 children and 9 grandkids, 13 to 2. I don't smoke in front of them. That's the best I can do. It's my house and my rules but I try to be good to them.

I'm one of those "old time farts". I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag with a tear in my eye. I ALWAYS put my hand over my heart and take the hat off of my head. And I DON'T SMOKE!! I always salute the Flag properly, or at least Navy properly . I always call those older than me, which are becoming fewer these days, SIR or MAM. I am proud of this country and proud of my limited service towards her freedom, but I am well aware that it is not perfect. 

I build little plastic ships and little plastic tanks and little plastic airplanes for a hobby and sometimes a living. And I never once forget what they represent. They represent good men that died too young in terrible and sometime pointless wars. Whether our side or the other sides, they died for their countries. A warrior lost is a terrible thing but something we have lived with for many thousands of years. As they say,  wars are created by the old and fought by the young.

I will not disrespect any man that dies for his country and his beliefs. Each model I build, well or poorly, has a story behind it. It is a machine of war and death but it is also a story of courage and faith and survival.

To disrespect the history, the sacrifice, the death, the emotion of a memorial is enough to turn my stomach. 

Oh, and I still field strip my cigarette butts when in public. And carry them to the nearest garbage can. Old habits die hard. Great Lake's parade ground is a BIG place when you have to clean it on your knees!!!

Bruno, that's touching. And very well said, sir

(If you have kids at home, I hope you don't smoke there, too).

There is little respect for history because it is dry and boring and not animated or done with CGI graphics: unless you know something about history. History can be interesting but it takes some effort to make it that way. Schools don't teach history anymore, the lecture it and the kids normally just don't care. In high school I learned about Israel and the end of WWII from my German teacher because he was there. I learned about D-Day from my Chemistry teacher because he was there. I learned about B-17s and anti-submarine patrols from my father, who still had a bullet in his leg from it. I learned about Korea from my uncle. Heck, I learned about the Russian Revolution from my grandfather because he lived through it and lost half his family in it. Today's kids don't get any close personal history because most of those people are dead now. 

As for smoking? I'm a heavy smoker but I don't smoke in church, I don't smoke in my mother's house, and I don't smoke at war memorials or any other place like that. It's just plain disrespectful. My addiction is not more important than respecting those that gave the last full measure for their beliefs and their country. 

A large portion of the disrespect is because it seems most kids these days don't respect themselves so why would they respect their neighborhoods, or streets or parents? Much less a war memorial? I watch punks of all ages and sexes wander past my house and just throw their junk on the street, in my yard or on the sidewalk. As a kid I would NEVER have done that to my neighbor's house!

The world seems to be over the idea of respect for anything anymore. And it's pretty sad. 

I must respectfully disagree, since most smokers see nothing wrong with simply dropping their butts on the ground or on the floor, regardless of the fact that there are ashtrays or other appropriate disposal items near at hand.

15 years ago I visited the Arizona. I was struck by the eerie silence of the harbor as we were riding the ferry, and was deeply touched by the solemnity of the place.

2 years ago, I visited with my children and wife, now older. I was disappointed by the loudness of the roar of the ferry motor. I was shocked and angered by the rudeness of so many of the visitors who were loud, boisterous, and disrespectful of the place, the memory, and their fellow visitors.

something bad has happened in the last dozen years...

tankboy51

My wife and I were at the Pearl Harbor memorial about 9 years ago.  Everyone was quiet and respectful there.  However, before the tour started, this young lady asked me, "Excuse me, but my husband and I were wondering why there is a memorial to Ariziona in Hawaii?"

Oh well.  So it goes.

Doug

All right now, baby it's all right now... buh boom buh boom...

Tara van DerVeer in the Basketball Hall of Fame. How bout that?

All is good at the farm.

Point taken Bondo. I'll zip my lip. I don't usually air my gripes so loudly, but then that might have gotten me fired from work too, barking about the stupid management. Actually it was more of joking about them.

I can remember years ago on a trip to China, on a tour of the Forbidden City, my dad being handed an on the spot fine for smoking where he shouldn't have been (was signposted).

Somewhere like the Arizona Memorial, where one is not likely to spend more than 20 minutes or so before the boat leaves, surely a little self-restraint couldn't be too much to ask.

tigerman

Interesting that my experience there seems to have been unique. In a way I'm glad to hear it. It was demoralizing for me and my other half. Must have been some kind of special day, but memory doesn't serve me about it. I'm thinking, maybe a boy's high school field trip; that would certainly account for it.

My wife and I were at the Pearl Harbor memorial about 9 years ago.  Everyone was quiet and respectful there.  However, before the tour started, this young lady asked me, "Excuse me, but my husband and I were wondering why there is a memorial to Ariziona in Hawaii?"

Oh well.  So it goes.

Doug