flowers for the fallen

Dusk was falling when from the German trenches in front of the French line rose that strange green cloud of death. The light north-easterly breeze wafted it toward them, and in a moment death had them by the throat. One cannot blame them that they broke and fled. In the gathering dark of that awful night they fought with the terror, running blindly in the gas-cloud, and dropping with breasts heaving in agony and the slow poison of suffocation mantling their dark faces. Hundreds of them fell and died; others lay helpless, froth upon their agonized lips and their racked bodies powerfully sick, with tearing nausea at short intervals. They too would die later – a slow and lingering death of agony unspeakable. The whole air was tainted with the acrid smell of chlorine that caught at the back of men's throats and filled their mouths with its metallic taste.

— Captain Alfred Oliver Pollard, The Memoirs of a VC (1932)

The poppy came to be used as a symbol of remembrance for the soldiers who have fallen in battle, inspired by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae’s iconic poem written during the First World War, “In Flanders Fields”. It was this Canadian doctor’s loss of a friend during the Second Battle of Ypres that caused him to look upon the fields of poppies growing over the battle-fields, that moved him to write about war and loss and death and sacrifice.

I’ve had a few years on this Earth, and some of them lately, I’ve been aware of Poppy Day, and the discussion and the politics surrounding the celebrations. Last year, I had a very long and frustrating discussion on the subject which should not have happened. I was, alas, only just becoming familiar with the signs of the internet troll. But it did cause me to think about things more deeply and consciously.

In this post, I want to make two things very clear.

Firstly, being a girl in armour, I am aware of the very common misconception that we try to re-enact or recreate “war” as it was in medieval times, in our sport. Let me fix that. We don’t.

In our sport, I don’t think I’ve come across anyone who actually believes that what we do even approximates actual warfare. Many of the athletes who compete in full contact medieval combat are either in possession of a history degree of some sort, or are interested in history, and have some kind of understanding of what went on during battles. Speaking for myself, I think that taking the attitude that we are recreating “war” when we fight would insult the hardships, pain and fear that soldiers have always suffered in actual combat.

We recognise that we are safe. We have rules to make us safe. We go willingly and with joy into the lists to fight each other because we want to; we choose to. This is because we practice tournament fighting as a sport. And it is certainly not even in the same realm of experience. This, I acknowledge, as I am certain, do my peers in the sport.

And with that sorted out, I’d like to move on to the other point.

This is a scene in Luxembourg’s National Museum of Military History, (Diekirch), recreated from first-hand sources, detailing the invasion of Luxembourg in 1940.

When one is standing there in the museum, surrounded by all of the artefacts from that time, and so many others, when men killed each other not because they hated, but because their leaders decided it should be so, it is possible to feel the overwhelming sense of futility of that time.

Those soldiers did not willingly and happily go out to kill and to die. I believe that once the soldiers got to that point, in the picture above, where they had been fighting for weeks or months, without the feeling of safety, without the comfort of family, the snow knee deep and deeper, the constant cold and need always present, I believe that those who started out intending to happily go out and kill were only there because they had no choice.

Once troops are committed, there is no giving up and going home until the leader says it should be so. Those men (and now women) who become soldiers accept that they will not choose their own fate. They surrender it to the judgement of their leaders. And they are the ones who must suffer and die. They know this, and they go anyway. I think that must take some kind of bravery I can’t find in myself. And trust. Trust that their leaders will use their lives wisely.

However you look at it, if you are pro- or anti-war, you must acknowledge that a soldier – any soldier – is a brave and trusting person, whose life is used as currency for the security of a nation. And he KNOWS that. Whatever the politics and the philosophical arguments behind it, they are just abstract notions that change and waft this way and that, with time and wind.

The reality, the man in the broken boots with too little ammunition for the task his unit was given, who hasn’t eaten much, and who misses his children, who believes hard that his sacrifice will make a good difference because it is too late to turn back, and so he must believe; that man, every one, is worth remembering. They have a bravery and selflessness that most of us will never know or appreciate.

The celebrated poet, Siegfried Sassoon, was named “craven” by his commanding officers, after he sent his open letter of defiance to the British government, during World War 1. In it, he claimed that he was not returning to duty, following his convalescence, because the war was being needlessly prolonged by those who could make an end to it. This very famous letter has been the subject of much debate, and in everything of this nature, there are always valid points to be made for every argument. It is a recurring theme that we see in wars.

When does a war reach the point where a peace can be made, or at least an end to the war itself, but yet it is continued? That is something that the pro- anti-war camps can argue about amongst themselves. I am not interested in the debate.

What I am interested in is the value that leaders place on their soldiers. I think that whatever way we choose to remember our fallen soldiers should be accompanied by a reminder to our leaders to examine the value they place on those soldiers whose lives are still their currency with which they can invest.

For, as much as leaders may talk about “our men and women on the frontlines”, as if they know them, as if they understand what they are experiencing, it is plain that they don’t. If they did, our leaders would cease to treat their soldiers like .22 ammo (cheap and cheerful), and instead treat them more like 50 cal rounds (trustworthy, effective, and expensive to replace).

I’ll leave you all with the poem that began this post.

In Flanders Fields

BY JOHN MCCRAE

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

    That mark our place; and in the sky

    The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

    If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

        In Flanders fields.

publicity

Recently, one of our potential Rogues, Vincent, who wants to be (and could quite possibly be, in all respects excepting temperament) The Mountain, tagged in me an hilarious video on Facebook/YouTube. It featured some celebrity rapper (I couldn’t say whether he is a major or minor one because that is beyond my field of expertise), named “Big Narstie” (at this point, the spelling should be all the hint you need) fighting one of the UK’s own armoured athletes, known as Sophie “The Nutcracker” (no prizes for guessing how that nickname came about).

You can find the full video here. Vincent actually tagged me on it for the comments, which were, as comments usually go, varied and sometimes ignorant.

I thought it was a lighthearted look at what it takes to be a medieval fighter; a sort of juxtaposition comparing lifestyles (and possibly fitness levels) of the stars of today versus the heroes of a bygone era. And of course, Game of Thrones has done a lot to bring those heroes and their skills back into the mainstream limelight. So our historical sport, which is based in fact, has been romanticised and popularised by a work of fiction. Nothing new. And it’s a springboard by which we can expose our sport to those parts of society who are usually more focussed on other things that require little effort.

I’ve done a couple of these little videos as well, in order to improve awareness on platform that is accessible to the public, like this one, with Kevin Minter-Brown, when he was still “Kevlar Kev”at East Coast Radio. He now works as a DJ at Durban Youth Radio. A step up in my opinion.

Anyway, that video was a lot of fun because we didn’t tell any of the station’s staff what we were going to do. We started the “fight” outside the offices, and then took it through the station, into the studio, and knocked over a couple of things on the way. A couple of women screamed. Some people locked themselves in their offices. It was cool and ridiculous at the same time.

About a week later, I did an interview with Kamcilla Pillay, who was with the Daily News, and who is now with the Mercury. That was also good because Josh and I got to do some fighting at Settlers Park in Kloof, and we were able to tell our story. Kamcilla, as the journalist, actually got it all down correctly in the article, which, as those of you who have been covered by the press may testify, is a rare bonus.

Back to the Big Narstie video, though, it made me consider the pros and cons of doing “fun” videos for exposure to the general public. It’s not really an accurate portrayal of how we compete, but it gets people interested. And I think the onus is on us, the fighters, to make the best of the time (FREE time or space or bandwidth) that the various journos and bloggers give us as a platform. Every bit of publicity helps. We just need to ensure that the facts as we present them are accurate. There’s the line.

A couple of weeks ago, we did an interview with a blogger called Fenn, from Geek Warehouse, who attended a fun day that was hosted by DSSC at their training venue, Willow Creek. You can watch the whole thing here. It’s a pretty cool video, and Fenn was super excited about doing it. I could see he was learning new things at a rate of knots, which was great, because I am a lecturer and I get a huge kick out of seeing the learning process happening in people.

In my opinion, it was a fairly accurate representation of the fighters and the venue. There were a couple of factual misrepresentations, which will be noted in the comments. But those are things that Fenn could never have fact-checked, and I think he did a pretty good job on the whole.

The Rogues were there, and another journo, Sandy. She writes for a local magazine, The Crest, and her photographer, Heidi took some really great photographs, from the little I saw. She even managed to make me look good, which is a trick, I’ll tell you! Bron and I met with Sandy later on, and she interviewed us, about our experiences at IMCF in Denmark this year. I’m looking forward to reading the article, which will be out at the end of the month.

But I digress.

Back to publicity: it’s important that we take every advantage and every opportunity, no matter how big or small, no matter how silly or serious, to promote awareness of our sport. This is particularly true in countries with no history of European armoured combat, such as South Africa. Yes, I have mentioned in previous blog posts that Africa did, in fact, have armoured knights. There is historical evidence of that, as offered in those posts. But knights did not live in South Africa during the medieval period, and so when it comes to a cultural heritage perspective, I get a lot of negativity from people who say things like, “that’s not in my culture”. This may be true, but in terms of historical accuracy, neither is boxing, soccer, cricket, rugby, mixed martial arts, kung fu, karate, or any of the equestrian disciplines. They were all brought over from other places.

The theme that ties all of the above together is that they are all sports. And I’ve never come across someone who refused to participate in a sport because it was not in their culture. So, in all of the interviews and publicity that I do for the Rogues and my sport, I am focussing specifically on the fact that medieval combat is an international sport, not an historical re-enactment or a preservation of cultural heritage, which is a very touchy subject in South Africa, and one which I would personally prefer to avoid.

(Sir Stephen, I know this is the way you view it, and I respect your opinion, knowledge and experience; this is not meant to be a correction of your statement).

I think the point of this post is this: use every chance to promote awareness. Big Narstie’s bout with the Nutcracker may be hilarious and silly, but it’s also a good way to show others what we’re about. It gets people from outside of our normal circles interested and asking questions (hopefully), and keen to attend tournaments when they become familiar with the sight of armoured fighters on a poster. Every musician needs fans, every actor needs an audience, and every sport must have its spectators. Let’s grow that aspect, and maybe, someday, we’ll even manage to get funding. Don’t laugh. The last two years on planet Earth have shown us that anything is possible!