{"id":5596,"date":"2019-12-23T06:33:59","date_gmt":"2019-12-23T12:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.zoha-islands.com\/?p=5596"},"modified":"2019-12-23T06:33:59","modified_gmt":"2019-12-23T12:33:59","slug":"the-christmas-truce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/the-christmas-truce\/","title":{"rendered":"The Christmas Truce"},"content":{"rendered":"

From all of us at Zoha Islands and Fruit islands to all of you. Have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I chose to post this Christmas story as I found it inspirational for the times we live in this world today. May it find its way to inspire others around our globe and in our Second Life World.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Inspirational Christmas Story <\/b><\/h1>\n

The Christmas Truce <\/b>
\nby David G. Stratman<\/b><\/h2>\n

From his book We Can Change the World <\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Inspirational<\/p>\n

It was December 25, 1914, only 5 months into World War I. German, British, and French soldiers, already sick and tired of the senseless killing, disobeyed their superiors and fraternized with “the enemy” along two-thirds of the Western Front (a crime punishable by death in times of war). German troops held Christmas trees up out of the trenches with signs, “Merry Christmas.”<\/p>\n

“You no shoot, we no shoot.” Thousands of troops streamed across a no-man’s land strewn with rotting corpses. They sang Christmas carols, exchanged photographs of loved ones back home, shared rations, played football, even roasted some pigs. Soldiers embraced men they had been trying to kill a few short hours before. They agreed to warn each other if the top brass forced them to fire their weapons, and to aim high.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A shudder ran through the high command on either side. Here was disaster in the making: soldiers declaring their brotherhood with each other and refusing to fight. Generals on both sides declared this spontaneous peacemaking to be treasonous and subject to court martial. By March 1915 the fraternization movement had been eradicated and the killing machine put back in full operation. By the time of the armistice in 1918, fifteen million would be slaughtered.<\/p>\n

Not many people have heard the story of the Christmas Truce. On Christmas Day, 1988, a story in the Boston Globe<\/i> mentioned that a local FM radio host played “Christmas in the Trenches,” a ballad about the Christmas Truce, several times and was startled by the effect. The song became the most requested recording during the holidays in Boston on several FM stations.<\/strong> “Even more startling than the number of requests I get is the reaction to the ballad afterward by callers who hadn’t heard it before,” said the radio host. “They telephone me deeply moved, sometimes in tears, asking, ‘What the hell did I just hear?’ ”<\/p>\n

You can probably guess why the callers were in tears. The Christmas Truce story goes against most of what we have been taught about people. It gives us a glimpse of the world as we wish it could be and says, “This really happened once.” It reminds us of those thoughts we keep hidden away, out of range of the TV and newspaper stories that tell us how trivial and mean human life is. It is like hearing that our deepest wishes really are true: the world really could be different.<\/p>\n

Christmas in The Trenches – Song <\/strong><\/p>\n

To listen to this inspirational Christmas story in song<\/strong><\/p>\n

Words & Music by John McCutcheon, c. 1984, John McCutcheon \/ Appalsong<\/p>\n

This song is based on a true story<\/a> from the front lines of World War I that I’ve heard many times. Ian Calhoun, a Scot, was the commanding officer of the British forces involved in the story. He was subsequently court-martialed for ‘consorting with the enemy’ and sentenced to death. Only George V spared him from that fate. — John McCutcheon<\/strong><\/p>\n