Discuss: The Forbidden Forest

Thanks for the reminder. 

Has anyone put together statistics on the ultimate number of casualties due to WWI, etc.?

Also, I wonder why they don’t explode such shell in place.  Is it because of not knowing whether or not they are chemical ordnance?

I once worked for an Alsatian gentleman. His brother was killed as a boy when he found an artillery shell and brought it home. He was going to make a vase for his mother’s birthday present. He was up on the veranda of their house, hitting it with a hammer when it blew him and the side of the house away. He said that his mother never recovered from that. No doubt.

I think such shells need to be demolished somewhere safe for both people and landscape. They’re toxic! Plus if they exploded where they lay, how many other shells hidden nearby might also go off?

What a horrible legacy to have to deal with. Wonder if the international community is helping the French with this burden.

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

When I was a girl, I visited the battlefield at Verdun. I was a nervous child, and thought that shells would explode at any moment. All I can say is, “See, Maman, I was right!”

I was stunned by this article. This is one of the most thought-provoking things I’ve read in a long time. The statistics describing the sheer volume of bombs left in the soil of Verdun, and the last paragraph were shocking. The writing is very good.

Plowboy @ #2 - About a year ago, a family that lives not far from me discovered that a treasured heirloom, an old artillery round brought back from WW2 by their late father, was a live shell that could explode at any time. The local bomb squad was called to dispose of it. Apparently the children of the family had often played and rooughhoused with the shell. Lucky, lucky people.