Remembrance Day, 2008

[Cam63]

Lest We Forget.

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/anzac2.jpg

[Mermaid]

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g58/melbournemermaid/1963597677_97a0382c99_o.jpg


credit for photo goes to http://www.flickr.com/groups/rememberance/

[Bo Bo]

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.
— Lt.-Col. John McCrae

[thehod]

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

For the Fallen
by Laurence Binyon

[AllisterH]

There are currently only _6_ surviving WWI vets who actually saw action.

1 American
2 Frenchmen (1 of them is the oldest living man in France)
3 Brits (1 of them is Europe's oldest living man AND the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland)

As ghoulish as it sounds, I think Obama will definitely be going to a state funeral for the American since apparently, this year, the government approved his burial in Arlington in recognition of being the last known American veteran from WWI.

At an age of 107, I don't think he'll make 4 more years....Hell, there's a good chance that by the end of Obama's term, none of the veterans will be alive.

[Charles RB]

Between the 2007 and 2008 Remembrance Sundays, 39 or more UK servicemen died overseas.

Shit.

[CutterMike]

Well, how do you do, Private William McBride,
Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside?
And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916,
Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Did they Beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fir o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you forever 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

The sun's shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

And I can't help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

© Eric Bogle

Thank you, Veterans, everywhere.

[Solaris]

We promise, to your spirits and souls, to try to make no more wars for your grandchildren to die in... and if we can't manage that, to try to make sure that IF we must fight, must war... that the cause be to protect lives, rights, and freedoms from those who would snuff them out, and rob the future of those precious things.

Your legacy was in giving us the room to try to make this happen.

Our task is to do it.

[Pink Bat Maxine]

I see this every day I ride BART in to work. It's by the Lafayette station... one cross for every soldier lost in Iraq (yes, regardless of their religious affiliation, but that's another issue):

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i191/hissyspit/DC%20Protest%2019%20March%202008/ProtestPhoto18.jpg

It's shocking how much I've seen it grow.

As for Memorial Day quotes....

'But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." --Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address

[a. non]

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. -Winston Churchil

Lest We Forget

[MPagar]

There are currently only _6_ surviving WWI vets who actually saw action.

Interesting. I thought there wouldn't be any left at this point.

[AllisterH]

Interesting. I thought there wouldn't be any left at this point.

Well, the Central Powers lost their surviving vet this year and the youngest Vet is 107 while the oldest is 112.

Ghoulist it may be, but the American vet at 107 is not likely going to see the end of Obama's term. Apparently, Ross Perot had to intervene with the White House to allow him to be buried with full military honours in Arlington.

Hard to believe that there will be quite soon, no living person that fought in "the War to end all Wars/ The GREAT War".