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@ 2009-11-10 – 19:55:52
"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."
Colonel John McRae, In Flanders Fields
November 11th - Veteran's Day in America, Armistice Day, 1918, Remembered
Shipscook
menhir
This is a very timely post, with an evocative painting, that somehow, is soft yet stark, with the reality of what war always was, what it is, and what death means.
QueeneMab
When I read that poem it makes me think about my Grandfather, he died before I was born. He survived the retreat from Mons, but his health was bad for the rest of his far too short life.
The first world war was meant to be the war to end all wars. I get increasingly more and more angry as I realise how many more wars there have been since then and how many innocent lives have been ruined and all for WHAT exactly. How many children have lost parents and how many parents have lost children. The pain just goes on and on. The list is endless, the second world war, Korea, Vietnam, the Falklands, various skirmishes in eastern europe and of course gulf wars I and now more endlessly and inexplicably gulfwar 2/the trouble in Afghanistan etc etc etc.
X
malakeas
Pro Lest we forget.
MrFlighty
Always and forever. xx
There was one more stanza.
"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 Field."
The author, Colonel John MacRae, was killed shortly before the end of the war in 1918.
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This piece chokes me up, when I think of all those poor young men on both sides that lost their lives or were horribly injured in the mud of the trenches.
I once went to Normandy with a bunch of old soldiers who had been at Pegasus Bridge and the visit we made to the war cemetry where they went to look for the graves of their old mates was one of the most moving things that I have ever experienced
And I can't watch a news broadcast now without brimming over with anger at our leaders whenever I see a coffin unloaded at Brize Norton or some poor kid in a wheelchair who isn't even twenty years old.