Yes – they were ordinary folks who did extraordinary things and paid a very heavy price. Lest we forget; all those brave men and women who served freedom so selflessly and so well.
Reading this short verse, epitomises the sacrifice made by so many brave and patriotic members of the Armed Forces, who laid down their lives for an ideal they couldn't really comprehend, but nonetheless, did so in the belief that they needed to help.
Every time I read it, I get a lump in my throat, and tears in my eyes.
In Flanders Fields By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) Canadian Army
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.
My grandmothers brother lies in cemetary extension in perone in
France..She found it to upsetting to ever talk about him her whole life
I only learnt a little of him after she passed away recently.
He was killed in action at mont st quientin 6 weeks before the wars end in the last major battle before the german troops withdrew.
Before he left he promised to send his little sister some money each month
so she could buy a piano .. she got the piano but sadly no brother to hear her play it..she kept that piano most of her life and I only heard of this at her funeral a couple of years back.. It sort of brings back a time long ago to the present for me every year now on
this day.
edit...I read a piece the other week on how all 'shot at dawn' soldiers have now been pardoned and are accorded some remembrance in this most horrific part of world history .
Australia alone refused to execute scared kids for running from the carnage btw.
I have done some military history tours in the last year and half. It was one thing to read about the battles where tens of thousands died, the casulaty reports seemed just like numbers. It is something else to see the memorials and the cemeteries that lists the names of those tens of thousands. It was something that I wasn't prepared for.
Lest we forget.
The picture is of the Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux.
War is one bunch of idiots (the rich) trying to steal off another bunch of idiots (the rich of somewhere else) and they use the ordinary man and woman to do their dirty work.
I feel a very great sense of shame that any one can see any glory in this vile exercise.
I do not hold any respect for any people who wrought this unbelievable carnage on ordinary men and women.
You are all fools if you think there is any glory in dying.
I have respect for the poor misguided fools that died on each side.
Ask our government how they have looked after our boys from Vietnam, the Melbourne Voyager disaster, Maralinga, the Korean War, WW2 and WW1.
I am sickened by the platitudes that are expressed by these people who will never go themselves but happily (with pics) send your sons and daughters.
Meanwhile I will hold my head in shame at the stupidity of these cowards who are willing to send somone else.
No Bert, there is no glory in war, or dying or suffering.
But, I continue to honour those that have fallen and those that have suffered, for in my gratitude and respect for their gallantry under horrendous circumstances, that is all I can do from where I sit.
However, I am able to separate my respect and gratitude for those poor souls that suffered, from those in power whose blindness and ignorance were the cause of these appalling conflicts.
Dennis you said the same thing as me but without emotion.
My mother was in a Japanese concentration camp in Java (a lot like our detention centers and almost as bad) and my father was a teenager in Holland when the Nazis invaded.
Needless to say they both survived. They taught me not to get bitter but don't forget that ordinary people did these unspeakable things to each other at the urging of their respective governments. This was basically driven by 'difference' or 'ethnicity' only to rationalise their unlawful behavior. Where I come from it is called stealing!
I am afraid we will see a lot more of this in the near future as Global Warming makes our over used resources even less to go around.
Lest we forget, so that we may do all that we can to stop it occurring again.
Evil wins when good men do nothing. The real evil is accepting war as a solution.
It is not about glorification but rather the remembrance of the futility of war.
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