Posted on 05/24/2015 6:09:17 PM PDT by NRx
MARGRATEN, Netherlands — They haven’t forgotten. For 70 years, the Dutch have come to a verdant U.S. cemetery outside this small village to care for the graves of Americans killed in World War II.
On Sunday, they came again, bearing Memorial Day bouquets for men and women they never knew, but whose 8,300 headstones the people of the Netherlands have adopted as their own.
For the American relatives of the fallen, it was an outpouring of gratitude almost as stunning as the rows of white marble crosses and Jewish Stars of David at the Netherlands American Cemetery. Each grave has been adopted by a Dutch or, in some cases, Belgian or German family, as well as local schools, companies and military organizations. More than 100 people are on a waiting list to become caretakers.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I was just talking to my Daughter around an hour ago.
I mentioned to her that when I was in high school we read the poem “In Flanders Fields” which was written by a Canadian soldier in WWI.
She said she had not read it and she was a literature major. She is also a teacher and she said her kids have also not read it.
I guess we are forgetting, especially WWI. I think Flanders is in Belgium.
She better read it right away. I’m amazed she never did. It’s a great poem.
Very moving story. Thank you for posting. God bless the brave heroes who saved the world.
Yes it is. Simple and short yet very touching. The author did not survive the war.
I think it should also be remembered that (I believe) 55,000 Dutch joined the German Army and were sent to the Western Front.
I thought it was mostly Canadians that fought in Holland. Interestingly, most of Holland wasn’t even liberated until the very end of the war.
Correct for $100. It's in the north, and its language, Flemish, is close to Dutch. Wallonia is in the south, where they speak a language that the French do not acknowledge as French, but pretty much is.
That takes nothing away from those Dutch who did resist the Nazis.
The French don’t even consider ‘Quebecois’ to be French.
I go to a forum on the JFK assassination and this Dutch guy has posted “thank yous” in the off-topic area, thanking America precisely.
V-E day too, thanks from Europe as well. They have a special jeep drive in Lyons France. http://fifties-lovers.goodforum.net/t29331-19eme-jeep-day-craponne-69?highlight=jeep
>>I mentioned to her that when I was in high school we read the poem “In Flanders Fields” which was written by a Canadian soldier in WWI.
I teach it to my hs students every year as an example of a rondeau.
I emailed it to her just a few minutes ago.
Next time I talk to her, I will ask what Rondeau is.
I always have a great time with teaching them villanelles, rondeaus, sonnets (Spenserian included) and testing them on the little minutia involved with each.
“Mr. XXXXXXX, why do we have to know this.”
“Because I write the test...”
And having suffered conquest and occupation and damn near starvation the Dutch proceeded to spend their entire Marshall Aid budget after 1945 trying to reconquer their Indies empire and inflicted untold suffering on the Indonesians using US arms and equipment.
In Flanders Fields
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.
John McCrae (1872-1918) was a Canadian physician and fought on the Western Front in 1914, but was then transferred to the medical corps and assigned to a hospital in France. He died of pneumonia while on active duty in 1918. His volume of poetry, In Flanders Fields and Other Poems, was published in 1919.
In 1915, inspired by the poem “In Flanders Fields,” Moina Michael replied with her own poem:
We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.
In order to hone your arete, child.
OK, Debbie Downside. Thanks for that observation.
Yes, Flanders is in southern Belgium.
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