Posted on 11/09/2013 2:48:03 PM PST by Dysart
I find Remembrance Sunday sadder each year. It’s partly that I’m becoming sentimental – I find it increasingly difficult to recite any poetry without a catch in my voice – but it’s mainly that the fallen are now closer in age to my children than to me.
When I was a small boy, I was, as small boys are, uncomplicatedly pro-war. At around eleven or twelve, I started to read the First World War poets, but I was still mainly attracted by the heroic element in their writing: their endurance in monstrous circumstances. Later, as a teenager, I began to wrestle with the question of whether Britain ought to have become involved (probably not, I currently think, but it’s finely balanced). Now, I find the whole business almost too melancholy for words.
There was a Remembrance Service at my children’s school this morning. We sang familiar hymns and recited familiar words, and the fallen old boys were remembered by name. A small school, a long list: more than 120 fatalities. Of every nine boys who answered the call, two failed to return.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
For The Fallen
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea. Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her 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 their 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.
--Laurence Binyon
All it takes for me to tear up about The Great War is “The Green Fields of France” by the Dropkick Murphy’s.
Fifty three out of sixteen thousand. And I understand that of those 53, 13 are called Double Thankful because they didn't lose anyone in World War II either.
In France there is a single village in the entire country which did not lose a son during World War I.
The great National Theater production of War Horse is currently traveling the world. No one can forget THAT war after seeing it.
Yes, those stats are always sobering; boggling really; especially of the toll on French villages.
Does this guy realize this is Veterans Day and even though it honors past and present servicemen and women, Memorial Day is set aside specifically for remembrance of the dead servicemen and women of the past.
What? You might click on the link for context.
Remembrance Day (UK). Veterans Day (US). It would help you understand if you would read the article.
My mother’s American family lost men in both wars.
My grandfather served in WWI in France, my father and father-in-law were WWII vets with combat purple hearts.
None of them wanted to talk about war. My faather, a young Marine who spent 45 days in combat on Okinawa before being injured, was discharged before turning 20 yrs. old, at war’s end.
I wish his editor had caught this gaffe:
“It’s not simply that there are almost no First World War veterans left...”
There are no First World War veterans left, combatants or non-combatants.
The last living veteran of World War I was Florence Green, a British citizen who served in the Allied armed forces, and who died 4 February 2012, aged 110.
The last combat veteran was Claude Choules who served in the British Royal Navy (and later the Royal Australian Navy) and died 5 May 2011, aged 110.
The last veteran who served in the trenches was Harry Patch who died on 25 July 2009, aged 111.
The last Central Powers veteran, Franz Künstler of Austria-Hungary, died on 27 May 2008 at the age of 107.
A thousand pardons. It appears Remembrance Day is like our Veterans Day as it honors the living and dead. They have no holiday for just the dead like we do. Thanks for bringing my stupidity to light.
Wonderful show. Also see “The Making of War Horse” on Netflicks instant view.
I still think of a Jewish guy that I served with in Germany. He died in an auto accident in California but some of the things we talked about will remain forever.
Europe never fully recovered from WWI, WWII just made the wound even deeper.
Living very close to the Canadian border, I can only receive stations from there. At least every 15 minutes, the play a tribute to the men and women from both wars, usually a letter from someone on the front. They’ve been doing this for a while now. Watching our TV and listening to the radio while in town in the good old USA, all I hear is ads for sales. Enough to make a patriot cry. Semper Fidelis
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