Remember Armistice Day / Veterans Day

[Detachment Charlie]

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.​

 

[2400]

Thanks Charlie, I like that poem. Here's something I wrote 8 or 9 years ago.

VETERANS DAY


To those who went before me, showing the way with courage and honor.

To those who went with me.

To those who follow behind me.

To those who are missing, never to be found.

To those who gave all, while asking nothing in return.

You will always be remembered, honored and will live in our hearts and minds forever. I salute you all.



thank you

 

[Acheron]

"Those heroes that shed their blood
And lost their lives...
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.
Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies
And the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side
Here in this country of ours...
You, the mothers,
Who sent their sons from far away countries
Wipe away your tears;
Your sons are now lying in our bosom
And are in peace.
After having lost their lives on this land they have
Become our sons as well."

Atatürk, at Gallipoli. 1934

 

[Neo-Luddite]

89 years tomorrow. Fewer than five of five million members of the U.S. expeditionary forces yet live. At the hour, in my house, we stand at attention and face the battlefields in the east. We are grateful and wish those precious few living veterans of The Great War For Civilization a most peaceful Armistace Day. My own Grandfather was a medic and served in Yvres and the Meusse-Argonne. I have his induction notice, Victory Medal, and discharge. The thing most telling is that it records that he was not qualified on any weapon--and I find that fact utterly astonishing. He died two years before I was born and I was named in his honor.


The late author Kurt Vonnegut, a veteran of World War Two, said it best in his novel "Breakfast of Champions":

“I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

“It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one and another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

“Armistice Day has become Veterans’ Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’ day is not.

“So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things."

 

[strangelittleman]

Neo-Luddite, that's a interesting story about your Grandfather, you see, my Greatgrandfather was an Army surgeon w/ the 1st AEF, Capt. Claudius Vincent Orr, he too was at the Meuss-Argonne, and Chateau-Thierry. He spoke of being issued a .45 revolver, he never said what kind. He died in 1984, when I was 16, he was 94. I named my son after him. I always think of him on Veteran's Day

 

[Neo-Luddite]

It's wonderful that you had your Great-Grandfather for so long. My Dad was a WW II veteran and outlived my Grandfather by only a few years--passing when I was young. As a result, there is a regretable lack of narrative history surviving. I've often felt bad for the veterans of WW I as their sacrifice was eclipsed by WW II in many ways--and in the rush to honor the dwindling ranks of WW II vets we hardly hear public mention that the numbers of living WW I vets can now be counted on one hand. But this is the sweep of history. There is a fantastic piece of old film that shows the 1913 reunion of soldiers of the Civil War at Gettysburg--1000's in number. At some point, the last one past.

 

[Acheron]

My grandfather was a Marine in the PTO 1943-45. He was the chief of an amtrac, the amphibious tractors that took Marines from the boats to the shore. I never knew him-he died when I was 4 or 5, but I have heard stories passed down from my father and grandmother. My favorite story about him didn't actually take place during the War, but many years later:

It was the mid-70's, probably around 1974-5 or so and my grandparents had taken my parents on a trip to Hawaii. One night my grandfather was alone at the bar having a drink. A middle-aged Asian man walked in and sat next to him at the bar. They eventually started talking, mostly small talk but the conversation eventually turned to talk of hometowns and families. The Asian man stated that he was Japanese and lived on Okinawa. As such he said he was always seeing US Marines around the island and that one time the Marines had 'made a distinct impression on him'

My grandfather then told the man that he had served as a US Marine during the Second World War. The Japanese man then admitted that he had served in the Imperial Japanese Army during the War. They got to swapping war stories, where they had served and who they served with. They eventually, almost simultaneously, both came to the realisation that they had once stared out at each other across the black sands of Iwo Jima more than 30 years before.

And how that little volcanic island had taught the both of them that we really are the same.


I really wish I had gotten to know him. Semper Fidelis.