In Flander's Field

"In Flander's Fields"
By John McCrae

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.

by Frank Gibbons

Last night I sat and watched a man die
He wasn't afraid he seemed in good cheer.
Last night I sat and asked myself why
A dying man should feel no fear.


One minute he breathed, a faint smile on his face
He wasn't afraid he seemed so at peace
One minute he was here and then he was gone
An empty shell in a lonely space


He said "At last I'm old" and then he died
Too many go young when a thief steals their time
At least he was warm, with a friend by his side
No one should die alone


Last night I sat and watched a man die
He was'nt afraid, he'd faced death before
Last night he told me how he'd stolen his time
On a beach in France in '44'.


From youth he jumped chest high in pink water
Wading ashore in another worlds war
Random selection in a senseless slaughte
Praying to his Jesus for a few minutes more


He killed his first man near that beach in France
Fifty years later he still prayed for his soul
He found his God on that beach in France
Crying in terror in a too shallow hole

http://www.fotomatic.nl/data/thumbna...s_Fields_1.jpg

Nice, Gin

Good place to say "Thank You"

by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.


In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.


Overplayed, but still my favorite.

Nautical Disaster
by the Tragically Hip

I had this dream
where I relished
The fray
and the screaming filled my head all day
It was as though
I'd been spit there
settled in,
into a pocket
Of a lighthouse off some rocky socket,
Off the coast of France,
Dear

One afternoon,
four thousand men
died in the water
here
And five hundred more were thrashing madly
as parasites might in your blood
Now I was in lifeboat
designed for ten
and ten only
Anything
that systematic
would get you hated.
It's not a deal nor a test nor a love of something fated.

The selection was quick,
the crew was picked
and those left in the water
were kicked off our pant legs

and we headed for home.

Then the dream ends
when the phone rings
You're doing alright
except it's out there,
most days and nights,
but only a fool would complain

Anyway
Susan
if you like
our conversation is as faint a sound
in my memory
As those fingernails
scratching on my hull

Thanks for my freedom, grandpa.

I had the opportunity to tour Vimmy Ridge a few years back. Walking through the trenches, seeing the remnants of the barbed wire, thinking about what our boys must have seen, smelt, and heard, really makes me appreciate the freedom they provided me with.

On a semi related note, John McCrae was my grade 5 teachers uncle.

In Your War Dream
By Richard Hugo

You must fly your 35 missions again.
The old base is reopened. The food is still bad.
You are disturbed. The phlegm you choked up
mornings in fear returns. You strangle on the phlegm.
You ask, "Why must I do this again?" A man
replies, "Home." You fly over one country
after another. The nations are bright like a map.
You pass over the red one. The orange one ahead
looks cold. The purple one north of that is the one
you must bomb. A wild land. Austere. The city
below seems ancient. You are on the ground.
Lovers are inside a cabin. You ask to come in.
The say, "No. Keep watch on Stark Yellow Lake."
You stand beside the odd water. A terrible wind
keeps knocking you down. "I'm keeping watch
on the lake," you yell at the cabin. The lovers
don't answer. You break into the cabin. Inside
old women bake bread. They yell, "Return to the base."
You must fly your 35 missions again.

bump

Went to the the remembrance day service here in Fenie. Was very well attended by young and old.

Least we Forget,

Thanks to all who risked so much so we may have the freedom to criticize our current folly if we so choose.
Thanks especially to Lt.Col Richard E Davis & Cpl Elvin " Bud " Johnson may they both rest in peace

Quote:

---

The Ballad of Ira Hayes
Written by Peter LaFarge
Recorded by Johnny Cash on 3/5/64


Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Gather round me people there's a story I would tell
About a brave young Indian you should remember well
From the land of the Pima Indian
A proud and noble band
Who farmed the Phoenix valley in Arizona land

Down the ditches for a thousand years
The water grew Ira's peoples' crops
'Till the white man stole the water rights
And the sparklin' water stopped

Now Ira's folks were hungry
And their land grew crops of weeds
When war came, Ira volunteered
And forgot the white man's greed

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

There they battled up Iwo Jima's hill,
Two hundred and fifty men
But only twenty-seven lived to walk back down again

And when the fight was over
And when Old Glory raised
Among the men who held it high
Was the Indian, Ira Hayes

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Ira returned a hero
Celebrated through the land
He was wined and speeched and honored;
Everybody shook his hand

But he was just a Pima Indian
No water, no crops, no chance
At home nobody cared what Ira'd done
And when did the Indians dance

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Then Ira started drinkin' hard;
Jail was often his home
They'd let him raise the flag and lower it
like you'd throw a dog a bone!

He died drunk one mornin'
Alone in the land he fought to save
Two inches of water in a lonely ditch
Was a grave for Ira Hayes

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Yeah, call him drunken Ira Hayes
But his land is just as dry
And his ghost is lyin' thirsty
In the ditch where Ira died

---

Freedom didn't come free.

Thanks, to all who gave so much.

So the rest of us could live knowing what Freedom is.

Never Forget.

why is veterans day always prominently associated with d-day and ww2?

pray that these guys get to celebrate their own.
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com...lt-273x374.jpg

Least we forget.....Thanks Grandpa.

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
by Randall Jarrell

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

The Soldier
by Rupert Brooke

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.