Yo Matcom (and all other DU Veterans)

[SOteric]

All over the U.S., people are celebrating Veterans Day. There are outings, sales at the department stores, drunken festivals of sloth and slackery, and of course, multiple incidence of the great American 'Road Trip.'

Back around Christmas I posted a poem written during the American Civil War. I felt it was particularly appropriate. It spoke of how the turmoil of the times obscured for a time the joy, the elation of the season. But that the bells and some introspection brought back all that was the spirit of goodwill toward men.

I wish there could be no more wars. I would that there were peace on earth and all people could respect and interact well with one another. I'm a realist, however, and wishing does not make it so, nor does it make it practical, nor does it make it possible within our lifetimes.

For all of those men and women, Americans and allied countries who've fought along side America: For all those who've risked and given their lives that we might have "Road Trips," backyard barbeques and morning latte's in the rain, or even just sit around playing computer games in our bathrobes all day: Thank you. I could not be more grateful.


In contemplation of the incredible gift from those who've fought my country's battles I offer these selected readings.

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere amoung the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

by William Butler Yeats, first published in 1922.


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.

By Canadian Soldier John McCrae, who wrote this piece in the spring of 1915 at the battle of Ypres in Flanders.

[BritishHuman]

1. We had a two minute silence today

I had to shush a couple of people.

[SOteric]

8. Well, Larry's gone,

So that just leaves Moe.


:shrug:

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. thanks, SOteric...Flanders Fields is my favorite for 11/11

[SOteric]

3. Kick

:kick:

[HawkerHurricane]

4. Not for the Veterans, but to those they served...

The Last of the Light Brigade by Kipling

1891

There were thirty million English who talked of England's might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.

They felt that life was fleeting; they kuew not that art was long,
That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.
They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;
And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four!

They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and grey;
Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they;
And an old Troop-Sergeant muttered, "Let us go to the man who writes
The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites."

They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong,
To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in his song;
And, waiting his servant's order, by the garden gate they stayed,
A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade.

They strove to stand to attention, to straighen the toil-bowed back;
They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack;
With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed,
They shambled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade.

The old Troop-Sergeant was spokesman, and "Beggin' your pardon," he said,
"You wrote o' the Light Brigade, sir. Here's all that isn't dead.
An' it's all come true what you wrote, sir, regardin' the mouth of hell;
For we're all of us nigh to the workhouse, an' we thought we'd call an' tell.

"No, thank you, we don't want food, sir; but couldn't you take an' write
A sort of 'to be continued' and 'see next page' o'the fight?
We think that someone has blundered, an' couldn't you tell'em how?
You wrote we were heroes once, sir. Please, write we are starving now."

The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn.
And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with "the sconrn of scorn."
And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,
Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shamme.

O thirty million English that babble of England's might,
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;
Our children's children are lisping to "honour the charge they made --"
And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade!

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Ouch!

Could somebody please sneak over to FreeRepublic and post that?

--bkl
I would do it myself, but, you see, I have this pilonidal cyst that prevents me from proudly serving.

[DifferentStrokes]

6. I listen to Benjamin Britten's War Requiem

It's a combination of a requiem mass and poetry by Wilfred Owen. This page leads to the full text of the work if you're not fortunate enough to have the recording.

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~tan/Britten/britwar.html

Very telling words by Wilfred Owen.

"I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense conciliatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful."

-Wilfred Owen

With love to all the service men and women, past and present.

[SOteric]

7. Very good programme.

Wilfred Owen is perhaps the best of the poets who've written protesting war.

[matcom]

9. thanks SOteric

:thumbsup: