In Flander's Field ...

[11 Bravo]

The poppies grow,
Between the crosses,
Row on row,
That mark our place,
And in the sky the larks,
Still bravely singing, fly.


For some reason, Veteran's Day was especially tough this year, so I waited a while to post.
To all my fellow vets reading this, welcome home.
To those that didn't make it back, rest easy.
And to my brothers on The Wall, I was there on Wednesday, and I'll be back next year.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Someone unrecced this lovely post?? :^( Well, recced and rectified. *hugs*

[bjobotts]

44. There's a troll that comes throu and unrecs everything on this site every night

[bjobotts]

45. I come along and rec it back everynight.. Someone really hates DU..They never comment either

[Xipe Totec]

2. A Soldier's Farewell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P29JsKVzJnY

[bjobotts]

46. Dying to protect the nation and dying for political gain=Killing and dying on command.

[bjobotts]

47. When I got out I'd definitely find out which one it was. Bush's was for political gain

[maddezmom]

3. thank you for your service

[Captain Hilts]

4. I think it actually being held on Armistice Day gave it an extra sting for me. My great uncle

Richard was killed at the Somme and my grandfather had his leg blown off three days before the Armistice and was put in a tent and left for dead. After about 4 days they decided they should help him.

[mrmpa]

75. To meet a veteran is to meet a pacifist

I lost two great uncles due to mustard gas in WWI, another
great uncle was killed in France in 1944.  My father served in
the Marines for 15 years.  He was a Korean War Vet, a survivor
of the Chosin Reservoir campaign.  My father insisted that his
oldest son attended college in order to gain his student
deferment during Vietnam.  He would not even allow his other
sons to even consider the military.  He loved the Marines, but
he hated war.  He was against the first Gulf War, and if he
was still alive he would vehemently be against the Iraq War
and the Afghanistan fiasco.  I have met many combat veterans,
and they speak of the horror of it and they do not wish it
upon their sons, daughters and grandchildren.  
They spoke too quickly when they called WWI, the War to end
all Wars.

[msedano]

5. "next to of course god america i

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country 'tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"
He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

-- e.e. cummings

http://labloga.blogspot.com/2008/11/veterans-day-2008-pit-from-pole-to-pole.html

[Ron Green]

6. + 1. I love that poem.

I thought about it this morning when I heard the Secretary of State muttering the knee-jerk phrase about "our brave men and women in uniform." The masters of war can all go to hell.

[11 Bravo]

7. "The masters of war can all go to hell."

Fine, but surely the young men and women who are sent to fight those wars are worthy of our gratitude. That's what this post was about.

[Ron Green]

27. Sure, they're worthy of our gratitude, and they deserve their pay as well (I still remember

my pay of $278.70 a month as an E-5 with over 2 years in grade.) What I hope is that more and more of them will examine their "mission" instead of just accepting it. I haven't yet seen a real resistance such as the FTA movement of our day.

It takes some courage to serve in uniform, and it takes even more courage to lead the leaders when they don't do the right thing.

[Are_grits_groceries]

8. Thank you.

My great aunt met a soldier on a train who had returned from WWI. He gave her some poppy seeds. She planted them, and I can see them now in my memory growing in my Grandmama's garden.
My cousin and I would sit near them under a tree in the cool of the evening. We didn't talk much, if at all. We would just look at those poppies and wonder. We did this a lot during Vietnam. Didn't know what else to do.

[DavidDvorkin]

9. Unfortunately, that poem is a call to arms

Vengeance and blood, not pity for the dead.

[polly7]

10. He wrote it right after the death of his good friend.

http://www.greatwar.co.uk/poems/john-mccrae-in-flanders-fields-inspiration.htm


"The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flanders.htm

[DavidDvorkin]

11. He went from sorrow for his friend to the war cry. Third and

final verse:

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.

[Ikonoklast]

14. It can be argued that the 'foe' so described was the Empire, the War Machine,

and the Imperialists that laid those men in their graves.

The 'fight' was against those that would callously send men to their deaths, without thought or pity for those that suffered the consequences.

It can be seen as mocking patriotism, bitter and sarcastic.


A double-edged poem, as many that were written about The Great War.

[DavidDvorkin]

18. I honestly don't see how the poem can be interpreted that way.

[Electric Monk]

48. I do, fwiw. ymmv. nt

[barbtries]

61. i certainly can:

another poem by cummings not so equivocal:

i sing of Olaf glad and big
by E. E. Cummings

i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"

straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)

but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat--
Olaf(upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"

our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died

Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.

[Ikonoklast]

54. Read some of Sassoon's work, Graves, Owen, or any other poet from that war.

There are examples of 'patriotic' poetry that are nothing more than thinly-veiled condemnations of the glorification of war, and the people that stood to profit from it.

A great many who fought, on both sides, came to see their own governments as the 'enemy', as it was they that lied to them about the glories of war as they sent their own young men to die in the mud.

After the initial burst of patriotism quickly lost its bloom, the cruel reality of a war of attrition set in. Very little of the poetry written by those engaged in that wholesale slaughter could be construed as a call for more war, or vengeance upon an enemy with whom, through shared suffering and experience, they actually found common ground.

It was subversive, as was much of the prose and poetry that came out of that horror of trench warfare, poison gas, massive bombardments, and senseless death.

For what it's worth...

[DavidDvorkin]

66. McCrae was not Sassoon

Or Graves or Owens. He had his own history, which included serving in the Boer War and then signing up again when WWI broke out.

[polly7]

20. I'd be the last person to glorify war,

but this poem, to me, means a lot. One of my great-uncles who fought died at that same battle, he was 19 and had been overseas a total of two whole days. I've read those men knew when they were told to advance they had next to no chance of returning alive. As senseless as any war is, they had to see a purpose, and those left behind witnessing the horror and carnage, to see an end to it. By all accounts Dr. McCrae was a gentle, compassionate man who saw more than any human ever should have to.

http://www.greatwar.co.uk/poems/poets/mccraearticle.htm

"It is a terrible state of affairs, and I am going because I think every bachelor, especially if he has experience of war, ought to go. I am really rather afraid, but more afraid to stay at home with my conscience." (1)

[kentuck]

12. 11Bravo...

I suppose a lot of folks that post here do not know that is the MOS for infantryman?

[11 Bravo]

13. Some do, some don't, kentuck.

It's not like that was a particularly difficult status to attain, but in the A Shau, in 1971, it meant something.

[kentuck]

23. I respect that very much...

There were few 11B20's. There were many of us support guys behind you who seldom saw any action whatsoever. You guys were the heroes. I do not feel comfortable when people say to me, "Thank you for your service". I never questioned it. It was my duty. Everyone was not a hero.

[11 Bravo]

26. I appreciate that, kentuck, but trust me, I was no hero. A grateful nation handed me a Bronze Star

with "V" for valor, a CIB, and a couple of Purple Hearts, but I was just a scared shitless 20 year old grunt. Everything I did over there was for the guys in my platoon. We were willing to put our tender young asses on the line for each other. That was the glue that held us together, and that is why Veteran's Day is a special day in my house.

[kentuck]

28. I know that..

There were five of us within 4 blocks of my house and I was the first to return alive. I had a difficult time adjusting. I couldn't sleep. Everything seemed so slow and dull and normal...

[11 Bravo]

30. I hear you, brother, and I'm glad you made it home.

Also, I have never heard a better description of my first days after being released from Walter Reed than "slow, dull, and normal". Kind of sums it all up.

[nadinbrzezinski]

39. Ain't that the truth

hugs

It is not for apple pie, and the flag, or the queen or whatever is the one in theory left at home. It is for each other.

Hugs there pal...


May they rest under the sand, the muck or on eternal patrol...

Most were too scared and chiefly young...

HUGS

[opihimoimoi]

15. For those who had not heard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyQyhVXUwM0&feature=related

sniff....

[11 Bravo]

35. Wow, I hadn't seen that. Thanks for the link.

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

16. 11 Bravo, Thank You for your service.

This poem always reduces me to tears.

Thank You to all our Veterans and their families.

[susanr516]

17. k&r

I'm sorry it was so tough for you this year. Thank you for your service.

:hug:

[amandabeech]

19. Thank all vets, especially you 11 Bravo for posting this reminder.

Special thanks to my family members, vets of the Grand Army of the Republic, WWI, WWII and Korea.

[11 Bravo]

21. We share the same background, except in addition to the Grand Army of the Republic ...

I also have ancestors who fought with the First Corps Army of Northern Virginia. Every male member of my family has been fighting and sometimes dying in every American conflict since the French and Indian War.

[amandabeech]

25. I pay my respects to your family's service.

It's great that you know about them through so many generations.

Some of my ancestors were here before the Revolution, but I haven't been able to do the research to find them in the mists of time, since family lore wasn't passed down. It will be a good retirement project.

[Omaha Steve]

22. Going in the door to the store Saturday (14th)

First I bought a paper poppy from a Vet. Then I dropped a $1 in the Salvation Army bucket.

[pipi_k]

24. Eighth grade English class...

our teacher made us memorize this poem.

That was 1966.

I can still recite all of it to this day. Funny the things we can remember. Sometimes I can't even remember what I had for dinner the night before.

Anyway, I also thought of it on Veteran's Day...

[Canuckistanian]

29. Just a WEE bone of contention

It's "In Flanders Fields", plural.

Flanders being a region in Belgium and The Netherlands. In Ypres, three battles took many thousands of Canadian lives and is prominently mentioned in our Remembrance Day ceremonies.

We all grew up with that poem.

Thanks for posting.

[11 Bravo]

32. Yes, but by the time I realized I had messed up, it was too late to edit.

(And more people need to know how many Canadians died on that bloody ground. It was not just Frenchmen, Americans, and Englishmen who fought that war.)

[Canuckistanian]

34. Thanks again.

We must never forget.

[Libertas1776]

31. K&R

[DU GrovelBot]

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[elleng]

36. In Flanders Field by Elizabeth Brayshaw

[HughMoran]

37. K&R

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. hugs and take care

some years it's easier, some it's not

[vietnam_war_vet]

40. RE Veterans Day was especially tough this year....

Foolishly, I had hoped that I would have been the last member of my immediate family to have served in an overseas war/war zone. My Dad and two of his brothers served in WWII. One of my grandfathers served in WWI in Europe. I was the only one in my immediate family's generation who served in the Vietnam War.

It wasn't to be, not with all those corporations and defense contractors -- the good ol' military-industrial complex -- still owning/controlling our elected and appointed government officials. Those war profits just have to keep on rolling in. I should have known better to have even hoped.

My brother's oldest son is currently serving as an Army artillery officer in Iraq. My other brother's son-in-law is departing the end of this month for Afghanistan. He's an Army infantry officer and most likely will be in the thick of things. He and his wife (my niece) are expecting their firstborn later this month. Uncle Sam still has a quirky sense of timing. -- Michael

[nadinbrzezinski]

41. Welcome to DU and I know several people with MS

and you got a PM.

[cliffordu]

42. Thanks for the trip to the wall....

I'll make it next year myself, finally.

[sce56]

43. Vets Day

I feel for you I was lucky my major operations I served in were disaster assistance wouldn't it be great if that was all we ever asked the military to do then we would get lots more of these pictures and less of those caskets coming home.

[gleaner]

49. The poppies started as a ....

memoriam after World War I, I believe. My Grandpa fought in that war, got gassed and lost his life as he knew it because of it. It is a lovely poem and my Mother taught it to me.

It would take a complete vandal to unrec your post, so I'll give it one more, with feeling. Thanks for reminding me of it again.

[Electric Monk]

50. but now it's ironically a key ingredient for opium and heroin, popular drugs world wide

:shrug:

maybe not so ironically...

[gleaner]

55. I don't know if is the same flower ...

The Flanders poppies came in just two colors, I think. Red and dark blue. Opium poppies are many colored and thrive in hot climates. I grew up in L.A. and my Mom grew them for a couple of summers. They were beautiful with big blooms and I read an article about how opium and morphine and other drugs were derived from the sap of the flower. As an experiment I cut one on the green base and the next day there was a brown droplet which had bled out and hardened. I took it to my Mom and told her that I had made Opium. She took it pretty well. She explained how it had to be refined and that it was nothing I would ever want to use. She told me to leave the flowers alone unless I wanted a bouquet. I think I was a trial to my Mother sometimes, but she did give good advice under pressure.:evilgrin:

The climate in Flanders wouldn't support opium poppies. If I'm wrong, and it often happens, I know someone will set me straight.

[Lithos]

56. You are correct

Opium comes, fittingly enough, from Opium Poppies (papaver somniferum) Poppies which grow (grew) in Flander's fields are the common Corn Poppy (papaver rhoeas). Only Opium poppies have the necessary combination of alkaloids. (Had to look up the latin names, I just remembered the Flander's poppy was called the Corn Poppy and was different much like the Icelandic poppy is and was different than the Opium poppy)

However, I do know that they just started growing Opium in Britain (for the pharmaceutical trade), so not sure if Opium poppies would not grow in Flanders.

L-

[gleaner]

71. Thank you for the ..

Clarification. You did the Latin names beautifully. I remember when I was a child the red Corn Poppy imitations were sold by the doors of stores and the proceeds given to veterans charities. They stopped doing that years ago here and I kind of miss them.

Opium poppies might very well grow in Flanders. After reading about the Dutch Blue, it does seem so.

[slackmaster]

64. One variety of opium poppy, Dutch blue, is grown commercially in western Europe

As a source of seeds for food.

The opium poppy grows and blooms in a rather short season. In southern California they typically germinate in December or January.

[gleaner]

70. Thanks ...

I didn't know about the Dutch Blue. My tired brain does connect poppy seeds with poppy seed bagels though, among many other lovely bagels you could get from the Western Bagel store. Another favorite was Cheese Jalapeno. Nothing to do with poppies, but well remembered.

[slackmaster]

72. The poppy seeds you can buy at your local supermarket are almost certainly Dutch Blue

And they are viable. Extremely so if they are not several years old.

[gleaner]

73. Thanks again .....

I have Multiple Sclerosis, so my gardening days are over. As in if I sit down, I can't make it back up again.;)

But if I had been able to grow the poppies I would have given you a bouquet

[slackmaster]

63. Opium is made from a different species of poppy

Papaver somniferum.

[gleaner]

69. That's it ...

They always looked like they were ruffled and very lovely. The green bowl right below the blossom is where I cut to get at the brown sap.

[Vidar]

51. K&R

[Hardrada]

52. I will bookmark this post. My grandfather's outfit was about to

be shipped out of Chicago for France and the Western Front when the Germans gave up. He was to have been a medical (dental) officer in the AEF. He had a mostly complete WWI uniform in his closet for many years. It was joined by my dad's USAAF uniform and overcoat (which I still have. My dad is alive at 87 and has a picture of him taken by a flag every Memorial Day. In 1917, one young man proposed to my grandmother but she had already met my grandfather and needed no further suitor. He was one of the first to volunteer for the AEF and was killed in the Argonne offensive. His name leads the list on a local memorial to WWI. My grandparents used to point it out to me since he had been a friend and classmate of theirs from 1911 to 1915.

[democrank]

53. Thank you for posting this, 11 Bravo.

http://icasualties.org/oif/


~PEACE~

[The Wizard]

57. When a Soldier Makes it Home

One of my favorites
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDAl7lGGtSo

[era veteran]

58. Thank You

I wrote the first lines of this on my notebook at work on veterans day. I always leave it out for my employees to read. None had ever read that great poem, a pity. They have heard it now. Peace be with you, Richard 11 Echo

[barbtries]

59. thank you 11 Bravo

:cry:

[GoneOffShore]

60. A more realistic view I think -

Dulce et Decorum Est

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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped 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 I 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.

[slackmaster]

62. Sorry to have to do this to you, but that is a Memorial Day poem

Poppies bloom in the spring. The "Flanders Field" variety of Shirley poppies, red ones with crosses that can be white, black (actually dark purple), or a combination of the two, are typically at the peak of their bloom in May.

They have naturalized in part of my yard.

[kpominville]

65. The volunteers who work at the Vietnam Memorial...

Got their new uniforms a couple weeks ago and found out they are made in .... Vietnam.

[UrbScotty]

67. I cannot give enough thanks to those who have served.

I do hope that what I do as a citizen would do honor to all who have served.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

68. My editing instincts are out of control, but it's not "Flander's."

Flanders, with the "s," is the region of Belgium that speaks a language (Flemish) related to Dutch. No apostrophe.

[Raine]

74. My mother used to quote that poem

she learned it in school when Veterans Day was still Armistice Day. THANKS for posting it.

Edit: sorry I can't recommend but I saw this too late (being passed 24hrs).