Please take time today to remember and honor our Vets - those past and present!


   

...and if you see any poppies think of Canadian physician and Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae's poem, written on May 3, 1015:

"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."

(Reminds me of the area where I grew up - nearby Flandern.)

Agreed, Eva! Wonderful poem - and dates to WWI !

Thank you, Betty and Eva!

Happy Veteran's Day. Bless you all who have and continue to serve at home and abroad.

Abraham Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address long before the United States officially observed Veteran's Day, but his speech is very suitable for today.

"We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

Thanks Eva, for posting the poem

It reminds me, too, much of the Gettysburg Address (which is quite like a poem).

Thanks, Eva, for posting the poem, "In Flanders Fields." This poem is very popular in Canada where most school children can easily recite it. Not so here in the U.S. FYI: In the U.S., Veterans Day honors our military veterans, while our Memorial Day holiday remembers those who died. Each year, right before the Memorial Day holiday, the American Legion and other groups offer artificial poppies in exchange for a donation, and one usually sees them outside grocery stores, etc. I love to talk to these folks as most are usually veterans and have an interesting story about their service. When I refer to the poem, "In Flanders Fields," most of the older vets can recite a few lines, but the younger ones . . . clueless. The poem has a great story behind it and it needs to be shared, especially in schools.

(11-12-2015 12:39 AM)ReignetteC Wrote:  This poem is very popular in Canada where most school children can easily recite it. Not so here in the U.S.

I'm not certain that memorization is assigned to kids in today's classrooms. Growing up in the South in the 1960s, we had to memorize lots of things. I can remember memorizing the Gettysburg Address, Antony's Eulogy, the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, a couple of poems from e.e. cummings, Poe's Raven and Annabelle Lee, and my favorite, Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha:
By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.

None of this did me any harm and I think that memorizing helps stretch a person's mind. Later, when in bands, I could memorize song lyrics very easily and I still do that, as much for mental exercise as anything else.

--Jim

(11-11-2015 10:35 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  ...and if you see any poppies think of Canadian physician and Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae's poem, written on May 3, 1015:

"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."

(Reminds me of the area where I grew up - nearby Flandern.)

Love our troops! God bless them!

God bless the veterans!

The poppies only bloom a short season, usually later than decoration day. And the premises of Gettysburg events were solely to honor the Federal dead, not the South. What a colossal waste WW One was. Hard to believe that Kaiser was allowed to simply move to Belgium, and later on applaud Hitler. I still see big trees planted on Armistice day. At a glance, from half a mile away, you can always tell the WWI memorial plantings. Rows along a street in a park, and then the same sized trees in the older neighborhoods, obviously planted the exact same day, for the same reason. Folks used to know for WHOM each tree was planted, and the name of the man and a little bit about him.

Here is the poem put to music, very beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkKEynoTwp8

Makes me think of this:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3HVGO1Ze6YQ

A week late, but you'll understand why I'm posting this once you read the first few paragraphs. This monument is just 25 miles from Surratt House, in our Prince George's County, and very near the spot where the Battle of Bladensburg was fought in 1814 - the American defeat allowing the British forces to enter and burn our nation's capital.

http://thefederalist.com/2015/11/09/kill...-memorial/