Memorial Day....

[Wildcard]

I hope on our upcoming long weekend you rember why you have a day off? Do ya?
Just saw this and wanted to share.


It is the veteran, not the preacher,
Who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the veteran, not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the veteran, not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the veteran, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us freedom to assemble.
It is the veteran, not the lawyer,
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the veteran, not the politician,
Who has given us the right to vote.
It is the veteran,
Who salutes the Flag,
It is the veteran, who serves under the Flag,

Have a happy and safe Memorial Day.
All gave some, some gave all.

 

[agilis]

Memorial Day is not Veteran's Day. Memorial day has lost most of its original meaning as a day of remembrance for the scores of thousands who "gave that last full measure of devotion" during the American Civil War. Technically, wartime KIAs are not veterans. They are forever suspended in time, eternally young, perpetually in the service of their country.

There is an old village cemetery I visit regularly, near the Delaware River. It has been abandoned and unused for 50 years, isolated deep in regrown forests, on National Park land that was once intended for a giant reservoir that was never built. In it, scattered among all the men and women who lived and died in that area over many generations, are the graves of a few young men killed between 1861 and 1865, and the graves of a much larger group of old men who fought but survived that most bloody of all American wars, passing away decades after the friends of their youth were killed. All have the same small, worn, rusted metal device embedded in the ground near their headstones. It's very simple, just three letters in an oval: 'GAR' The Grand Army of the Republic. Once, no explanation was needed; everyone knew what those letters meant. As that generation slowly passed into history, Memorial Day was created.

 

[Doc Intrepid]

Prelude
(to Departmental Ditties)

I have eaten your bread and salt.
I have drunk your water and wine.
In deaths ye died I have watched beside,
And the lives ye led were mine.

Was there aught that I did not share
In vigil or toil or ease, --
One joy or woe that I did not know,
Dear hearts across the seas?

I have written the tale of our life
For a sheltered people's mirth,
In jesting guise -- but ye are wise,
And ye know what the jest is worth.

Rudyard Kipling


I hope that many of you out there will pause on Monday to remember those whose sacrifices ennobled otherwise humble lives, and who served and died with honor, both during the past two centuries and the past five years. Remember the many folks who will be still serving overseas on Monday.

Semper Fi,

Doc

 

[Wildcard]

Granted this is more a Vets day than Memorial day poem, but I still wanted to share it.

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

For those of you with a flagpole and an American flag: It is to be raised in the morning, on Memorial Day, to the top of the staff, and then slowly lowered to half-staff. It is flown this way until noon, at which time it is raised back to full-staff.

"Happy Memorial Day" seems a very strange thing to say... Indeed, I hope everyone enjoys the holiday, but I hope people also take the time for sober reflection.

It's a little dismaying and sad that I had to explain, last night, to my 9-year old daughter, what Memorial Day was for. I guess the people who've died in the wars of our nation aren't worthy of mention in today's political climate and schools...

 

[Wildcard]

That is a very sad statement for sure... NEA at work.

 

[agilis]

NEA? NEA?

I don't think so.

I think the development of self-indulgent lazy materialism and militant ignorance as national attributes are the reason for Memorial day becoming a shopping holiday.

The legions of loudmouth no- nothings who think patriotism is just like being a sports fan raised to a higher order, who wallow in consumption and who know more about how no-talent American Idol contestants are selected than they know about the Constitution must bear some responsibility. The titans of commerce and the captains of industry who encourage and profit from all of this have a lot more to answer for than do the silly mediocrities who run the National Education Association.

 

[Kevrumbo]

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 John McCrae

If you see a VFW Member selling Poppies this Memorial Day Weekend, please buy one from him . . .(he just might happen to be my Father )

 

[DNV]

Here's a very well done salute and tribute to our troops...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ervaMPt4Ha0

 

[agilis]

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
who cheer when soldier lads march by
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
the hell where youth and laughter go

S. Sassoon


All armies are the same
publicity is fame
artillery makes the same old noise
valor is an attribute of boys
old soldiers all have tired eyes
all soldiers hear the same old lies
dead soldiers always have drawn flies

Ernest Hemmingway


When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go
say not soft things as other men have said
-that you'll remember- for you need not so
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
it is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this "they are dead".....
Then, scanning all the overcrowded mass, should you
perceive one face that you loved heretofore
It is a spook; none wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his forevermore

Charles Sorley (b. 1895, killed in action 1915)