Happy Veterans Day -U.S.

[Gage Wirefly]

Today is Veterans Day in the U.S. and for all who have served- living and passed on, I thank you!

Edited November 11, 2020 by Gage Wirefly

[Josephine Carissa]

~*~ THANK YOU ~*~

Warm Regards,

Josephine

~*~ Those who wait also serve ~*~

 

 

[roseelvira]

 

Many thanks to all who ever served.

                    You are the true heroes   !!!

Edited November 11, 2020 by roseelvira

[Silent Mistwalker]

The Wall

by Catherine Anne McNeill

I walked along that long black wall, with names as far as I could see.
Friends I knew in childhood now etched in memories.
I've touched their names so many times, remembered them with love.
I walk along, the rain pours down, tears from heaven above.

I watch a Vet, deep in thought, pain across his face.
He walks a mother to the wall; he's taken his friend's place.
She reaches out to touch a name, the one that was her son.
They pause together in the rain, their memories a bond.

The men who fought, the men who died, their names for all to see
Their lives so brief, fallen short, a page in history.
We can't forget what they had done, so many years ago.
Sacrifices they have made the bravery they showed.

I walked along that long black wall, crying in the rain.
For all those men who've touched our lives, we'll never see again.

28 May 2000

 

[Odaks]

Remenbrance |Day in the uk, too. With COVID having stopped all the local services at war memorials, it was marked this year by people standing outside their homes at 11 o'clock for the two minutes' silence.

Several neighbours of ours did this, and it was lovely that passers-by also stopped for the duration. Not all, sadly, but a goodly number of them.

"At the going down of the sun and in the morning. We will remember them."

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Thank you for this, Gage. I often (usually?) start a thread for what we in Canada call Remembrance Day, but you've already done so, so I'll happily just contribute to this.

The Cenotaph (1919)
Charlotte Mew

Not yet will those measureless fields be green again
Where only yesterday the wild sweet blood of wonderful youth was shed;
There is a grave whose earth must hold too long, too deep a stain,
Though for ever over it we may speak as proudly as we may tread.
But here, where the watchers by lonely hearths from the thrust of an inward sword have more slowly bled,
We shall build the Cenotaph: Victory, winged, with Peace, winged too, at the column's head.
And over the stairway, at the foot—oh! here, leave desolate, passionate hands to spread
Violets, roses, and laurel with the small sweet twinkling country things
Speaking so wistfully of other Springs
From the little gardens of little places where son or sweetheart was born and bred.
In splendid sleep, with a thousand brothers
     To lovers—to mothers
     Here, too, lies he:
Under the purple, the green, the red,
It is all young life: it must break some women's hearts to see
Such a brave, gay coverlet to such a bed!
Only, when all is done and said,
God is not mocked and neither are the dead.
For this will stand in our Market-place—
     Who'll sell, who'll buy
     (Will you or I
Lie each to each with the better grace)?
While looking into every busy whore's and huckster's face
As they drive their bargains, is the Face
Of God: and some young, piteous, murdered face.

[PermaRuthed]

Happy Veterans Day.  Thanks to all those who served.  None of you are losers and suckers.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

21 hours ago, Gage Wirefly said:

Today is Veterans Day in the U.S. and for all who have served- living and passed on, I thank you!

Thank you. People might like to know there is a World War I site to visit in Second Life with installations about everything from trench warfare to first aid to entertainment of the troops.

Over 9 million soldiers were killed in World War 1. The world was never the same again.

 

[Maitimo]

Green Fields of France - Eric Bogle

Well how do you do, young Willie McBride?
Do you mind if I sit here down by your grave side,
A rest for a while in the warm summer sun?
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.
I see by your gravestone that you were only 19
When you joined the great fallen in 1916.
Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean.
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the pipes lowly?
Did they play the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play 'The Last Post' in chorus?
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers of the Forest'?

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
And although you died back in 1916,
In that faithful heart are you forever 19?
Or are you just a stranger without a name
Enclosed behind some glass-pane
In an old photograph, battered and stained
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

The sun shining down on these green fields of France
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
The trenches have vanished long under the plow
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard that's still no mans land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
And a whole generation were butchered and damned

And I can't help but wonder oh Willy McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing and dying it was all done in vain
Oh Willy McBride it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again
 

[Bree Giffen]

 

[Ultima Cloud]

Just getting started and then getting ready to go home.

Edited November 12, 2020 by Ultimo Constantineau

[roseelvira]

 

[Ceka Cianci]

I Know quite a few that went over, and some came back and some didn't.. Even the ones that came back, left a lot of themselves there..

I know quite a few older veterans as well..I never hear the stories from them but from people that know them or know of them..

Like the one man I met in town..He was in his 70's I'd say at the time.. He would go around with his lawn tools cutting all the veterans wives lawns and keeping their yards up for them because their husbands had passed away or had died in war..

I came to find out, he was captured by the Japanese and for two years he had to survive as a prisoner of war..You could never tell by meeting him.. That sticks with me a lot.

They never really hang the hat up and those wars they were in don't ever leave them..