Remembrance day 2006
 

Today was the day here in Oz and in many other countries in the world where we mark the end of the first world war and also, the soldiers who gave their lives. At 11am we stop for a minutes silence and listen to the last post comming from the radio or television, or perhaps even if we're lucky enough, to a young soldier playing at one of our RSL's or at a formal ceremony.

There is a poem that's read which I'd like to share with you. It always brings me to tears and today, while at work, we stopped in our factory and showroom to listen and mourn for a moment with our customers and workmates.

This is the poem.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Lest we forget!

There's a movement in the USA to adopt one of your traditions here:

WASHINGTON – The Honorable R. James Nicholson, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and leaders of major veterans organizations today called on America's veterans to help kindle a new spark of patriotism on Veterans Day by wearing the medals they earned during military service.

The campaign is modeled after a tradition in Australia and New Zealand, countries who honor the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) on April 25. ANZAC Day sees veterans wearing their military decorations whatever they are doing on that day. Nicholson said he hopes a U. S. tradition will ensue to emulate this pride in being a veteran and in honoring our veterans.

Official info with additional links here.

I have just come back from the ceremony in the centre of town. Boy's Brigade, cadets, guides all in uniform, all sombre. Soldiers holding flags, the mayor and various other dignitaries, all stood in solemn silence. What was really good to see, was the amount of people who happened to be in town shopping, all stopping and holding the silence. Young and old, different races. One old man was there in his traditional Pakistani garb complete with full beard.

Was very moving.

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.

:bawling:

War Eh! Terrible business.

Good money spinner though innit.

I love this poem--so poignant


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 a 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.

8 October 1917 - March, 1918

That poem was the one that opened my eyes to poetry when I was in my second year of secondary school (12-13). Our English class studied war poetry for a month and that one stayed with me ever since. I loved it so much I went out and bought a collection of Wifrid Owen's poetry.

Working today, but my ex-RAF boss and I stood inside the closed shop, door locked, lights off, head bowed until 11.02. Pleased to say the street was deserted and no pedestrians in sight.

Until an Asian taxi driver drove down the street beeping his horn. Can only assume it was a protest about the current war. I (silently) wished his loved ones to die unmourned, unremembered and disrepected, but I'm not a nice person.

....or he was picking someone up and used the standard taxi-driver code for 'your taxi's here'.

He was spreading his net quite wide in that case - beeping his horn along the length of the street & not stopping :(

(edited to add) it was his actions & not his race that suggested a protest. My assumption about the war was probably due to the colour of his skin though. Right or wrong it seemed the most logical.

Fair enough.

Then again, despite the fact that I always observe the silence and wear the poppy (and am a supporting member of the Royal British Legion), I can well see that to some people, our efforts to remember our war dead may sit in stark and uncomfortable contrast to our complete disregard for the lives of so many Iraqis. Perhaps being implicated in the deaths of more than half a million Iraqis along with a total unwillingness to press for justice for other groups such as the Palestinians and the shoddy way in which we as a country have treated the widows and ex-servicemen on the Indian subcontinent, who fought alongside the men we seek to remember, makes our sombre ceremony seem wilfully blind and hypocritical.

I do understand. But I resent it all the same. My liberal perspective tells me Respect, Respect, Respect. My Christian childhood tells me to turn the other cheek. My upbringing by East End parents tells me that people who don't show respect deserve a pop on the nose. I am constantly at war with my own feelings :)

Can I add I'd have the same wicked wish for anyone else disturbing the peace this morning - black, white or sky blue pink.

I just heard on NPR that there are 14 US WWI veterans still alive. The youngest is 106.

Harold Gardner, the last WWI vet in Pennsylvania lived alone just down the road in Choconut. He died in October at the age of 107.

Perhaps the Asian taxi-driver should have been warned that disrespecting our customs is at least as bad as disrespecting his. You honk your horn, we tell your women to drop the veil.