Veteran's Day this Sunday

[Adak]

A time to remember all who served:

from Wikipedia:
An 86 year old WWI veteran clutches the flag that covered his son's casket. His son died in the Korean War.




from the BBC:
From a headstone in a North African WWII cemetery.

[SamIam]

Thanks for the reminder, Adak, although I'd have put it in the Current Events forum.

Our veterans deserve to be honored both in memory and in life. My late father was career US Army: WWII, Korea, and Vietnam (two tours). His active duty service to his country spanned 30 years. My father died 15 years ago, but not a day goes by when I don't think of him. May this country never forget the how much it owes to the brave men and women who serve and did serve in our military.

[Sundae]

We had a Remembrance service at school on Friday. We usually have it on Armistice Day itself, but as this year it falls on a Sunday the school felt it was still important for the children to come together in an act of worship.

More than one member of staff has relatives (sons, brothers a daughter) in the Forces, so it is an emotionally charged time for them.

We'll be observing the two minutes silence of course.
This time last year I was working in Boots and we switched our tills off and stood in silence. It was very touching how many shoppers stopped what they were doing too. Some still carried on, although they weren't talking I suppose...

[footfootfoot]

The Last of the Light Brigade
--Rudyard Kipling


There were thirty million English who talked of England's might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.

They felt that life was fleeting; they knew not that art was long,
That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.
They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;
And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four !

They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and grey;
Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they;
And an old Troop-Sergeant muttered, "Let us go to the man who writes
The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites."

They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong,
To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in his song;
And, waiting his servant's order, by the garden gate they stayed,
A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade.

They strove to stand to attention, to straighen the toil-bowed back;
They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack;
With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed,
They shambled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade.

The old Troop-Sergeant was spokesman, and "Beggin' your pardon," he said,
"You wrote o' the Light Brigade, sir. Here's all that isn't dead.
An' it's all come true what you wrote, sir, regardin' the mouth of hell;
For we're all of us nigh to the workhouse, an' we thought we'd call an' tell.

"No, thank you, we don't want food, sir; but couldn't you take an' write
A sort of 'to be continued' and 'see next page' o' the fight?
We think that someone has blundered, an' couldn't you tell 'em how?
You wrote we were heroes once, sir. Please, write we are starving now."

The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn.
And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with "the scorn of scorn."
And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,
Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shame.

O thirty million English that babble of England's might,
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;
Our children's children are lisping to "honour the charge they made - "
And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade!

[Big Sarge]

Here's my favorite:

FIDDLER'S GREEN

Halfway down the trail to Hell,
In a shady meadow green
Are the Souls of all dead troopers camped,
Near a good old-time canteen.
And this eternal resting place
Is known as Fiddlers' Green.

Marching past, straight through to Hell
The Infantry are seen.
Accompanied by the Engineers,
Artillery and Marines,
For none but the shades of Cavalrymen
Dismount at Fiddlers' Green.

Though some go curving down the trail
To seek a warmer scene.
No trooper ever gets to Hell
Ere he's emptied his canteen.
And so rides back to drink again
With friends at Fiddlers' Green.

And so when man and horse go down
Beneath a saber keen,
Or in a roaring charge of fierce melee
You stop a bullet clean,
And the hostiles come to get your scalp,
Just empty your canteen,
And put your pistol to your head
And go to Fiddlers' Green.