Search This Blog

Subscribe By Email

Get Blog Posts Sent by Email

About This Blog

How to Comment on Blog Posts

The spot for the good news, the good word, the quick reports of the many, many wonderful news items I hear all the time and want to share with the rest of you. Expect to find the good news when you come to check out "what’s the good word?"

Friday, November 11, 2011

Remember




Today is November 11th. In four hours from the time of this writing, we will each pause from whatever we are doing to remember and reflect upon our own thoughts of war and the need for peace.

I feel some sense of duty to prepare a blog for today, perhaps as a way to continue my life-long struggle with the subject. Remembrance Day posts in 2009 and 2010 have each generated comments from you filled with your own memories and struggles.

When I look back at what I wrote in those posts, it seems not much has changed. My thoughts are much the same. Like humankind, I have made little or no progress. Consequently, I leave you with that quintessential Canadian Remembrance Day poem written by Lieutenant Colonel John McRae, who appears to have felt no such internal turmoil. Wikipedia’s biographic sketch of McRae contains the following quote attributed to C.L.C. Allinson. The occasion of this remark was McRae being ordered away from the artillery to set up No. 3 Canadian General Hospital in northern France. Allinson reported that McCrae
most unmilitarily told [me] what he thought of being transferred to the medicals and being pulled away from his beloved guns. His last words to me were: 'Allinson, all the goddamn doctors in the world will not win this bloody war: what we need is more and more fighting men.'


Remember today

Carman


In Flanders Fields


In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; wait 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!|

2 comments:

  1. I am watching the national remembrance ceremonies and having one conflicting thought after another. I too struggle with Remembrance Day.
    Not only do our veterans get younger and younger, this year's Silver Cross mother is a slim, trim, young woman with blond hair and bangs...
    As I commented to one of those earlier posts of yours, Carman, it does seem that we've "got" the part about "take up our quarrel with the foe" as wars just keep happening.
    I have been following the CBC radio series Afghanada, now following the current war vets as they try to re-enter post-war life. Their continuing psychological sacrifice is so very great! When will we find a way to honour it that does not require taking up arms, yet again...
    Pursue peace on earth!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree. Regarding the psychological sacrifice of our young veterans, I am close to such a one. While he says little about it, the tension is readily evident.

    Carman

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.