Memorial Day

[CobraDriver]

In Flanders Fields

 

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.

[159th_Viper]

Whenever I See A Soldier Boy...

 

 

 

 

"Whenever I see a soldier boy

No matter where it be

I give him salutation

for he means so much to me

 

He's not the boy we used to know

In store, at desk or plow

He's a defender of our faith

He's in the service now

 

He keeps Old Glory flying

on land and air and sea

He lives to make our homes secure

He dies to keep us free."

 

 

Sam Miller - 1942

 

 

 

~S~

[Boberro]

What is that guys?

[Zembla]

WWI

 

BTW, I live in Flanders fields :)

 

 

 

-Z

[BrumTx]

Alan Seeger's "Rendezvous" echoes a letter he wrote in 1915, in which he says, "If it must be, let it come in the heat of action. Why flinch? It is by far the noblest form in which death can come. It is in a sense almost a privilege. . . ."

 

Alan Seeger

 

Rendezvous

I have a rendezvous with Death

At some disputed barricade,

I have a rendezvous with Death

At some disputed barricade,

When Spring comes back with rustling shade

And apple-blossoms fill the air--

I have a rendezvous with Death

When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand

And lead me into his dark land

And close my eyes and quench my breath--

It may be I shall pass him still.

I have a rendezvous with Death

On some scarred slope of battered hill,

When Spring comes round again this year

And the first meadow-flowers appear. God knows 'twere better to be deep

Pillowed in silk and scented down,

Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,

Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,

Where hushed awakenings are dear . . .

But I've a rendezvous with Death

At midnight in some flaming town,

When Spring trips north again this year,

And I to my pledged word am true,

I shall not fail that rendezvous.

 

Alan Seeger was a fellow Legionnaire

[warthogmadman987]

High Flight

By John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

(Killed In The Battle Of Britian, Age 19)

 

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Portions Of This Lovely Poem Appear On The Headstones

Of Many Interred In Arlington National Cemetery,

Patricularly Aviators And Astronauts

 

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"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds -

and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of -

wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.

Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind along

and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.

"Up, up the long delirious burning blue

I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,

where never lark, or even eagle, flew;

and, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

the high untrespassed sanctity of space,

put out my hand and touched the face of God."

[PoleCat]

"Nothing makes a man more aware of his capabilities and of his limitations than those moments when he must push aside all the familiar defenses of ego and vanity, and accept reality by staring, with the fear that is normal to a man in combat, into the face of Death."

 

Major Robert S. Johnson, USAAF, 27 Victories, WWII

[S77th-konkussion]

 

"Here Rests In Honored Glory An American Soldier Known But To God"

(linked from Arlingtoncemetary.net)