Remembrance Day .

 Lest we forget those poor buggers sacrificed to the last argument of Kings .

 Lest we forget...the Green Fields Of France

https://youtu.be/ntt3wy-L8Ok

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcMk85ZsBh0

Yes, thanks & remembrance to all those who fought & especially those who gave their lives.

 An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

 

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate,

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

 

                                    William Butler Yeats

  Anthem for Doomed YouthBY WILFRED OWEN What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?       — Only the monstrous anger of the guns.       Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;        Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,— The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;       And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?       Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.       The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds

 Old men sending young men to war...that's what we should remembe r.

 And they're still at it .One of my girls did a paper on Owens last year after I pointed her in his direction .Sasson is another of that lost generation which includes a team of All Blacks among all that marvelous rugby talent from the Commonwealth ,UK and France .All sacrificed because prideful old fools with too much power didnt have a clue how to stop what they had set in motion.

 I haven't read much of his work, but  I remember that poem  from school. It seems a proper thing for you lass to study in a world that has mostly forgotten all that suffering. 

 To give my girl something that she could empathise with I got her to read about the 50,000 boys under the age of 18 sent to the trenches ,some as young as 15 broke under prolonged bombardment and were executed .Even that old curmudgeon Churchill berated parliament for this vile act perpertrated upon mere children .

Sad stuff. You might try to get hold of the TV series called The Village which covers desertion. It's a credible effort.
Off to get some ZZs, all the best.

 Beautiful poetry...Yeats and Owen certainly get the message across and the above lyric (words by Eric Bogle) and sung beautifully  by the Fureys...one of the best Irish bands

Green Fields Of FranceEric BogleWell, how do you do, Private William McBride,
Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside?
And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the glorious 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 the play the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fir o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you forever 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

The sun's 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 and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

And I can't help but wonder, no Willie 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, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

 Cheers Moz,Seb .