Veteran's Day

[Sava]

I definitely see the outline of a jungle-style helmet. And that looks like jungle brush surrounding it to the left. Also, it looks like a rifle to the right, but the bigger cylindrical object, I have no clue what the is.

[Zkribbler]

Here's to all those who served, from the village green of Lexington to the deserts of Iraq, from the wooden decks of the U.S.S. Constitution to the pilots seat of an SR-71, from the heat of battle at Gettysburg to the cold war at the Fulda Gap, from the frostbite of Bastogne to the steamy jungles of southeast Asia. We breathe free because of your sacrifice. Thank you.

[Q Classic]

see, i thought it could have been a grunt, but then the grunt would have had a huge hollow tube sticking out of him. hardly heroic.

then i thought it could be a howitzer of some sorts, but the thing looks like it has goggles on...

[Ben Kenobi]

Thanks slowwy for the thread, and starchild for the Canadian Flander's Field poem by John McCrae.


A little more history about the poet and poem.

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flanders.htm

McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Here is the story of the making of that poem:

Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.

As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.

It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:

"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.

The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.

In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.

A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."

When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:

"The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."

In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.

[The diplomat]

My church on sunday asked all the vets to gather on the podium so the congregation could thank them and honor them.

We need to honor our veterans past and present. They paid and are paying the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom!

To veterans, we thank you!

[Japher]

I see what Sava does, though that could be the power of suggestion

I am in the first generation of my family that has not fought in a war. My uncles - Veitnam, My Grandparents - WWII, their parents - WWI, and one of their parents actually fought in the Civil War (kicked some souther arse)... Here's to them, my brother-in-law who is away at war right now, and all those who are fighting and have fought along side them

[cinch]

Dammit, I started my own thread because Canada deserves its own, dammit!








Alright, I just somehow missed this thread when I did my initial skimover.

Oops.

But really, Remembrance Day is an entirely different holiday, so indeed I am completely justified.

Ahem.

[Sprayber]

It's so hard see friends leave for a place you know is dangerous. It's hard to promise a child that you will always be there when you know in your heart you may not be able to. It's hard to explain to them why you would ever want to go to such a place. It's hard to hold someone at night knowing that soon, you will be somewhere far away.

What makes all those people who have gone before and who will go in the future special is that they are not supermen. They are very ordinary people who are put into extraordinary situations. Wars are not won by the people who history claims. They are won by the men and women who give their blood in the process. You hear about the leaders and heads of state, but rarely do you hear about the ones who get into the blood and guts and bear the real scars..

[Lancer]

"to the cold war at the Fulda Gap"

Thanks is nice Zkribbler, but how about something, shall we say, a bit more substancial?

Perhaps a cold one at Maleen's sari sari store, yes?

[Zkribbler]

Why stop at one?

[Lancer]

Why stop at one?

I think I'm in love.


Because the next one is on me!

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Starchild
The greatest honour we could give them is to create a world in which no one would have to sacrifice themselves again. Remember those who fought and work to end the fighting.

Remembrance Day
11:11 a.m. 11-11-2003

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.

My feelings exactly.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Sava
It kind of looks like a sniper in a prone position, covered in jungle brush.

Fairly close. It's late Vietnam era, and either a Force Recon jarhead, LRRP or an airborne Pathfinder with a Colt Commando, flop hat, and a something like a waterproof drop case for a broken down M72 LAW.