Remembrance Day/ Veterans Day

Sunday was Canadian Remembrance Day.  It is also Veterans Day here in the USA.  It is the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I and because there are no WW I veterans left anymore, it is truly a remembrance of them.  Tradition sees the reading of the poem Flanders Fields, but I never really paid any attention to the author.  Here is a little tidbit about him and what his state of mind must have been when he wrote it.

IN FLANDERS FIELDS POEM The World’s Most Famous WAR MEMORIAL POEM By Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae 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 thought are often of the men (boys) who fought in these wars of old.  I was listening to a reporter today talk of the fact that some of these brave soldiers were 14 to 18 years olds.  Most were under 25 years of age.  What a commitment by these young people to climb on a boat and go clear around the world to fight for a freedom that we today are so quick to give up.  We are challenged in the last verse of the poem to not break the faith of why they fought.  If we do give up those freedoms, the dead will not sleep easy because their death will have been in vain.

Let us not forget.

We just had a quiet day today and our view is the same tonight as last night: