Remembrance Day - 2008 (Merged)
 

Can I recommend the Remembrance page in this website.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/rememb...sh/index.shtml[/url]

Sound on...

...and don't forget this Sunday at 11 am, an occasion for all.

KFB
Many thanks for this link. Most moving. I shall be at RAF Langar on the hour for a small ceremony. Travellers (Gypsies) desecrated the memorial there, recently, and the trees that were planted around it, the locals and the RBL have restored it in time for the parade.
On the Idle Hill of Summer A E Houseman

On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams,
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams.
Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by,
Dear to friends and food for powder,
Soldiers marching, all to die.

East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain,
Lovely lads and dead and rotten;
None that go return again.

Far the calling bugles hollo,
High the screaming fife replies,
Gay the files of scarlet follow:
Woman bore me, I will rise

FEBA

Thanks for the link, poppies being worn with pride, SAFSA gets a bit extra this month.

http://www.hellfire-corner.demon.co.uk/pict4.jpg

For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Most moving link, and lovely poems.

I will unashamedly shed more than a few tears on Sunday.

Lest we forget!

All military colleagues, serving and ex,
Please feel free to join me in posting war poetry. Perhaps this could become an annual occurance that procedes remembrance day.

The General


'Good-morning; good-morning!' the General said
When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead,
And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
'He's a cheery old card,' grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack...
But he did for them both by his plan of attack.


Siegfried Sassoon

This is a pilot's forum, and if we're going to quote poetry, then we must be loyal to our pilot brethren:



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. Hov'ring 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 windswept 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.



This young man's words could almost turn me to religion.

On 11th Nov, please remember him and his friends.

Not so. In this regard, remembrance day, it's an open forum. Feel free to post any poetry you like. Other than John Gillespie Magee's famous poem I don't know of any other poets of the air (war time) that are as famous as Magee, or Naval for that matter.
FEBA

Just an observation, but it's amazing when you click on the names on the rembrance link at the top of this forum how many of them died from pneumonia. As if it wasn't bad enough at the time without that!

One of my favourite remembrance-ish bits of poetry is only a few lines (must google for the rest) - I think it too is Housman:

Too full already is the grave
With fellows who were young and brave
...... and died because they were.....


Later.....

of course it was Housman .. and I've been misquoting him for years....

Oh stay at home, my lad, and plough
The land and not the sea,
And leave the soldiers at their drill,
And all about the idle hill
Shepherd your sheep with me.

Oh stay with company and mirth
And daylight and the air;
Too full already is the grave
Of fellows that were good and brave
And died because they were.

.... a bit anti-war in its entirity, but I'll forgive Housman anything for his "Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries" ... but you can google that for yourselves!!

A Soldier's Poem
 

DO NOT STAND AT MY GRAVE AND WEEP

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there.
I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there;
I did not die.


Anon

I think we should go back to the original Armistice Day concept. When I was a boy everyone, everywhere, kept two minutes silence at 1100 hrs on 11 November. 1100 hrs on Rembrance Sunday (9 Nov) clashes horribly with the England/Wales quarter final which will inevitably reduce church attendance. :(

Apparently, in the First World War, the Highland Regiments still spoke Gaelic. Orders were issued in English.


Here the officer calls to his boys (Ghillean – from which we get the fishing 'Ghilly') to March at Ease. He reminds them of their duty to the king and of their home, but I can’t speak the language.
So in the advance on the road to Arras, the poet, who served in the Cameronians (I think) wrote…

Oran Arras
Ghillean, march at ease!
R'gh na s'th bhith mar sinn
A’ dol chun na str'
’S chun na cill aig Arras,
Ghillean, march at ease!

Tha nochd oidhche Luain
Teannadh suas ri fàire
A’ dol chun na h-uaigh
Far nach fhuasg’lear barrall
Ghillean, march at ease!

Tillidh cuid dhinn slàn
Cuid fo chràdh làn fala
’S mar a tha e ’n dàn
Roinn le bàs a dh’ fhanas
Ghillean, march at ease!

Gus ar t'r a dh'on,
Eadar liath is leanabh,
Mar dhaoin’ às an rian
N' sinn sgian a tharrainn,
Ghillean, march at ease!

Gura l'onmhor fear is tè
Tha ’n t'r nan geug nan caithris,
Feitheamh ris an sgeul
Bhios aig a’ chlèir ri aithris
Ghillean, march at ease!

Gura l'onmhor sùil
Shileas dlùth ’s nach caidil
Nuair thig fios on Chrùn
Nach bi dùil rim balaich
Ghillean, march at ease!

Lest We Forget
 

The Soldier by Rupert Brooke

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Much of modern UK society seems unaware (or uncaring) of the sacrifices made on their behalf. Are we worthy?

Many seem to think that it is just about remembering the dead of both World Wars - unaware that there are those who are still suffering from WWI and WWII. It is largely of course, but also all the conflicts UK forces have been involved in since WWII. And don't forget the toll of accidents and ill health as a result of serving - even in peacetime.

Not just those that were killed either. Those that were injured, and whose bodies or minds were permanantly damaged. The parents, children, brothers, sisters, wives, girlfriends and other relatives who lost their loved ones. Their suffering continues every day.

Remember them too! Lest we forget.......

Remembrance
 

One of the most simple, but most poignant in my view is "In Flanders Fields"

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields the poppies grow
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 your 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

John McCrae (1872-1918)

John McCrae was a Canadian physician who fought on the Western Front in 1914 and was later transferred to the medical corps. He also died during the Great War and also of pneumonia, like so many others who survived wounds and other horrors.

With the current situation in Iraq, I can't help thinking of how the poets of the time when the UK was the world's only superpower seemed to capture the difficulties the superpower faced. No one better perhaps than Rudyard Kipling whose poem "Take up the White Man's Burden" is often mistakingly labelled as being racist and stuck in the Victorian era. However, on closer inspection it makes quite clear the terrible responsibilities of states who, for whatever reason, find themselves acting as the free world's policeman - "the savage wars of peace" as Kipling so accurately puts it and "to wait in heavy harness." Having spent a relatively short and uneventful time out there (fortunately!) earlier this year, those Service personnel out in the Middle East now will certainly be in my thoughts tomorrow and on 11th.

BBC Festival of Remembrance
 

Why does the BBC think that it’s a good idea to use American accents in the songs tonight?

Will Young singing about Baahhkly Skwayay is silly...


There is rarely a need to start TWO threads on one subject. Certainly not in this case

I logged on to start a whine about this but you beat me to it.

The overall populist tone of tonight with the bands playing a medley including the theme from Top Gun was embarrassing. I hope that tomorrow morning none of my cadets remember this shameful piece of populist tripe.

Sadly this is what happens after those who served and worked at the BBC retired and their grandsons with their degrees in media studies take over with their focus groups.

11th November 1998 I was in London on business and had to get home before lunch. It was the 80th anniversary of the end of WW1. There was a service on the station starting at 10.45. At 11 there was the usual 2 minutes silence.

After 2 minutes the silence was broken by all the engines sounding their horns............never before had my hair stood on end to this extent.

It was an honour to be there.

My thought on the Festival was....where is everyone? It seemed as if the muster was only half full compared to previous years.

Was that a guilty look on Bliar's face when the Gulf veterans and relatives came on?

"Feel free to post any poetry you like"

Thank you, FEBA. I am not a 'military colleague' but my family lost members in WW2 and WW1 (grandfather KIA first day, first Battle of Somme). So...

Anthem for Doomed Youth

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 good-byes.
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.

Wilfred Owen

A great poet, himself KIA a few days from the armistice of 1918. These words of his pull tears from my eyes as surely as the BoBMF's Merlins echoing into a darkening sky over Croydon airport or Kenley at their annual tribute.