Over in the City and Still Life forum andyfs posted a powerful image. It drew this response from me.
When I finally went down into that black stone memory, it was - maybe - harder than being there.
All those names, those voices, those lives.
That time now forgotten when we stood and died and still lived on with memory ever echoed.
It was a cold November dawn,
and for the first time - head against the frozen stone I cried
So many, So few.
While we should never forget those who died in all those wars down to the present, Veterans Day is about those who survive. They are much more difficult to deal with the dead. They are not neatly gone, packaged away as heros and martyrs. They live still amongst us, still bleeding, still struggling in wars we do not understand. Their scars are still with us. On Veterans Day or any day, treat them as human, treat them as friend.
I pray it doesn't take another world war for the youth to wake up and appreciate how fortunate free people in free countries really are and the liberties we need to protect.
I work with wounded warriors every day at my VA office. The extent of their sacrfices (in battle and ongoing years after) is almost beyond comprehension.
There is a placard on my desk expressing thanks to each and every veteran sitting in front of me. For the veterans out their whom I will never meet, my family and I thank you for your service and sacrifice for freedom.
EyeBrock wrote:
What they won for us? As in some minor Colony doing Britannia’s bidding?
Some times you can be a total plonker. Your sarcasm is barely disguised and rather distasteful. It's not only Wootten Bassett that sees young men in hearses. We in Canada have had 133 dead from Afghanistan. Our population is half that of the UK.
It would be nice for the Brits to actually acknowledge the sacrifice the Canadians made in both wars, that's from 1914-18 and 1939-45, these are years when we fought alongside the Brits, within British Divisions and Brigades. But that wouldn't result in a smarmy reply, would it?
Because each answered the call for country to protect what they held dear, each who fought & died for the conviction of what they believed or at least did not shrink from duty as I know many have.
Hopefully next time (though, hopefully, there will NOT BE a next time) we will try to get the few who instigate these wars before whole countries get involved.
It's important to remember the victims, but as important to remember the events that lead to that, so we can stop it at the beginning. I'd rather remember what "almost happened" rather than those who died getting it right after it happened.
