11/11/1918

[kallend 2,230]

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen 1893-1918
KIA 1 week before the armistice.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[airdvr 210]

And we think war is brutal today...

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[DZJ 0]

Interesting, the version I have of Dulce et reads 'Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped softly behind'.

I don't know which verses move me most, but there's the verse of Kipling's Recessional, the Kohima Epitaph,

When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today

but I can never read the inscription on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey without feeling a lump rise in my throat.

BENEATH THIS STONE RESTS THE BODY
OF A BRITISH WARRIOR
UNKNOWN BY NAME OR RANK
BROUGHT FROM FRANCE TO LIE AMONG
THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS OF THE LAND
AND BURIED HERE ON ARMISTICE DAY
11 NOV: 1920, IN THE PRESENCE OF
HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE V
HIS MINISTERS OF STATE
THE CHIEFS OF HIS FORCES
AND A VAST CONCOURSE OF THE NATION


THUS ARE COMMEMORATED THE MANY
MULTITUDES WHO DURING THE GREAT
WAR OF 1914 - 1918 GAVE THE MOST THAT
MAN CAN GIVE LIFE ITSELF
FOR GOD
FOR KING AND COUNTRY
FOR LOVED ONES HOME AND EMPIRE
FOR THE SACRED CAUSE OF JUSTICE AND
THE FREEDOM OF THE WORLD


THEY BURIED HIM AMONG THE KINGS BECAUSE HE
HAD DONE GOOD TOWARD GOD AND TOWARD
HIS HOUSE

Lest We Forget

[kallend 2,230]

For the first time, one thing was missing from the remembrance ceremony in France today (at Verdun). No French veteran of World War I was alive to witness it. The last died in March this year.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[gemini 0]

Here were the last 10 verified WW1 Veterans prior to March 2008:

Name Age Nationality
Choules, Claude Stanley 107 English
Ross, John Campbell (Jack) 109 Australian
Goux, Fernand 108 French
Picault, Pierre 109 French
Allingham, Henry William 112 English
Hughes, Netherwood (Ned) 108 English
Patch, Henry John (Harry) 110 English
Stone, William Frederick (Bill) 108 English
Babcock, John H F (Jack) 108 Canadian
Buckles, Frank Woodruff 107 American

Blue skies,

Jim