Moss

The Soldier

IF I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is forever 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 the 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.

Rupert Brook

Moss

FOR THE FALLEN

They shall grow not 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.

Link

Although being an ex-miliary guy, I had not thought al that much about the ones that had fallen until I worked in Libya.

I visited Tobruk and the area around it many times The 'Knightsbridge' cemetary was many rows of headstones - hundreds of names - only three dates on the stones. All killed in those few days.

Also there was a large Polish community, mostly medical workers - I went every November with them to the 'International' cemetary where their dead were buried.

And the German memorial (built after the original memorial was badly desecrated) had thousands of names around the walls.

All for what? A few hectares of sand. Really tragic.

Also in Benghazi we had another commonwealth cemetary containing the graves of the early SBS guys who tried to attack Rommel's headquarters.

One thing - all were well maintained, all paid for by the Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth WGC). This work may seem a waste, but not to me. The respect these grave sites deserve is very hard-won.

A few hectares of sand that led to the Suez canal, the oil fields of the Middle East, and India.

Had Rommel broken through World War Two could have easily ended very differently.

My Dad was stationed in Burma during the last biggy, near that big river, he never told any war stories, my mother only told us about how worried she was when he was reported as MIA for a few weeks.

About six years ago I went to Kanchanaburi and spent a few minutes in the museum, that was all I could take, if my Dad had turned left instead of right at some point, I could have been looking at a picture of him on those walls.

In the spirit of this thread, I can only offer three words.

"lest we forget"

Moss

That's one great song. It's the words; 'it's all happened again and again and again...' that get me every time. Why can't we learn by our mistakes and experiences?

My Dad was stationed in Burma during the last biggy, near that big river, he never told any war stories, my mother only told us about how worried she was when he was reported as MIA for a few weeks.

About six years ago I went to Kanchanaburi and spent a few minutes in the museum, that was all I could take, if my Dad had turned left instead of right at some point, I could have been looking at a picture of him on those walls.

In the spirit of this thread, I can only offer three words.

"lest we forget"

And I can only offer

Yours truly

Kan Win

Bless you Uncky Win.

I always watch the TV programme from the Albert Hall just to see how the Merchant Navy contingent perform (my first boss when I went to sea was a 16 year old Sparky on the Russian convoys). They all seemed to be sober this year but one of them looked as though he'd left his suit at home.

FOR THE FALLEN

They shall grow not 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.

Link

Never a truer word was penned when they say "They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:"....

Each Veteran's Day (the American version of Remembrance Day), the surviving members of my first platoon in Vietnam participate in what we call "Rollcall." We all call into a toll-free conference center and we toast our dead comrades. All of us are getting pretty long in the tooth now and it is often noted by the survivors that our fallen brethren always remain young in our eyes, while all of us are on the downhill sides of our lives and complain of our aches and pains. More than once, one of the survivors has asked "Who are the luckiest...?" We all know the answer but it isn't as clear to us now as it was 40 years ago.

I find that quite touching FP. Thanks for sharing it with us.

You know Tigs, that is exactly what I thought when I read it this morning.

Moss