Author Topic: Armistice Day...  (Read 10156 times)

Offline WaddWatsonEllis

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Re: Armistice Day...
« Reply #20 on: November 14, 2011, 06:25:41 PM »
Hello all,


I ended the day watchin a movie called simply Passchendaele; which in very graphic detail showed the horrors of Trench Warfare; Thank God I did not serve there!

As a child I grew up touring Verdun and St Mihiel  ... and the dualism of my patriotim shows up in one of my favorite songs: Warning! This is to be watched by oneself with a BIG box of kleenex...

http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/05/mcbride.htm
My moniker is my great grandfather's name. He served with the 2nd Florida Mounted Regiment in the Civil War. Afterward, he came home, packed his wife into a wagon, and was one of the first NorteAmericanos on the Frio River southwest of San Antonio ..... Kinda where present day Dilley is ...

"Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway." John Wayne
NCOWS #3403

Offline Durango Flinthart

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Re: Armistice Day...
« Reply #21 on: November 14, 2011, 07:46:55 PM »
 Bivouac of the Dead
 
THE MUFFLED drum's sad roll has beat   
  The soldier's last tattoo;   
No more on Life's parade shall meet   
  That brave and fallen few.   
On Fame's eternal camping-ground           
  Their silent tents are spread,   
And Glory guards, with solemn round,   
  The bivouac of the dead.   
  
No rumor of the foe's advance   
  Now swells upon the wind;     
No troubled thought at midnight haunts   
  Of loved ones left behind;   
No vision of the morrow's strife   
  The warrior's dream alarms;   
No braying horn nor screaming fife     
  At dawn shall call to arms.   
  
Their shivered swords are red with rust,   
  Their plumèd heads are bowed;   
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,   
  Is now their martial shroud.   
And plenteous funeral tears have washed   
  The red stains from each brow,   
And the proud forms, by battle gashed,   
  Are free from anguish now.   
  
The neighing troop, the flashing blade,   
  The bugle's stirring blast,   
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,   
  The din and shout, are past;   
Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal   
  Shall thrill with fierce delight     
Those breasts that nevermore may feel   
  The rapture of the fight.   
  
Like the fierce northern hurricane   
  That sweeps his great plateau,   
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,   
  Came down the serried foe.   
Who heard the thunder of the fray   
  Break o'er the field beneath,   
Knew well the watchword of that day   
  Was "Victory or Death."     
  
Long had the doubtful conflict raged   
  O'er all that stricken plain,   
For never fiercer fight had waged   
  The vengeful blood of Spain;   
And still the storm of battle blew,     
  Still swelled the gory tide;   
Not long, our stout old chieftain knew,   
  Such odds his strength could bide.   
  
'T was in that hour his stern command   
  Called to a martyr's grave     
The flower of his beloved land,   
  The nation's flag to save.   
By rivers of their fathers' gore   
  His first-born laurels grew,   
And well he deemed the sons would pour   
  Their lives for glory too.   
  
Full many a norther's breath has swept   
  O'er Angostura's plain,   
And long the pitying sky has wept   
  Above its mouldered slain.     
The raven's scream, or eagle's flight,   
  Or shepherd's pensive lay,   
Alone awakes each sullen height   
  That frowned o'er that dread fray.   
  
Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,     
  Ye must not slumber there,   
Where stranger steps and tongues resound   
  Along the heedless air.   
Your own proud land's heroic soil   
  Shall be your fitter grave:   
She claims from war his richest spoil—   
  The ashes of her brave.   
  
Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest   
  Far from the gory field,   
Borne to a Spartan mother's breast     
  On many a bloody shield;   
The sunshine of their native sky   
  Smiles sadly on them here,   
And kindred eyes and hearts watch by   
  The heroes' sepulchre.     
  
Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead!   
  Dear as the blood ye gave;   
No impious footstep here shall tread   
  The herbage of your grave;   
Nor shall your glory be forgot   
  While Fame her record keeps,   
Or Honor points the hallowed spot   
  Where Valor proudly sleeps.   
  
Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone   
  In deathless song shall tell,     
When many a vanished age hath flown,   
  The story how ye fell;   
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,   
  Nor Time's remorseless doom,   
Shall dim one ray of glory's light     
  That gilds your deathless tomb.   


Theodore O'Hara
 
When the cambrian measures were forming they promised purpetual peace. They swore if we gave up our weapons the wars of the tribes, they would cease, but when we disarmed they enslaved us and delivered us bound to our foe and the Gods of the copybook headings said, "Stick to the devil you know." Kipling

Offline cpt dan blodgett

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Re: Armistice Day...
« Reply #22 on: November 14, 2011, 11:55:28 PM »
DULCE ET DECORUM EST(1)

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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines 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 flound'ring 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
8 October 1917 - March, 1918
Queen of Battle - "Follow Me"
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ROI, ROII

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Re: Armistice Day...
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