Lest We Forget - Rememberance Day '07
Today is November 11. In Canada, that means it's Rememberance Day for all those who have fallen in combat. A brief history lesson:
Rememberance day was first instated one year after the cessation of the hostilities of WWI. It was called Memorial Day (me doth think..). Don't ask me when the name was changed - that I don't know. WWI "ended" (as much as any war ends on a certain date *eyeroll*) on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. (18th year, though.) So on Rememberance Day in Canada (11th of Nov), we stand for two minutes of complete silence at 11:00 am to remember the fallen and the veterans. (Along with any services one might go to). Or at least, you are supposed to.
- - A Pittance of Time, by Terry Kelly.
By the way, he's the dude with glasses - and he's blind.
IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
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 our 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.
-In Flanders Field, Ltn.-Col. John McCrae, MD (1872 - 1918)
Rememberance day was first instated one year after the cessation of the hostilities of WWI. It was called Memorial Day (me doth think..). Don't ask me when the name was changed - that I don't know. WWI "ended" (as much as any war ends on a certain date *eyeroll*) on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. (18th year, though.) So on Rememberance Day in Canada (11th of Nov), we stand for two minutes of complete silence at 11:00 am to remember the fallen and the veterans. (Along with any services one might go to). Or at least, you are supposed to.
- - A Pittance of Time, by Terry Kelly.
By the way, he's the dude with glasses - and he's blind.
IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
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 our 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.
-In Flanders Field, Ltn.-Col. John McCrae, MD (1872 - 1918)