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](http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/24934-Robert-Laurence-Binyon-For-The-Fallen)
I know I’m a few minutes early.
Not early at all. The sun is bright and I have my window open for the first time since February. The fresh air is blowing through. But this day lends itself to melancholia.
My mind turns to those who will never see a fine day again.
We had a very moving ceremony here at my workplace - a colleague played The Last Post in the courtyard whilst we stood around.
I must admit the first time I encountered Armistice Day in the UK, I was quite baffled. I had somehow missed any talk about it, and was in the supermarket at the time. Suddenly a voice came over the loudspeaker asking for 2 minutes silence. Unfortunately I was at the self checkout at the time, and the damned thing kept going ‘Please scan your item’ and I didn’t know how to stop it. Quite embarassing.
We had two minutes’ silence here. Most of the younger people (and almost the entire IT department) didn’t acknowledge it, and the phones continued to ring. Hell, I’m not old enough to have been anything to do with the wars… but I was named after a great-great uncle who died at Ypres. And I know how my grandfather served, and how the second world war affected my parents’ young lives. And how it still goes on in Afghanistan, and another totally pointless war.
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
**In Flanders Fields **
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army
*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. *
I was hoping to find an appropriate place to say thank you to all who have served.
A Doper posted this a couple years ago, and I pull it out every year on this day. Still can’t get through it all at once.
Thanks to all our Vets.
Remembrance day in Canada.
Thank you.
I have no other words.
I’m working today - it always feels disrespectful, and I try not to, but that’s how the cookie bounced this year. 
I’ll read this at home tonight. Can’t cry in the office.
Thanks for remembering
I’m home today, painting kitchen cupboards and listening to the radio. It’s coming up on 11:11 in just a little while.
War is hell. War is stupid. War is awful. War is a waste.
And how lucky I am to never have experienced it.
So thank you to those who did what I could never do. It’s appreciated.
…and now the bagpipes. Is there a sound ever more true for sorrow and remembrance?
If any of you live in the Midwest, take some time to visit the World War I museum and Liberty Memorial in Kansas City. It is one of the finest museums you will ever see. It will bring tears to your eyes.
Although Amazing Grace has taken its place in popular imagination, the classic piping tune for the dead (especially the war dead) is “Flowers of the Forest.”
Here’s a link to a piper playing Flowers of the Forest at the Falklands, at a reunion/memorial ceremony on the Two Sisters.
Last Post at Menin Gate.
And of course: Green Fields of France
Muncelul
August 28, 1917
Finished is the battle. The day is over
And quiet and peace is everywhere now,
Where all was struggle a few hours before,
to hold the front against the foe.
What a storm yesterday, fighting step by step
to show the old spirit and courage!
The moon has risen, and in the mild brightness
is a single cross in front of a wood chapel.
In this solemn summer evening hour,
-The quiet itself is a gift from God -
a small group gathers around the cross
No one can believe it: little Seefried dead!
And as the priest ended with warm words,
His commander spoke again:
We saw him, too young, blinded in the smoke of victory,
How he had fallen to honor his flag,
How he came to the regiment as a child,
How the hard times matured him into a man,
As the bodies broke through, he was taken from us,
As the winner stormed, falling, he finished his course.
A sudden flare through the mild dark night.
A light, a roar, a running,
They surge to the German line
and the one who gets furthest.
Is shot in a salute by the German guns
For those left without life and blood.
there is again peace. A light rises
And shivering breaks. Only briefly, his the charge .
And again it is night - - a single shot -
From friend to foe, an iron greeting.
The day draws near, the east glows red.
And softly sings the wind, our Seefried is dead.
Dulce et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen
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.
I had to take a break from this one. There was something in my throat and eyes.
It made me think of my uncle, a USMC vet of the fifties who we buried last week. Duty is a marine’s middle name. Even after all of the years between his service and passing, there was a Marine Corps honor guard to give him the burial honors befitting a member of the service. That meant a lot to all of us.
Semper Fi, Uncle Jim.
Taps
Day is done, gone the sun
From the lakes, from the hills, from the skies
All is well, safely rest;
God is nigh.