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Memorial Day
W. N. Hodgson on Memorial Day. Paul Fussell would have approved.
By all the glories of the day
And the cool evening's benison,
By that last sunset touch that lay
Upon the hills where day was done,
By beauty lavisghly outpoured
And blessings carelessly received,
By all the days that I have lived
Make me a solider, Lord.
By all of man's hopes and fears,
And all the wonders poets sing,
The laughter of unclouded years,
And every sad and lovely thing;
By the romantic ages stored
With high endeavor that was his,
By all his mad catastrophes
Make me a man, O Lord.
I, that on my familiar hill
Saw with uncomprehending eyes
A hundred of Thy sunsets spill
Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword
Must say goodbye to all of this;--
By all delights that I shall miss,
Help me to die, O Lord.
Before Action (1916)
Today most of the world and
Today most of the world and most of man lives yet in bondage and hunger. Americans and many others don't, the Fallen we Remember Today paid for their freedoms with their lives. Remember on Memorial Day.
Interesting discussion here
Interesting discussion here about 3 mins about how the UK is dealing with veterans and the issues surrounding compensation schemes: http://defencereport.com/defrep-weekly-recap-uk-forces-compensation-fail...
Bent double, like old beggars
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.
Strange you write this as
Strange you write this as this would be more associated with Vets Day as it is celebrated in the UK. Memorial Day is not. Nice poem no less.
There is a port of no return,
There is a port of no return, where ships
May ride at anchor for a little space
And then, some starless night, the cable slips,
Leaving an eddy at the mooring place….
Gulls, veer no longer. Sailor, rest your oar.
No tangled wreckage will be washed ashore.
Leslie Nelson Jennings “Lost Harbor”
In memory of the United States Submarines and Navy crew lost in WW2.
“War is always about
“War is always about betrayal. Betrayal of the young by the old,
of idealists by cynics and of troops by politicians.”
-- Chris Hedges (2009)
. . .
“[Pat] admitted…he always felt a surge of energy and emotion at the point the National Anthem was played. He chuckled and said, ‘I guess I have a patriotic bone in me.’”
“From the time I was very little, I was aware of my father’s pride in being a Marine. When I was three years old … I would stand between my parents, feet digging into the soft leather of the big front seat, and sing the entire Marine Corps Hymn at the top of my lungs… Military service was prevalent in my family and my husband’s family and we were taught to respect it.”
-- Mary Tillman, “Boots on the Ground by Dusk” (2008)
“As long as he’s looking good to the Man, he couldn’t give a rat’s ass how many people are bleeding.” …“Just fuck ‘em. Fuck everybody who doesn’t come out here and do this. … he pounded the dust some more, making a vow of rage. He would not allow their blood to have soaked into that unproductive dust merely for some mad amorphous folly. … waiting to be killed so they can have more bodies on their tote boards when the react pulls us from where we never should have had to go. ”
-- James Webb, “Fields of Fire” (1978)
“This war is so fucking illegal…” -- Pat Tillman to Ranger Russell Baer at Baghdad airport (2003)
“It [word of Pat Tillman’s friendly fire death] went up to the two-star level and the two-star took it right up to the four-star level. … ‘Here is the steak dinner, but we’re giving it to you on this … garbage can cover. You know, you got it, you work it.’”
-- Brigadier General Howard Yellen (May 2004)
“… Pat died for this country, and he believed it was a great country that had a system that worked. … we shouldn’t be allowed to have smokescreens thrown in our face. … we are in front of Congress because Congress is supposed to take care of their citizens. … It isn’t just our family. Every time they betray a soldier, they betray all of us.” … “We had officers that we trusted. We had high regard for them. … we knew they [Pat & Kevin] could die or they could come back wounded … But we never thought that they would use him the way they did”
-- Mary Tillman, Congressional testimony (April 24, 2007)
"You are a General. There is no way a man like you, with your intelligence, education,…and rank ... believes the conclusions reached in the March 31, 2005 Briefing Book [3rd Army 15-6 investigation into his son’s death] . But your signature is on it. I assume, therefore, that you are part of this shameless bullshit. … In sum -- Fuck you … and yours.”
-- from Patrick Tillman, Sr.’s letter to BG General M. Jones (April 21, 2005)
“For Mary Tillman, what the army did to her son made a mockery of everything he went to war for – honesty, integrity, the defence of the truth. 'If you ask me if I trust our system now, the answer is I’m pretty disgusted by it. Unfortunately in our culture people survive more effectively through lies and deception and dishonourable behaviour than they do the reverse. And that’s very sad.’
-- Mick Brown, “Betrayal of an All-American Hero,” UK Guardian (Oct. 7, 2010)
“I was stronger then, but I am fiercer now. I was so certain of life, and of my place in it. I was so sure of my love, and of my future. I now have none of those certainties, but at least I can comprehend pain. I was so ready, so eager to fight and now I pay, richly pay, for having fought. … I guess that’s what the world does to you. It makes you realize that honor and loyalty are traps with no reward.”
-- James Webb, “A Sense of Honor” (1981)
. . .
’What did Mr. Tillman's sacrifice mean?’ … ‘It didn't mean anything. It speaks to the mythology of war ... There is nothing glamorous or romantic about war. It's mostly about random pointless death and misery … the good aren't rewarded, there's no such thing as karma. ‘”
-- Jeffery A. Trachtenberg , “Jon Krakauer’s Inside Story of Pat Tillman” (WSJ, Sept. 11, 2009)
“…I wanted Barack Obama to win the presidency in 2008. Among my reasons was his outspoken opposition to Bush’s disastrous, unnecessary and probably illegal war in Iraq. … So what does Obama do? He sends 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Having interviewed Pat Tillman, Sr. (father of Pat Jr.) I called him for a quote. “My condolences to the families in advance,” he said.”
-- Jack Neworth, “Careful What You Wish For,” Santa Monica Daily Press, (Jan. 29, 2011)
“Since Obama became president, a thousand soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, more than double the total in the years under Bush…. let’s declare victory and go home. … It only took an additional 711 American lives … for the White House to arrive at this conclusion. …We’d been fighting the wrong war, in the wrong way, in the wrong country.”
-- Michael Hastings, The Operators (January 2012)
. . .
Note: Epigrams excerpted from the post, “SOMETHING TO DIE FOR” at
http://www.feralfirefighter.blogspot.com
What Was Lost I sing what was
What Was Lost
I sing what was lost and dread what was won,
I walk in a battle fought over again,
My king a lost king, and lost soldiers my men;
Feet to the Rising and Setting may run,
They always beat on the same small stone.
-- William Butler Yeats
. . .
Patrick Tillman
November 6, 1976 – April 22, 2004
Pat lived in New Alamaden for most of his life. He came to
love it for it’s history and community spirit. He roamed the
hills with his brothers as a kid, then hiked and trained in
them as an athlete and soldier.
Pat was a loved son, brother, husband and faithful friend.
He was a voracious reader, inquisitive scholar, civic volunteer,
aggressive athlete and a patriotic and selfless soldier.
New Alamaden and
the nation lost
Patrick Tillman
in Afghanistan on
April 22, 2004
in service to his country.
-- New Alamaden Bulmore Park Memorial Plaque
. . .
“If parents are fated to mourn a son, and if one can envy such bereavement, my wife and I can envy the Netanyahus. Their son died for his people and for all men, in the full flush of manhood, doing a famous deed. In his death he helped to save more than a hundred lives, brought glory to Israel, and gave the world a blaze of hope in a very dark time. For our son, we have only the tears of the scar of a senseless waste.”
-- Herman Wouk, Foreword to “Self-Portrait of a Hero” (1980)
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