11-11 Rememberence Day

AM

agreed mate..........lest we all forget.

LEST WE FORGET

AM
Thanks for doing the post, I was going to but was at the Adelaide River War Cemetery Service.

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The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month attained a special significance in the post-war years. The moment when hostilities ceased on the Western Front became universally associated with the remembrance of those who had died in the war. This first modern world conflict had brought about the mobilisation of over 70 million people and left between 9 and 13 million dead, perhaps as many as one-third of them with no known grave. The allied nations chose this day and time for the commemoration of their war dead.

WE SHALL REMEMBER THEM.

I think the main point is to remember the young fellas who were sent out to their deaths in their millions, regardless of nationality.

Hi All

On this day, I think of my late Grandfather, who was in the
Light Horse, he survived the Carnage, and would never talk about
the Horror, only the Mateship and the Humour,
God Bless Them All.

Cheers
Daza

Lest We Forget

Doug, Such a beautiful place but...
I found the war graves in Adelaide River quite depressing for several reasons. I wasn't expecting to find them there, and the ages on the stones somehow brought home how young they all were.
I can remember seeing some of our soldiers getting out of trucks near Gympie and thinking "My goodness, they're only kids !"
One of my grandfathers was a sharpshooter in the BIF in Egypt, and was gassed in France. He "survived", blind in one eye but suffered horribly for the rest of his life. And he counted himself lucky.
My father had a bullet in his lung for most of his life. He would never mention the War.
So many people killed. So many families and communities devastated. And not all of them fought on the same side.
War is truly the biggest obscenity for all of mankind.
Lest We Forget.

AM this is sure a day to set aside a little time and reflect the sacrifices by so many that we may have what we have today.

And also to think of loved ones lost, in war or in peace time. Those who fell in wartime are joined by those who succumbed in peace time, by either ongoing injuries, physical or mental, and I reckon they may be a sizeable number too.

I also think of loved ones lost for they shall not grow old either.

Thanx for your words and the tears they elicit. Crying is cleansing

too right.

lest we forget.

The Ode

The Ode comes from For the Fallen, a poem by the English poet and writer Laurence Binyon and was published in London in the Winnowing Fan; Poems of the Great War in 1914. The verse, which became the League Ode was already used in association with commemoration services in Australia in 1921.

FOR THE FALLEN

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children
England mourns for her dead across the sea,
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow,
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

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.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again,
They sit no more at familiar tables of home,
They have no lot in our labour of the daytime,
They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires and hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the night.

As the stars shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are stary in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

We all owe a dept to the fallen ! My Grandfather went to war at age 42 and died in Libia (Rat of Tobruk ) My father went to war at 17 (he put his age up ) and was shot when serving in the Solomon Islands, and was then after his recovery, sent back to New Guinea to serve again.He never talked about his life during the war.I can not say how proud of them I am, so we can live as we do today.

Giffo