Lest we forget

Respect to all those who made the greatest sacrifice for us.



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.

John McCrae

Lost two great granddads and a granddad in WW1 and nearly lost my other granddad in WW2 when his tank was blown up in Tunisia so I'll not be forgetting any time soon.

I didn't have to do it this year, but previously I had to read a sermon at a packed to the rafters Bath Abbey on Remembrance Sunday. Until his death in 2011, Harry Patch, the oldest survivor of WW! came along. Watching him insist on standing up from his wheelchair whilst I read out

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.

followed by the Last Salute, makes me fill with emotion even now.

Grand chap was Harry.

Respect and remembrance for all those who made the ultimate sacrifice for us so that we mat live in peace.

Real heroes and real sacrifices, and we rightly recognise this every year and long may it continue without being tainted by politics and political correctness.

At last,something we can all agree on.

I was looking through a book photographs this week,made up entirely of images of men with horrific facial injuries,sustained on the battlefields of France during WW1.

Surgery at the time was pretty basic,and,looking through them,I was amazed that any of them survived at all. And they considered themselves lucky.

To quote Harry Patch,"War is organised murder,and nothing else".

Remember them indeed.

Amen to everything that has been said in this thread.

whatsgoingon wrote:Real heroes and real sacrifices, and we rightly recognise this every year and long may it continue without being tainted by politics and political correctness.

Hear,hear.