"...on the 11th hour on the 11th day in the 11th month..."
How many times have you heard that as an introduction to any memoriam to this great event of a war ending?
Have you ever wondered how world history may have changed had this Great War not happened? I have tried but find it difficult, I just don't know enough.
I was reminded this morning of that terrifying Battle of the Somme.
The Battle took just one week.
The English advanced just one mile.
The English lost 600 000 men.
The Germans lost 650 000 men.
Please take a personal minute sometime today to remember the fallen in any war, but especially this one.
Consider growing a container of red poppies - the symbol of all that was lost to the world forever.
Below is probably the most graphic poem of this evil I know.
Don't read it of you don't want to. I post it though in memoriam of all who died in France, God bless us all.
DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI
- Wilfred Owen 1893 - 1918
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 I 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
Last edited by Lestie - ContainerGardens; 11/11/12 08:26 AM.