May 26, 2007

Memorial Day Weekend

Growing up in a military family, in a very military town, and going to Flanders Elementary School, Memorial Day to me always resonates with the WWI poem of Lt. Col. John McCrae, In Flanders Field:

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.

For more on the background of the poem and McCrae's story, follow the link to the Arlington site.

Posted by Steve-O at May 26, 2007 07:40 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Been playing around on Ancestry.com (it's free this weekend!) and I managed to find scans of the draft cards for my great-grandfather for both WWI and WWII. It got me thinking that perhaps one of the reasons they registered 60 year olds in 1942 was that in the back of the minds of the powers that be were the fields of Europe in WWI and how quickly things could become desperate

Posted by: OrgleFan at May 27, 2007 10:52 AM

I hate that poem. So damned depressing. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's supposed to be depressing, to demonstrate the horrible futility and dreadful price of war. Bah. Down that road lies the mentality of the "peace at any price" appeasers. I prefer to remember our fallen warriors as exactly that: warriors, fighting, and when necessary dying, for a cause that's worth that price. If you insist on memorializing war in poetry, then I prefer something like High Flight.

Posted by: wolfwalker at May 27, 2007 09:09 PM

"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..."

Yeah, that sounds real appeasement-minded to me.

I love this poem for just that reason: It manages to portray both the tragedy of the sacrifice, and the valor of those who willingly made it.

Posted by: Boy Named Sous at May 29, 2007 12:16 AM

And the fella is in me own clan!

Posted by: Sarah at May 29, 2007 03:04 PM