|
|
|
|
Phar lap
Member
|
|
|
Joined: 20 Jun 2003
Posts: 1006
Location: A flawed Utopia
|
| Back to top
|
|
 Posted: 11/11/05 - 01:39 Post subject: 11th. November. 87 years ago. The War to End Wars.
Oz singer song writer Eric Bogle wrote this song after visiting some military cemeteries in Flanders and Northen France.
The song called No Mans Land or Green Feilds of France asks questions of a dead soldier.
Well, how'd do Private Willie McBride,
D'you mind if I sit here beside your graveside?
I'll rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
Been walking all day, Lord, and I'm nearly done.
I see by your graveside you were only nineteen
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916,
I hope you died quick and I hope you died "clean"
Or, Willie McBride was it slow and obsecene?
CHORUS
Did they beat the drum slowly, did the sound the fife lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sing the "The Last Post" in chorus?
Did the pipes play the "Flowers O' The Forest"?
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithfil heart is that memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you forever nineteen?
Or are you a stranger, without ebven a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame.
Well, the sun's shinning down on these green feilds of France,
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plough,
No gas no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here by your graveside still in NO Man's Land,
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and dammed.
And I can't help but wonder now Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "thecause"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
The killing the dying, it was all done in vain,
For WillieMcBride, it's all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.
LEST WE FORGET.
|
|
|
|
|
Cappy
Excelent
|
|
|
Joined: 16 May 2002
Posts: 27368
Location: Spreadsheetylvania
|
| Back to top
|
|
Posted: 11/11/05 - 04:37 Post subject:
In the US, its Veteran's Day. We honor all those who have served.
Thank you gentlemen and ladies.
|
|
|
|
|
andydp
Member
|
|
|
Joined: 23 Sep 2003
Posts: 8122
Location: Upstate NY near Albany
|
| Back to top
|
|
Posted: 11/11/05 - 05:40 Post subject:
One poem by a British writer called Siegfried Sassoon. War is not pretty, especially the "War to End All Wars"
"Suicide in the trenches" (1917)
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
|
|
|
|
|
copteacher
Adjunct
|
|
|
Joined: 08 Jun 2002
Posts: 20588
Location: Teaching in the Halls of Justice
|
| Back to top
|
|
Posted: 11/11/05 - 07:30 Post subject:
Just the sight of a veterans cemetary wells me up.
Thanks for those who have sacrificed to make us free.
|
|
|
|
|
JACKED UP
PRESIDENT
|
|
|
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
Posts: 21238
Location: www.johnnydu.com
|
| Back to top
|
|
Posted: 11/11/05 - 07:45 Post subject:
| Cappy wrote: | In the US, its Veteran's Day. We honor all those who have served.
Thank you gentlemen and ladies. |
|
|
|
|
|
robp
Pyromaniac
|
|
|
Joined: 26 Jul 2002
Posts: 16242
Location: Waiting in line at the beer store...
|
| Back to top
|
|
Posted: 11/11/05 - 07:46 Post subject:
None of the dying was done in vain, not then, not now, not ever. Defending our freedom from those who want to take it from us is a never ending process. A heartfelt thanks to our veterans past and present.
|
|
|
|
|
gretriever
Hipster Doofus
|
|
|
Joined: 16 Jul 2003
Posts: 19385
Location: A moving target in a firing range.
|
| Back to top
|
|
Posted: 11/11/05 - 09:13 Post subject:
Those who give their lives in the name of freedom do deserve all the respect and honor that can be given them. But history is filled with unecessary wars over (for lack of better phrase) stupid reasons. Always has been, and unfortunately always will be.
The message of those First World War writings is still asked in more recent times...
You're watching people fighting,
you're watching people losing
on Armistice Day.
You're watching people fighting,
you're watching people losing
on Armistice Day.
The watchers do the wincing,
reporters so convincing.
But the TV never lies.
I went looking for a war,
but the only guns I saw -
never used in anger.
Watching people fighting,
watching people losing -
Armistice Day.
The fixers do the fixing,
the locals do the lyching,
the papers deny.
I went looking for a headine -
got talking to the backline;
they'd never seen the action.
You're watching people fighting,
watching people losing,
on Armistice Day.
You're watching people fight,
say they fight, oh say they lose
On ANZAC Day.
The fixers do the fixing,
the locals do the lynching -
The papers deny.
Watchers do the wincing,
reporters so convincing.
The TV never lies - it never lies.
Fixers do the fixing,
the locals do the lynching,
the papers deny.
Hirst/Moginie/Rotsey, Armisitice Day (1981)
|
|
|
|
  |
All times are GMT - 4 Hours
|
| Page 1 of 1 |
Related topics: | |
|
