Field of the Grounded Arms...*Henry Wadsworth Longfellow*

Decoration Day

Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest
On this Field of the Grounded Arms,
Where foes no more molest,
Nor sentry's shot alarms!

Ye have slept on the ground before,
And started to your feet
At the cannon's sudden roar,
Or the drum's redoubling beat.

But in this camp of Death
No sound your slumber breaks;
Here is no fevered breath,
No wound that bleeds and aches.

All is repose and peace,
Untrampled lies the sod;
The shouts of battle cease,
It is the Truce of God!

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!
The thoughts of men shall be
As sentinels to keep
Your rest from danger free.

Your silent tents of green
We deck with fragrant flowers
Yours has the suffering been,
The memory shall be ours.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Atlantic Magazine

We've seen the pictures of the stones, row upon row, upon everlasting white stone. With names that could be our own brothers and sisters. Our fathers and mothers.

Arlington Cemetary.

We've seen those Walls of Granite.

The Vietnam Memorial.

Or that memorial right down the street from where you live... Maybe it has the names of a friend of yours engraved upon it? Or the name of your friends dad, or granddad? Or maybe that Dad's name is your dad? Or your brother?

All over the world we remember our fallen warriors.

Russia.

Great Britain.

France.

Canada.

...and a hundred other countries who remember our fallen sons and daughters in stone.

Why? Supposedly so we can learn from past mistakes...

Yet...

This image...

...is repeated time and time again, all over the world. Children's lives forever shattered because we lack the courage to make war a thing of the past. Instead, we allow it to become our present, and our future.

We find a reason to excuse the lack of courage. Always. Truth to tell, there's only one reason that rings true...

We Are Cowards.

One Tin Soldier.

Think about the lyrics of this song... Go on, think. We claim to detest war, and all the carnage that it brings, mostly to the innocents who had/have no say in the matter. Yet time, and time again, we use excuses to explain away the fact that we can't stop killing each other.

Oh, we use the excuse that we don't control the decisions. Bull#. Only our cowardice prevents us from stopping it. That's it: Cowardice.

If we truly wanted to end war, we would. We can, if we want.

Here are some more lyrics to ponder...there's truth in music.

How many cannon balls must fly?

Blame the politicians. I know it easy to do...I do it all the time.

Blame the soldiers. I know that's easy to do, too...I hear it rather often.

Blame your war mongering neighbors. That's done, too. Isn't it?

Why not try to place the blame where it belongs? With me. With you. With all of us who refuse, by intent, or neglect, to do what's necessary to stop...

This.

Or this.

How about this?

To deny our part in their deaths is to render their deaths, their sacrifice meaningless. Empty. A straw death. A crime.

If we do nothing this is our legacy as a nation. As a world.

Soldiers go where we tell them to go... They don't choose to go to Tarawa, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Da Nang, Chosin Reservoir, Baghdad, or tens of thousands of places with no names that we'll never hear of...

We put them there. Either through intent, or apathy. The jungles of SE Asia. The mountains, and sands of the Middle East. The atolls of the Pacific. The waters of every single ocean on Earth. ...and the skies above. These men and women went because we told them to. Because that was their duty to us, and to their brothers and sisters.

...and for that duty, some of you hate them. Vilify them. Ignore them. Treat them like pariahs.

So tomorrow, tonight, actually any old time will do. Remember them. They stood up to be counted when we called. Regardless of "sides", brave young men, and women stood to be counted, to do our bidding. They've done their part. ...and so many millions paid for that with their lives, with their health, with their very sanity.

Is it too much to ask that we match their sacrifice with courage enough to help end the necessity of it all.

Necessity? When will it be enough, and not necessary any more?

Isn't this a better way?

Instead of...

This?



In Flanders Fields
John McCrae, 1872 - 1918

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.

A link...

If we break faith with our fallen, we deserve what ever fate may have in store for us.

Maybe, just maybe, we deserve to be haunted by the fallen.

So you are saying the banksters did it? Mammon or the Lord, your choice.

What it takes to put that uniform on is unfathomable to many. There will always be a next war and there will always be memories of our honored dead.

Thanks for the thread, Seagull.

a reply to: seagull

Thanks for the thread. Nice words and sentiment.
I would like to say, however, that it's not my choice that they're over there. I'd rather them be home and safe. I didn't put them there. I don't have that kind of power. My neighbors don't have that kind of power. The sad truth is that war generates profits. Somebody is always cashing in because of war. What can I do? What can my neighbor do? Rise up and start a war to end the wars? I don't see a way to stop it at all. Until the ones who actually stir up these messes come to their collective senses, the best we can do is say:


Hopefully one day, they'll listen.

a reply to: seagull

"American citizenship is a high estate. He who holds it is the peer of kings. It has been secured only by untold toil and effort. It will be maintained by no other method. It demands the best that men and women have to give. But it likewise awards to its partakers the best that there is on earth. To attempt to turn it into a thing of ease and inaction would be only to debase it. To cease to struggle and toil and sacrifice for it is not only to cease to be worthy of it but is to start a retreat toward barbarism. No matter what others may say, no matter what others may do, this is the stand that those must maintain who are worthy to be called Americans."

-Calvin Coolidge