A moving tribute at the Grave of the Unknown that symbolizes every soldier who has given his life in service to the country.
I have stood many times at the red poppoy framed grave of Britain's Unknown Soldier in Westminster Abbey and have read the inscription and thought of a cousin buried in Normandy. The soldier buried there in there abbey was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor while the soldier buried at Arlington was awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest military honor.
Same in Britain where, st the risk of sounding critical, it is a more reverent day not partly refocused as a holiday. Today my mind goes back to all those American boys I saw on the streets of London during the war and after.
It is sobering to stand in the cemetery at Omaha Beach and view the sea of white crowds there. Equally for me to be at the Last Post ceremony performed every night of the year at the Menin Gate in Ypres looking up at rows and rows and rows of the names of the 50,000 remembered there of whom no trace was ever found. Nothing but respect from this child of the blitz.
I remember taking a tour of Oxford University once and seeing in the entryway to one of the colleges--Christ's Church?--a lapidary list of all the students who died in WW1. It humanized the loss of what must have been a high percentage of the college's population.
My Uncle, who also wore a Canadian uniform, died on D-day. He lived in Lethbridge before he was sent to eastern Canada for training. When I was a kid I remember the family still grieving over his loss.
There were 13 in my graduating high school class that did not have the money for college. They were immediately drafted and died a little over 6 months later in nam. I went to so many unfair funerals.
I like the Seventh Day Adventist 'excuse'. They take the "thou shalt not kill" commandment as gospel.
So when drafted, they were content to serve as medics. ...bunch of chicken-hearted Christians! Rag on their chicken-hearted butts, JoeSmith666!! Give'em heckie-poo!!
elderolddog Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I like the Seventh Day Adventist 'excuse'. They > take the "thou shalt not kill" commandment as > gospel. > > So when drafted, they were content to serve as > medics. ...bunch of chicken-hearted Christians! > Rag on their chicken-hearted butts, JoeSmith666!! > Give'em heckie-poo!!
You put it here. They served as Medics. They did serve when it was necessary.
Not for the US but I had a g-grandfather on my father's side who died with Napoleon's army in Russia. The winter was cold and they starved and froze. We have this idea of only young men going to war, but the French were sending men well into their fifties and older at the time. It was an army of Senior Citizens.