Armistice Day: 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month

[wfgodot]

Just taking this one out of the hangar for a test flight - Armistice Day is one week away. In the U.S., it's now known as Veterans Day, and used as a time to celebrate those who served, no matter what war; in the UK it celebrates the signing of the armistice, by the Allies and Germany, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, thus ending the First World War.

If you have family or friends who served and fought, no matter the war, we would welcome your stories and your thanks here.

 

[Donjeta]

British have invaded nine out of ten countries - so look out Luxembourg

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/...-of-ten-countries-so-look-out-Luxembourg.html

Using a loose definition of "invasion" the countries never invaded by the British include:

Andorra

Belarus

Bolivia

Burundi

Central African Republic

Chad

Congo, Republic of

Guatemala

Ivory Coast

Kyrgyzstan

Liechtenstein

Luxembourg

Mali

Marshall Islands

Monaco

Mongolia

Paraguay

Sao Tome and Principe

Sweden

Tajikistan

Uzbekistan

Vatican City

 

[wfgodot]

Hm. Not a bad record then, if one starts the clock at the time of the Conqueror. And concludes it with the notation that, no, future battles indeed weren't won on the playing fields of Eton, but that, yes, a steely resolve may strengthen the backs of an island people and lead to their bravery in enduring the Blitz and the Battle of Britain and in standing firmly, by themselves, against Hitler's amassed forces, forces whose victory would spell the end for Western Civilization - and, in doing so, holding on at a crucial time for everything we hold dear. And thus delivering to us the future. And the past.

 

[otto]

A day to remember and say thank you

 

[scorekeeper]

http://www.vfw8385.com/buddypoppy.htm

I have poppies from my grandmother's garden. They bloom every May. Now after all these years I know their story!!

Happy Veteran's day to all those that have served and for those that continue to do so!!!

 

[wfgodot]

Lest we forget: From World War One to Iraq, huge sacrifice of one tiny village (Mail)

Carved from a single piece of Dartmoor granite, the simple cross makes an imposing sight against the clear autumn skies.

The war memorial at the heart of the sleepy Devon village of Lydford is just one of 100,000 across Britain – testimony to the scale of sacrifice this nation has made in the name of freedom.

But while the cross is, in many ways, typical, it is also unusual. For alongside the fallen from the World Wars, it bears names from the Falklands and Iraq conflicts, a poignant reminder that war memorials are not just tributes to the almost unimaginable heroism of the past, but directly, painfully, relevant today.
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The reality of war casts a dark shadow in this community, as it does in so many others. Villagers have lost sons, while relatives of some of those who gave their lives in the world wars live here to this day.
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the rest, with stories, at the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvONWV2n484

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them. [/quote]

 

[wfgodot]

Peace

Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,
Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
And all the little emptiness of love!

Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,
Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;
Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there
But only agony, and that has ending;
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

-- Rupert Brooke, who died 23 April 1915 in a hospital ship moored off the island of Skyros in the Aegean on his way to the landing at Gallipoli.

Dulce et Decorum Est

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 a 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.

-- Wilfrid Owen, who died 04 November 1918, machine-gunned at the Sambre Canal

 

[wfgodot]

The Queen led the nation in honouring Britain’s war dead yesterday as a new generation recalled the sacrifice of the fallen.

Royal British Legion officials said the number of veterans marching in Whitehall, central London, had increased by 3,000 in the past five years.

Crowds there and across the country could also have been the largest yet, they said, swollen by recent conflicts that have brought the reality of war home to the young.
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more at Daily Express