Students and Remembrance Sunday
As I’m a little bit of a traditionalist, and have a lot of respect for people in the forces I have decided not to post an R2G Sunday review today. Understandably some of you may be a little disappointed, but I thought it only right to take a day for all of us to remember people that have lost their lives in a war or conflict.
Whether these people fought in the first or second world wars, or the service men and women killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland.
At the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month a two minute silence is observed every year to mark the end of the first world war, and to remember all of those who have fallen.
If these people had not put their lives on the line, then most of us would not be in the position we are now – a short poem of remembrance.
IN FLANDERS FIELDS
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.In Flanders Field is a poem written by a Canadian Surgeon – John McCrae in 1915
For me, today is a day to remember the Accrington Pals, a Battalion in the Battle of the Somme in 1916, were 720 soldiers went into battle and 584 were killed injured or missing. Accrington is my home town and the Accrington Pals are well known in the history of the British Army as being one of very few towns to be able to raise a battalion and the whole battalion being nearly wiped out in a matter of minutes.
The Discussion