The flags are out in force in this small country town as people get ready to have fun with family and friends around the grill. Quite right too, and I'll be firing up the Compound's Weber in short order, but as we behold delicious burgers, toothsome brisket and juicy steaks (what, you can afford that?!? Ed.) remember those who gave and give their lives for our freedom and country.
But today is Memorial Day, 2022, when we mourn the fallen of the United States Armed Forces who died for our liberty.
And because it is Memorial Day, not burger and beer day, not sports day, not play video games day, not chips and dip day, there is one tradition I hope we try our best to keep.
It involves us taking time out to think hard and long about a soldier’s poem and the poppies, row on row.
“In Flanders Fields” is that soldier’s poem, written in World War I by Col. John McCrae, a man who’d seen the devastation of war, and hopelessness. Yet with clear eyes and a clean heart he wrote of poppy blossoms as rebirth of hope, those bright orange/red papery thin blossoms, as delicate as dreams, waving in the breeze over the freshly dug graves of the dead.
Lest we forget,
LSP
2 comments:
For reasons of which I'm not altogether clear, I tend to remember this guy here on Memorial Day, the first of many to follow, but excluded from the Memorial and generally forgotten for reasons of which I'm not altogether clear of, either.
https://www.thehistoryreader.com/military-history/peter-dewey-united-states-first-casualty-vietnam/
We had a mix of both yesterday. Family BBQ for sure with hot dogs and burgers, but after praying Grace Before Meals we said the Pledge of Allegiance and a prayer for the dead. The grandkids are young but we are starting them right.
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