You're maybe recovering from "Cherry" Vann, we are here at the Compound, but note this. Taps just rang across this small town, pre-recorded from the bell tower of the Court House, yes it should be a church. But whatever, very moving, and a call to stop for a moment and pray for those who put their lives in harm's way and beyond.
Without them, where would we be? On topic, have any of you been to a quiet, peaceful, calm, civilized English village or small town? Sure you have. Go in, if you haven't already, to the parish church, a building which has stood for maybe a thousand years or more.
It'll be open, unlike our churches in Texas, so go through that ancient oak door and wonder at the thing, a place where Christians have worshipped for at least hundreds of years. As you do, look at their War Memorials. The first one, typically 1914-18.
Take a little time over it, read the names, there are many of them, hundreds even, all from tiny country villages and towns, men who died when there was real labor on the land. Working men, agricultural laborers and the like, enlisted men. Yes indeed, but also commissioned ranks who were hugely slaughtered, destroying the nation's ruling or governing class.
We could call the latter "gentry," those people who had enough land and income to not have to work, who gave themselves accordingly to the good of the people. You may recall, only men with a settled income could become MPs.
Those men built the greatest Empire the world has ever seen and were destroyed by WWI, WWII and the utter evil of Socialism, the very politics of greed and envy. Pray, ye heathen, for those who gave their lives that we could live free.
Boodles Forever,
LSP
