Wapsi Square Forum

... but the poppies they do grow
where they were never sown
and to my mind they do declare it best ...

Fairport Convention/'Red and Gold'
 

... the sun's shining now on these green fields of france;
the warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
the trenches have vanished long under the plow;
no gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
but here in this graveyard that's still no man's land
the countless white crosses in mute witness stand
to man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
and a whole generation who were butchered and damned ...

Eric Bogle/'No Man's Land'

IIRC today is the birthday of one of my ex-girlfriends. I think there was also one on 10/10. I definitely remember there was one on 6/9. My dating history has some weird coincidences...

My son-in-law is an Iraq vet.

I'm a Viet Nam veteran.

My father was a WW2 veteran.

Pretty sure his father was a veteran of the Great War.

I would really like to think that my nephews and nieces or my granddaughters and/or their boyfriends/husbands won't have the opportunity to serve their country in that manner.

============

But Bogle's final verse says:

... and i can't help but wonder, now willie mcbride,
do all those who lie here know why they died?
did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
did you really believe that this war would end wars?
well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
the killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
for willie mcbride, it all happened again,
and again, and again, and again, and again ...

... and i see no reason to expect that we're going to be getting any smarter.

Rather the reverse, if anything.

The problem is that it takes all sides agreeing to peace, to have peace. But if just one side decides to have war, there's war.

shadowinthelight wrote:IIRC today is the birthday of one of my ex-girlfriends. I think there was also one on 10/10. I definitely remember there was one on 6/9. My dating history has some weird coincidences...

Oddly enough, today's my brother's birthday.

I need to remember to go out and about the town more often on 11 November. I got free food!

MerchManDan wrote:

shadowinthelight wrote:IIRC today is the birthday of one of my ex-girlfriends. I think there was also one on 10/10. I definitely remember there was one on 6/9. My dating history has some weird coincidences...

Oddly enough, today's my brother's birthday.

I know two 11/11's...

Jabberwonky wrote:

MerchManDan wrote:

shadowinthelight wrote:IIRC today is the birthday of one of my ex-girlfriends. I think there was also one on 10/10. I definitely remember there was one on 6/9. My dating history has some weird coincidences...

Oddly enough, today's my brother's birthday.

I know two 11/11's...

Well, it is about nine months after the 14th of February. . .

AAAUGH, of course!! I should've thought of that.