Armistice Day

[Lord Jim]

Presented without comment

The Green Fields Of France

Oh how do you do, young Willy McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done
And I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you answered The Call back in 1916
Well I hope you died quick
And I hope you died clean
Or Willy McBride, was is it slow and obscene

Did they beat the drums slowly
Did they play the fife lowly
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined
And though you died back in 1916
To that loyal heart are you forever nineteen
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Forever enshrined behind some old glass pane
In an old photograph torn, tattered, and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame

Did they beat the drums slowly
Did they play the fife lowly
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest

The sun shining down 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, no barbed wire, no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard that's still no mans land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
And a whole generation were butchered and damned

Did they beat the drums slowly
Did they play the fife lowly
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest

I can't help but wonder oh Willy McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died
Did you really believe them when you answered The Call
Did you really believe that this war would end wars
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing and dying it was all done in vain
Oh Willy McBride it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again...

[Gob]

In Flanders the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The Larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce hear 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 the 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.

[Gob]

More popular was this song though...

I don't want to join the army
I don't want to go to war.
I would rather hang around
Picadilly's underground
A'livin off the earnings of "a 'igh class lady"

I don't want a bullet in me backside,
I don't want me buttocks (or arsehole) shot away.
I would rather stay in Lunnon,
Jolly, jolly Lunnon
And fornicate me bloomin' life away,

On Monday I touched her on the ankle,
Tuesday I touched her on her knee,
Wednesday was the best,
"cos, I lifted up her dress,
On Thursday I saw it,
Oh gor blimey,
On Friday I put me 'and upon it,
On Saturday she gave my balls a squeeze,
On Sunday after supper, I whopped me fucker up her,
An' now I'm payin' forty bob a week!

Gor Blimey!

Call out the Army and the Navy
Call out the rank and file.
Call out the brave Territorials
They face danger with a smile!
Call out the King's Militia
They kept England free!
Call out me brother
Me father or me mother
But for Gawd's sake don't call me.

[loCAtek]

Thanks to all the Vets!

[oldr_n_wsr]

Yes, Thank you to all who served.
and Happy Birthday Mom, where ever you are

[dales]

Thanks Dad for serving in North Africa during WW2.

You didn't talk about it all that much.

Your stories went with you to the grave.

[Andrew D]

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 gas-shells dropping softly 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 floundering 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 to 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 matria mori.

(Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est (published posthumously in 1920).)

From Wikipedia:

He was killed in action at the Battle of the Sambre a week before the war ended. The telegram from the War Office announcing his death was delivered to his mother's home as her town's church bells were ringing in celebration of the Armistice when the war ended.

* * *

On 11 November 1985, Owen was one of the 16 Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner. The inscription on the stone is taken from Owen's "Preface" to his poems; "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."