Today In History

“Houseman, why are you posting on a Sunday?”

Think of what day it is, and you will realize why.

It is the Hundredth anniversary of World War One, that ended on the eleventh of the eleventh month, at eleven a.m, 1918.

I decided to have my older brother, Alex, a history major, write about why this day is so important.

He told me to post with this poem.

In Flanders Fields

BY JOHN MCCRAE

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.

The fall leaves blow and it begins to snow just as it always has.

These are normal occurrences that we take for granted, which luxuries are long forgotten for those whose lives were ended so abruptly, so senselessly ‘neath the fire of a million guns.

Today we take a moment to remember and reflect upon one of the most brutal and endless conflicts of history which (paradoxically) is one of the most forgotten.

At 11am, one-hundred years ago today, in a train-car in France, the First World War was brought to a close.

It signaled the dawn of a new, and fantastic era in human history and we must never be so foolish to forget that the world we live in today was built on the bodies of the millions lost.

As long as the poppies blow in Flanders field we must always remember the sacrifices of the lost generation.

Lest we forget.

                                    – Alex Houseman (Houseman # 1)

Connect and thank any Veteran you meet this weekend, no matter the conflict they served in. And remember, Never forget.

                                               ~ Houseman (#2)

Quote of the day

 

 

“The new generation of Americans was “dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.”    –  F. Scott Fitzgerald in This Side of Paradise