The Armistice that ended "The Great War" (World War I) was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month ~ November 11th, 1918. Europeans commemorate this day as "Armistice Day", Americans as "Veterans Day", and citizens of the UK & it's Commonwealth as "Remembrance Day". That is this day.
Poppies grow in profusion in Belgium, in the disturbed earth of the Battlefields and cemeteries where many many of the war dead lie. And the Poppy is the symobl of Soldierly Sacrifice. The most famous bloom of poppies in the war was in 'Ypres', a town in Flanders, Northern Belgium, which was crucial to the Allied defence. There were three battles there, but it was the second, which was calamitous to the allies since it heralded the first use of the new chlorine gas the Germans were experimenting with, which brought forth the poppies in greatest abundance.
But, this day not only recalls the horrors of the 'Great' war for no war is great, and the 'war to end all wars' didn't'!
"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them".
~ Laurence Binyon ... For the Fallen, written in September 1914 ~
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And finally, I want to add two selections which move me personally .....
"We owe a responsibility not only to those who are in Israel but also to those generations that are no more, to those millions who have died within our lifetime, to Jews all over the world, and to generations of Jews to come. We hate war. We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a new kind of cotton is grown, and when strawberries bloom in Israel.
~ Golda Meir ~
Ha'tikva. The Hope. If there can be hope here, then we have no right to despair. (that's by me, lol!).
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