Remembrance Day

On this date one hundred years ago, western civilization stopped the greatest bloodletting ever witnessed in Europe. Although the Great War is often dismissed as a mere prologue to World War 2, it deserves special place in the western memory, for it was there  that future historians may begin their postmortem when western civilization's decline and fall is written. The  millions of young men who perished fighting one another  cast a long shadow, and the evils this war unbottled have never been shut up again. The war was horrific beyond imagining.  In the United States the date has been taken over by "Veteran's Day".  yet another holiday for honoring the modern god of the state.  It should have remained Armistice Day, and better yet Remembrance Day, for its memory should haunt us. It should give us all pause in our every dealing with other nations.  

In remembrance, I offer a song which I have listened to every November 11th since I first encountered it, as a reminder 

Well how do you do young Willie 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

I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen

When you joined the great fallen in nineteen sixteen

Well I hope you died well. and I hope you died clean -- 

Or young Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they sound the fifes lowly

Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?

And did the band play the last post and chorus? Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?

In some faithful heart, is your memory enshrined?

And though you died back in nineteen sixteen -- 

In some faithful heart are you forever nineteen?

Or are you a stranger without even a name

Enclosed  forever behind a glass frame

In an old photograph.  torn, battered, and stained

And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they sound the fifes lowly

Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?

And did the band play the last post and chorus? Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?

Well the sun now it shines on the green fields of France

There's a warm summer breeze, it makes the red poppies dance

And look how the sun shines from under the clouds  -- 

There's no gas no barbed wire, there's no gun firing now

But here in this graveyard it's still no man's land

The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand

To man's blind indifference to his fellow man

To a whole generation that were butchered and damned

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fifes lowly

Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?

And did the band play the last post and chorus? Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?

Ah, young Willie McBride,  I can't help wonder why -- 

Do those that lie here know why did they die?

And did they believe when they answered the call...

Did they really believe that this war would end war?

Well the sorrow,  the suffering, the glory, the pain -- 

The killing,  the dying, it  was all done in vain

For young Willie McBride it all happened again

And again, and again, and again, and again