Remembrance Day

Tomorrow (November 11th) at 11:00am, there will be a moment of silence. I suggest you all take part in that to consider what happened during the Great War and all other wars fought.

Take that minute to think of the kids who didn't have the luxury of finding out how to be a man. Millions of them died for us, and we will remember and respect these peeps.

does that mean i cant post?

I'm probably going to be asleep then.

RIP

Originally posted by onesecondple@Nov 11 2004, 01:43 AM

does that mean i cant post?

Quoted post

no, you cant post...take time out to give respect to your fallen friend/pet suzanne summers :crying:

i'm surprised no one else has starting barraging us canadians with "wtf is remembrance day?"

11 am. shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

* in flanders feilds 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.

^^ Flanders Field by John McRae.

I know we've been learning it since grade one, and it's even on our currency, but it still gets to me everytime.

* McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Here is the story of the making of that poem:

Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.

As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.

It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:

"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.

The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.

In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.

A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."

When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:

"The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."

In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.

from http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flanders.htm

My Grandpa was at the Battle of Ypres

end.

war is fun kill someone

Originally posted by EarMuffs@Nov 10 2004, 11:52 PM

war is fun kill someone

 

 

 

Quoted post

"thumbs up"

Da fuck is a rememberance day.

Goddamn Canadians...they won't let us move to their country because some jackass stole his second election and now they make up some fake war to remember. Lemme guess...it was against the Zintrati right?

:haha:

i will take a moment of silence to remember 'fight club', the rest of yall canadians are on your own though.

My mother used to then the poppy bushes at John McCrae's birth house.

and I went down to the first canadian military graves today.

They were from before the war of 1812 but the bodies have

since been moved to a new spot on the old Fort lands.

Garrison Cemetary it's called. Sad, but there was only one wreath

made of plastic poppies. I think I was the only visitor.

Lest we forget.

gay thread.

:rolleyes:

if all the countries of the world were like canada, the world would be a better place.

Originally posted by Armenhammer+Nov 11 2004, 10:53 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Armenhammer - Nov 11 2004, 10:53 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'>if all the countries of the world were like canada, the world would be a better place.

[/b]

Originally posted by Armenhammer@Nov 11 2004, 10:53 AM

if all the countries of the world were like canada, the world would be a better place.

<!--QuoteBegin-Armenhammer@Nov 11 2004, 10:53 AM

if all the countries of the world were like canada, the world would be a better place.

dont forget

RIP for sure.

think i might stop by the monument downtown today whilst on my travels.

Key, where's Garisson Cemeteries?

and Sarahyoulose, was your grandpa in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces?

Them people taking over Vimy Ridge after the Ypres battles really helped define us as a nation.

Originally posted by seeking@Nov 11 2004, 02:06 PM

i will take a moment of silence to remember 'fight club', the rest of yall canadians are on your own though.

Quoted post

Just picked up that discontinued special edition DVD (with the brown paper-style package) for 27 bucks. Been looking for that shit for a couple of years.

wellington and portland

there used to be a church there for the garrison

and the cemetary was on the otehr side of wellington.

There's a big monument there but the bodies have been

moved down to the cemetary just west of Ft.York.

oh okay, i got you. I've seen that monument. I'm sure there were some nice decorations over by Harbord and University there. Now that I think about it, there are a ton of monuments in our city. There's a really good one out in front of the Old City Hall court house.

yeah.... I dig the old ones.

The graveyard at Fort York is one of my favorite places in the city.

There's nothing there and NO condos will be built on that spot.

you people are so dissrespectful. these people died for our countries and you dont appreciate thaT fact. fuk u. if it wasnt for these diggers, we would be living VERY differently and we probably wouldn't be cau-casions, we would be zipper headed japs. peese R.I.P

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.

I watched the ceremonies all the way through. This kind of stuff always makes me all teary eyed....

Originally posted by fermentor666+Nov 11 2004, 01:49 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fermentor666 - Nov 11 2004, 01:49 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-seeking@Nov 11 2004, 02:06 PM

i will take a moment of silence to remember 'fight club', the rest of yall canadians are on your own though.

Quoted post

Just picked up that discontinued special edition DVD (with the brown paper-style package) for 27 bucks. Been looking for that shit for a couple of years.

[/b]

should have said something to me.. i had 3 extra's up until 2 months ago.