Remember

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

Since I won't be awake and midnight, and will have no time to do this in the morning, my annual contribution to our most solemn of holidays is a couple of hours early.

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.

-Col. John McCrae

 

[Marvin the Martian]

I had mentioned in another post a seminar speaker that said WW1 was the birth of Islamic fundamentalism. There were a couple other points from the symposium.

It had a big role in US race relations. Southern politicians fought allowing black troops, suggesting the experience would lead blacks to thi k they were equal. But simple math prevailed, we needed a massive army and each black soldier was one less white voter drafted.

The blacks were mistreated. Punishments of black soldiers were more frequent and more harsh, by the American army. However, we loaned some black units to the French and they were treated far better. This greatly increased resentment in black troops. Many would stay in France after the war.

But most came back and guess what, they thought fighting and dying would earn them respect. It did not. Actually violence against blacks in the US increased in 1918. 1919 became known as the red summer, the US became embroiled in race riots. Lynchings shot through the roof.

But one key thing changed, for the first time blacks organized and fought back.

In one particularly bad riot, whites in an Arkansas town marched out and attacked blacks holding a meeting in the outskirts. Between 100 and 225 blacks died, as did 5 whites.

This shocked the citizens of Arkansas, who immediately took action. They tried and convicted 72 blacks and sentenced 12 to death.

When WW2 started, FDR asked black leaders to help recruit soldiers. Black leaders learned their lesson and made sure to get agreements up front.

As an aside, I interviewed a Bloomington man in the early 90s for cable access. He was black and served in ww1. He said they were not allowed on base during basic training in the 1917-18 winter, they lived in tents outside base. They were given very few supplies. To heat their tents they would jump on trains and start throwing coal off until the train crew knocked them off the train. They would then walk back picking up the coal.

World War 1 caused massive changes to the world. It may be the greatest fault line since Rome fell, and the aftershocks have not stopped. It greatly sped up independence movements across the world as well. Much like American blacks, troops from the French* colonies who fought and bleed started thinking they deserved independence for that.

* Other than the ANZACS and Canada, the Brits never really committed her colonies. Few Indian troops served, and those that did tended to be Gurkhas who had a martial bent anyway. France stripped her colonies for manpower.

 

[sglowrider]

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you’ll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
No tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, ‘They are dead.’ Then add thereto,
‘Yet many a better one has died before.’
Then, scanning all the o’ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.

– Charles Hamilton Sorley, A Sonnet


Victor and vanquished are a-one in death:
Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say
‘Come, what was your record when you drew breath?’
But a big blot has hid each yesterday
So poor, so manifestly incomplete.
And your bright Promise, withered long and sped,
Is touched, stirs, rises, opens and grows sweet
And blossoms and is you, when you are dead.

– Charles Hamilton Sorley, Such, Such is Death

 

[sglowrider]

Remembrance Day: In pictures

https://www.bbc.com/news/in-picture...l&ocid=socialflow_twitter&ns_campaign=bbcnews