A Memory on Armistice Day

Some part of me remembers hearing this song when I was growing up. Maybe it was listening to AFRTS when I was growing up in Tokyo. Maybe it was somewhere else. Still, on this Armistice Day, let us remember those who fought, endured, and came home along with those who did not.



A recording of the original:


The song The Band Played Waltzing Matilda,


also makes me tear up thinking about the sheer carnage and waste of warfare. In some similar way, the poem In Flanders Field gives me that same sense of waste, even as the last stanza urges those who come behind to continue the fight; a fight that will serve none but the field on which they die.

In Flanders Field
In Flanders Field 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.