11 November

[Steve - K4HX]

Just A Common Soldier
http://justacommonsoldier.com




In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae, May 1915


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.

http://www.greatwar.co.uk/poems/john-mccrae-in-flanders-fields.htm

[AJ1G]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqba0IUdiBk

Dropkick Murphy's  -  The Green Fields
Of France

My grandfather had just started working for
New York Telephone in 1917.  When we joined the war, entire operating units of telephone companies were mobilized into the Signal Corps and sent to France to
install and maintain landline telephone and telegraph circuits.  My grandfather went to France as a SC PFC and eventually retired from NY Tel in the mid 60s.  He built a lot of broadcast receivers in the 20s but was never a licensed ham.  He was the one who gave me the Scott SLRM that was my first real short wave receiver.

[W3RSW]

When I was a lad it was the highly venerated Armistice Day.

"The eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day, the guns fell silent."
"The war to end all wars."
"The Balkans, that's where all wars seem to start and will they again?" was the mantra of the day.

It's taken a long time for me to see the continuity of history.

[W1RC]

in Canada November 11th is called "Remembrance Day".

[W6TOM]

 My father was born in 1917, the last child of a large Irish immigrant family in Cambridge, MA., his oldest brother died of wounds in France October 4th, 1918, just 5 weeks before it all ended. He was only 23 years old.

 My father named me after his oldest brother, I think of this man I never knew every November 11th.

[n1ps]

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x20w6pk_blackadder-goes-forth-s4e02-corporal-punishment-ro-sub-hd_fun