Thursday, November 8, 2018

Armistice Day - Remembrance Day- Veteran’s Day
Sunday, November 11th, at 11:11 AM will be the 100th anniversary of the end of “The War to End all Wars,” the end of World War I .
    Beginning on 28 July, 1914, the war left an estimated 40 million dead and wounded, military and civilian. The weapons used were ghastly. Various poison gasses killed millions, again both military and civilian. Mr. Nielsen, across the street, lost a leg, and breathed through the small portion that survived of his gassed lungs.
    When we watch some of the existing footage from the era, of the cloud of gas approaching and the soldiers trying to get their gas masks on and sealed, watching some who failed collapse in convulsions and vomit and death, we should remember that in the farms and villages, the people, their children, their livestock and pets, had no masks. They just died in agony, often to be buried with their livestock in unmarked graves and forgotten.
    We should remember that that war was not the “War to End all Wars,” that only twenty years later, a madman began an even larger war, called World War II. That war developed even more horrible weapons, including the Atom Bomb and the H-Bomb, which, like the poison gasses, killed all, civilians and military, some at once, and many after years of lingering death.
    Now, a century later, we are again at many wars, again deciding whether to make even more super killing weapons for profit and conquests, and if we do so, to use them.
    Perhaps it is time to remember Armistice - Remembrance - Veteran’s Day, and keep the vows made when the guns stopped on November 11th, 1918, that there will be No More Wars!
            Remembrance Day
Now is the day that we remember
Our dead, the wars, each falling ember.
Veterans, Poppy clad, march in sadness and pride,
Ever mindful of the dwindling companies they once marched beside.
Men, long turned grey, who remember the youth and strength
Bourne by them into war, adventure, endless length,
Ever yearning, at last, for home, for hearth, for peace.
Remembering all their lives the horrors that wars release.

Eleven, eleven, the day the guns fell still,
Leaving only the stench of gas, and bodies, and graves to fill.
Eleven, eleven and the “War to end all wars,” had ceased.
Vengeance and madness! Again the dogs of war unleashed!
Ever rending a new generation to feed their maw.
Now, war follows war, each more cruel, more raw,
Tears the fabric of life, slays man, woman, child; death in the rough.
Heaven itself must cry in pain, “For the love of God! Enough! Enough!”
                                                                                            Steve Osborn
                                                                    For Remembrance Day 2018
                 The Hundredth Anniversary of The War to End all Wars
                                                            © Stephen M. Osborn 11/11/2018

    When we take the above into account, we can see that this symbol extends far, that our duties are really duties that we owe the world, our planet Earth, and those who live upon it. In essence we accept our stewardship. It is a poor steward that will allow his charge to deteriorate.