Remembrance Day
Canadians, Courseulles Beach 6-6-44
Once again it is the time of year when we are admonished to remember the past and to not repeat it.
In other words, “Don’t do something stupid!”
But apparently we aren’t paying attention, or not placing
enough emphasis on Remembrance Day.
However, the ongoing denial of the scientific and
technical developments of mankind, developments already proven by the experience
of the developers, further testing and the obvious produce of that denial is
subject for a future post.
Right now, it’s to try and remember the cost of war.
The cost of wishing for a specific goal but not
considering all the costs of realizing that goal.
The cost of supporting a “stand-up guy”, “my type of
person” or “a real strong-man” without studying that person right to the core.
The cost of believing such a person’s lies at face value.
Canadians on Juno Beach 6-6-44
This has appeared here in years past as has “Deacon”, but
never as a video
It has appeared in several publications and is part of
the collection, or anthology “Deacon” --- which is a World War II story.
Includeds “Marker of Stone” ,“Deacon” and the rhymes, “Native Sons in WWI”, “Inclusion” and “Education”.
You can follow this link - https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B004V9WZVI
but clicking on one of the book covers to the right will get you to the same place.
Native Sons in
World War One
By D.M. McGowan
and K.L. McGowan
© 2018
Seventeen native
boys left the Upper Peace
The only land
they’d known, all in their teens.
They’d all grown
up wild out among the trees.
Knew where to
find pelts, beaver ponds or streams.
They hunted for
their supper, trap or single shot
And only their mothers
gave safety a fleeting thought
After two hundred
years of Scott and Fleur de Lis
They knew some
other talk, sometimes two or three,
English, French
and German were spoken in the land,
And whatever
tongue was spoken by their particular band
Some of them
could read and write more than just their name
But the army
didn’t care, green privates all the same
An amazing great
adventure for young trapper men
From freedom of
the wild to a Canadian Army pen
Across the land
in trains, something never seen.
Mistreated by a
Sergeant, but still bright and keen.
Dropped off in
camps and marched around a square
“Dig some dirt
from here and put it over there.”
On the trains
again east to Canada’s Maritimes
March down to the
docks in perfect double lines
Then up a
gangplank to a big steel canoe
Then told to put
their kit where you couldn’t fit a shoe
A dozen ships in
convoy from the Bedford shore
But count on
German U boats sinking two or more.
More camp time in
England, weeks without the sun
Then finally sent
to France to show them how it’s done
Trenches that
collapse from rains that never end
Bodies on the
wire or sprawled out in no man’s land.
All caked in mud,
“Are they ours? Are they theirs?”
Days and weeks of
boredom, then terror and despair.
Vimy Ridge, the
Somme or maybe Regina Trench
Maybe English on
the left other times the French
High Wood or
Kitchener’s, Avion as well
With the Aussies
at Gallipoli, some lived to tell
Passchendaele,
Arras, knowing each the end
If not for the
war, surely for the men
Métis, Cree and Dane a total of Seventeen
On a great
adventure, young, naive and keen
But the Great War
wasn’t a great place to learn
For seventeen go
but only two returned.
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