The Soldier

[streb2001]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8168691.stm


If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

The Soldier
Rupert Brooke

 

[Pilot7893]

Meet the Soldier

 

[Ghostrider]

Meet another one.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

And when he gets to heaven,
To Saint Peter he will tell,
One more soldier reporting sir,
I've served my time in hell....

 

[streb2001]

If I had thought that the death our last Great War hero was going to be trivialised by comparing him to a computer graphic and a second-rate actor I wouldn't have bothered.

Thanks guys.

 

[Pilot7893]

I was joking. That was just the first thing that came to mind when I saw the thread title. I still respect this guy, especially after learning about WW1 in History last semester.

 

[Ghostrider]

No disrespect meant. In fact I enjoyed the flick (and I like most flicks Kurt Russell is in) and I always think it's so good to know that real people can be cooler than any superhero we can imagine up.

Dying of old age is the best thing that can happen to a soldier. It's sad that he's gone, but he put his days to good use. Too bad he had to outlive his sons, that's something no-one should go through.

 

[streb2001]

OK, none taken.

The Great War was one of the defining events of modern times. With the passing of the last veteran it will soon become just another part of british history, like Crimea, Waterloo, Bannockburn, Naseby, Armada, Agincourt...

My great grandfather is buried in the corner of a foreign field. I visited his grave.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

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.

Lt. Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)

 

[Kelpie]

In his own words
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-492876/

 

[SiberianTiger]

An amazing thing I've found. I guess this fits this topic well. Below is a photographic picture of Pavel Yakovlevich Tolstoguzov taken in 1912 when he was in age of 112 (with his 80 years old wife beside him). In that time, he has happened to be the only found veteran of Battle of Borodino, which took place on September 7, 1812! His place of living in his late years was Tobolsk in Western Siberia.

This might be the most recent photo of a Napoleonic Wars veteran (most of them were photographed in the century 19th: http://derniersveterans.free.fr/napoleon1.html)

 

[Urwumpe]

Its still pretty hard to imagine how fast history can become... The battlefields of 1809-1815 are today just peaceful landscape...without any kind of reminder on the dying. And then look at places like Volgograd/Stalingrad, where we are still burying the dead, barely 70 years later. ( "In all, the battle resulted in an estimated total of 1.7 million to 2 million Axis and Soviet casualties.")

 

[SiberianTiger]

And then look at places like Volgograd/Stalingrad, where we are still burying the dead, barely 70 years later. ( "In all, the battle resulted in an estimated total of 1.7 million to 2 million Axis and Soviet casualties.")

What's worse, such places still hold much of buried live explosives, which are still accidentally found by kids or chanced upon by builders. Thank Good God, no one really used chemical weapons during the WWII.

 

[Urwumpe]

What's worse, such places still hold much of buried live explosives, which are still accidentally found by kids or chanced upon by builders. Thank Good God, no one really used chemical weapons during the WWII.

Yeah, but the unused chemical weapons are not much better. we have a large pile of chemical grenades from WW2 under the surface of the North Sea, right inside one of the finest fishing places. Disarming the ammunition is considered impossible because of the unknown state and large quantity, so the region is now completely blocked for fishing.

Also, we still have to disarm at least one dud bomb per week here from WW2. Many people can't maybe imagine, how it is like to have to leave your house at night during peace times, and seek shelter in a school over the night, because a bomb was found and the whole center of the city had to be evacuated. And that again decades after the war, in peace times.

War doesn't just end with a treaty. It is just the beginning of the end.

 

[insanity]

War doesn't just end with a treaty. It is just the beginning of the end.

So true. World War I definitely did not end with a treaty and the memories of WW2 still linger despite the postwar settlements. I once asked a Brit, a German, and a Dutch person the same question: will WW2 ever truly end in Europe and all of them (mind you they were my age) answered, "no" for different reasons.

While it is sad to see our veterans die, it is surely a great thing that many were able to die away from the battlefield and see Europe and the world transform.

 

[Ghostrider]

While it is sad to see our veterans die, it is surely a great thing that many were able to die away from the battlefield and see Europe and the world transform.

Well, you know the old saying: survival is all about dying of old age.

 

[Linguofreak]

Yeah, but the unused chemical weapons are not much better. we have a large pile of chemical grenades from WW2 under the surface of the North Sea, right inside one of the finest fishing places. Disarming the ammunition is considered impossible because of the unknown state and large quantity, so the region is now completely blocked for fishing.

Also, we still have to disarm at least one dud bomb per week here from WW2. Many people can't maybe imagine, how it is like to have to leave your house at night during peace times, and seek shelter in a school over the night, because a bomb was found and the whole center of the city had to be evacuated. And that again decades after the war, in peace times.

War doesn't just end with a treaty. It is just the beginning of the end.

Heck. I grew up not to far from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, which was used for the manufacture and later the storage of chemical weapons. And that was nowhere near any of the fighting that took place during the war.

 

[Notebook]

What's worse, such places still hold much of buried live explosives, which are still accidentally found by kids or chanced upon by builders. Thank Good God, no one really used chemical weapons during the WWII.

Not intentional use, but a nasty incident:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare#World_War_II

On the night of December 2, 1943, German Ju 88 bombers attacked the port of Bari in Southern Italy, sinking several American ships– among them SS John Harvey, which was carrying mustard gas intended for use in retaliation by the Allies if German forces initiated gas warfare. The presence of the gas was highly classified, and authorities ashore had no knowledge of it– which increased the number of fatalities, since physicians, who had no idea that they were dealing with the effects of mustard gas, prescribed treatment improper for those suffering from exposure and immersion.
The whole affair was kept secret at the time and for many years after the war (in the opinion of some, there was a deliberate and systematic cover-up). According to the U.S. military account, "Sixty-nine deaths were attributed in whole or in part to the mustard gas, most of them American merchant seamen"[32] out of 628 mustard gas military casualties.[33] The large number of civilian casualties among the Italian population were not recorded. Part of the confusion and controversy derives from the fact that the German attack was highly destructive and lethal in itself, also apart from the accidental additional effects of the gas (it was nicknamed "The Little Pearl Harbor"), and attribution of the causes of death between the gas and other causes is far from easy.[34][35]
Rick Atkinson, in his book The Day of Battle, describes the intelligence that prompted Allied leaders to deploy mustard gas to Italy. This included Italian intelligence that Adolf Hitler had threatened to use gas against Italy if the state changed sides, and prisoner of war interrogations suggesting that preparations were being made to use a "new, egregiously potent gas" if the war turned decisively against Germany. Atkinson concludes that "No commander in 1943 could be cavalier about a manifest threat by Germany to use gas."

N.

 

[Urwumpe]

While we talked about it: They just explode a bomb from WW2 just about 1.5 km away from my house. Can't be disarmed or transported, so it has to be done there. And it is right where I use to talk a walk with my dogs, in the meadows close to a small iron frame bridge.

 

[Notebook]

British or US?

N.