The Friday Furo Questus - Veteran's Day

Quetus Furore - To You From Failing Hands

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.

John McCrae

The war goes on, heedless of elections, of arguements, of invective. Our foes are not detered, continuing to promise death and destruction on those who oppose the terrible world they wish to build. And men and women still leave their homes and loved ones to place themselves between what they hold dear and our enemies, in places all around the world.

Tomorrow we honor those who have served, and those who do serve. Theirs is the honor and ours is the debt.

Remember, and give thanks.

A Few Notes
Veteran's Day was orginally called Armistice Day, and was a commemoration of the end of the Great War. But men are too easily disposed to hate and war, and just a generation later savage men combined to plunge an unwilling world into war once more.

As a result, the day became instead dedicated to the soldiers who fought and won our battles. In the member states of the British Commonwealth, the day is considerably more somber, as it takes on the role of our Memorial Day as well. And for them, the First World War was far more costly.

Some Recommended Reading
The Great War

And here's a worthy cause: Project Valor-IT.

Thought of the Week“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
John Stuart Mill

Churchill Quote of the Week
"What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'"
Sir Winston Churchill

And a question for you: I'm considering doing a series or articles on the First World War. Does this interest anyone?