- Joined
- Feb 2, 2008
- Messages
- 3,059
It's Memorial Day folks- and it should be an honored tradition among every one of the young men and women enrolled or applying to the schools on this forum. If you are unclear as to why you are receiving this phenomenal (and phenomenally expensive) education- go out to your towns parade and then the cemetery today and salute the surviving families and veterans and the graves of lost troopers lost in one of the almost countless conflicts that the Nation has engaged in over the years, including Iraq and Afghanistan where your peers are right now fighting and sometimes dying. These are the people that you are joining to lead, to serve, and to follow.
I leave you with two thoughts- one a poem written during World War1, and the other a link to Douglas MacArthur's farewell speech at West Point in 1962:
http://www.nationalcenter.org/MacArthurFarewell.html
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flanders.htm
In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army
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.
I leave you with two thoughts- one a poem written during World War1, and the other a link to Douglas MacArthur's farewell speech at West Point in 1962:
http://www.nationalcenter.org/MacArthurFarewell.html
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flanders.htm
In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army
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.