Official Memorial day Thread

**theotherserge** · Posted On: 5/25/2009 1:12pm

Gentlemen, you live on in our lives, through our lives...

**ArrogantBastard** · Posted On: 5/25/2009 2:11pm

"Let the blood of the infantry flow through your veins, or the blood of the infantry will be on your hands."
-GEN John A. Wickham, Jr.

**Dr. Sleepless** · Posted On: 5/25/2009 3:58pm

Originally Posted by Vorpal

Best thread in months. Kudos.

You're only saying that because it appeals to your ego. Which makes you a bad person and selfish in nature.

good job.

**Vorpal** · Posted On: 5/25/2009 5:14pm

That's me in a nutshell. Wow, you've really got me pegged. Those psych classes are paying huge dividends already.

**Mtripp** · Posted On: 5/25/2009 5:23pm

Christmas in The Trenches

Oh my name is francis tolliver, I come from liverpool
Two years ago the war was waiting for me after school
From belgium and to flanders, germany to here
I fought for king and country I love dear.

Twas christmas in the trenches and the frost so bitter hung
The frozen fields of france where still no christmas songs were sung
Our families back in england were toasting us that day
There brave and glorious lads so far away.

I was lying with my mess mates on the cold and rocky ground
When across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound
Says I now listen up me boys, each soldier strained to hear
As one young german voice sang out so clear.

He's singing bloody well you know, my partner says to me
Soon one by one each german voice joined in in harmony
The cannons rested silent and the gas cloud rolled no more
As christmas brought us respite from the war.

As soon as they were finished and a reverent pause was spent
God rest ye merry gentlemen struck up some lads from kent
The next thing sang was stille nach tis silent night says i
And in two tongues one song filled up that sky

There's someone coming towards us now the front line sentry said
All sights were fixed on one lone figure trudging from their side
His truce flag like a christmas star shone on the plane so bright
As he bravely trudged unarmed into the night.

Then one by one on either side, walked in to no mans land
With neither gun nor bayonet, we met there hand to hand
We shared some secret brandy and we wished each other well
And in a flare lit football game we gave them hell.

We traded chocolates, cigarettes and photographs from home
These sons and father far away from families of their own
Ton sanders played the squeeze box and they had a violin
This curious and unlikely band of men.

Soon daylight stole upon us and france was france once more
With sad farewells we each began to settle back to war
But the question haunted every heart that lived that wonderous night
Whose family have I fixed within my sights.

Twas christmas in the trenches and the frost so bitter hung
The frozen fields of france were warmed, the songs of peace were sung
For the walls they'd kept between us to exact the work of war
Had been crumbled and were gone forever more.

Oh my name is francis tolliver, from liverpool I dwell
Each christmas comes since world war I have learned it's lesson well
For the one who calls the shots won't be among the dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we're the same

**Mtripp** · Posted On: 5/25/2009 5:24pm

Abraham Lincoln
The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.