Lest we forget

Today is Rememberance Day in Canada and Vetran's Day in the US.

Let us take a moment to remember the soldiers who have fought and died for our freedoms.

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.

Perhaps in the US it would be best for us to remember what the Veterans died for, the freedoms and privilidges we live with now. The freedoms that are so perilously balanced now against the tyranny of the government we elected. I saw drunken idiots in a bar railing on about how wrong flag burning is, and I have heard of somthing called the patriot act, and I see an already politically biased media being skewn even further from the truth by the hidden hand of the government. I am afraid that the freedoms we have are slowly being eaten away by tyrrany as the masses sit about apathetically listening to the media and the president without questioning. Will ignorance and apathy be the death of america? Will blind patriotism lead us like lemmings over a great cliff? If no one asks questions, no one will ever know the truth. I am thankful for the current events boards, because it provides more than one perspective on a subject. I can read what others have researched and find a truth that I believe, free from the twisted words of the mass media. I miss the liberal freedom of my home in San Francisco, where people protested EVERYTHING, and I bless them for doing it, because EVERYTHING has to be questioned.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Men and women before us paid that price in blood. We now have the responsibility to guard that freedom, not just from the foriegners, but more so from our own people. Our president wants us to blindly follow him into war. The religious right wants us to say "one nation under god". The debate over abortion rages on and on endlessly.
Regardless of what you believe, you have a responsibility to become educated about the issue. Someone has to watch those we elected to watch over us. Someone has to watch the watchers.
Remember the veterans who fought or died for your freedom, and remember your responsibility to maintain that freedom. We cannot take it for granted.

AN ACT OF REMEMBRANCE
-They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
We will remember them.

-Laurence Binyon

If you're Canadian or British (unlike me) you've probably heard this before, even recited it in school. I first discovered it in an official Remembrance Day program in a used bookstore in Quebec about 10 years ago, where it has this title. Binyon may have called it something else, before it became a liturgical text.

Thanks for starting this thread fstop666. I woke up Tuesday with a cold and feeling like shit but I still managed to drag my ass down to the ceremonies downtown. It was important for me to show respect for the veterans who made the sacrifices for the country we live in. It may not be a perfect world, in fact it's far from it, but it would be a hell of a lot worse IMHO if the two world wars hadn't gone the way they had.