If you are able,
Save for them a place
Inside of you,
And save one backward glance
When you are leaving
For the places they can
No longer go.
Be not ashamed to say
You loved them,
Though you may
Or may not have always.
Take what they have left
And what they have taught you
With their dying
And keep it with your own.
And in that time
When men decide and feel safe
To call the war insane,
Take one moment to embrace
Those gentle heroes you left behind.
- Major Michael Davis O'Donnell, Dak To, Vietnam, 1st January 1970.
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.
