We still have Dead, "amid the guns"
And lose our young and our loved ones
Those who lived, "short days ago"
Who, "felt dawn, saw sunset glow".

In Flanders Fields, "the poppy red"
Still grow near where the blood was bled
They, "Take up our quarrel with the foe"
And still die for Freedoms that we know.

They pass, "The torch" to, "hold it high"
And not, "break the faith with us who die"
For they, "shall not sleep, though poppies grow"
Beneath all those, "crosses, row on row"
In Flanders Fields.

Del "Abe" Jones

Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, Growing among black folks as among white, Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

I posted this yesterday in an open thread...do I need permission to repost?  Hope not...so timely...it's about Michigan, and more...

...went to a memorial/celebration of life for a friend who died recently...finished decorating 7 graves and one monument and then sat down to catch up on reading some New Yorker mags (which always pile up).
Then...came across a marvelous poem in the May 19 issue by Bob Hicok.  It is called

                  A Primer

I remember Michigan fondly as the place I go
to be in Michigan.  The right hand of America
waving from maps or the left
pressing into clay a mold to take home
from kindergaretn to Mother.  I lived in Michigan
forty-three years.  The state bird
is a chained factory gate.  The state flower
is Lake Superior, which sounds egotistical
though it is merely cold and deep as truth.
A Midwesterner can use the word "truth,"
can sincerely use the word "sincere."
In truth the midwest is not mid or west.
When I go back to Michigan I drive through Ohio.
There is off I-75 in Ohio a mosque, so life
goes corn corn corn mosque, I wave at Islam,
which we're not getting along with
on account of the Towers as I pass.
Then Ohio goes corn corn corn
billboard, goodbye, Islam.  You never forget
how to be from Michigan when you're from Michigan.
It's like riding a bike of ice and fly fishing.
The Upper Peninsula is a spare state
in case Michigan goes flat.  I live now
in Virginia, which has no backup plan
but is named the same as my mother,
I live in my mother again, which is creepy
but so is what the skin under my chin is doing,
suddenly there's a pouch like marsupials
are needed.  The state joy is spring.
"Osiris, we beseech thee, rise and give us baseball"
is how we might sound if we were Egyptian in April,
when February hasn't ended.  February
is thirteen months long in Michigan.
We are a people who by February
want to kill the sky for being so gray
and angry at us.  "What did we do?"
is the state motto.  There's a day in May
when we're all tumblers, gymnastics
is everywhere, and daffodils are asked
by young men to be their wives.  When a man elopes
with a daffodil, you know where he's from.
In this way I have given you a primer.
Let us all be from somewhere.
Let us tell each other everything we can.

It is a beautiful, yet solemn place, makes me cry whenever I see it.  Each marker represents a truly brave, honorable soul.  I hope the families of the lost lives are somewhat comforted by the beauty of the place.

(Note majestic Mt. Rainier in the background.  Of course, the pic doesn't do it all justice.).

I think about her at this time every year.  

It is beautiful..

a Heartful Thank You to all our Vets and active military.. you are always in my thoughts and Memory for all you gave this nation, for all of us!

When I think how this war has accentuated the class differences in America it makes me cringe.   Many of us can turn it on and off, but working and lower income people have fathers, sons, husband, brothers and they are there in danger.  For what?  What did we really do to stop it?  That is what I remember.  

I have a Belgian friend--granted, she is my age, 50-ish--who said they are taught in school about the Marshall Plan, how the Americans helped get Europe on its feet after the war.  And there are people in Europe who remember how impoverished they were.  I forgot recently and asked a Scot about something equivalent to the US GI Bill, and he said no, unfortunately, they had not the resources, their economy was too shattered.

I live in Washington, D.C., not too far away from the National Mall and the war memorials. I took a walk with my girlfriend early this morning, and the area was already filling up with lots of veterans and serving- men and women in uniform. We both agreed how proud we were to be citizens of this great country, and how indebted we were to these people for the comforts and peace that we are fortunate to have.

We like to think that no matter what happens in our presidential election -- if in case our preferred candidate doesn't make it all the way to the White House -- that either of the other two loves this country as much as we do, to do what is right and not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Korean War Veterans Memorial

WWII Memorial

Both of these wars existed because of manufactured reasons and rationales on why we should get involve.

Nixon lost the election because the war was so unpopular, and Bush, if he could run again would probably loose for the same reason.  So why do we let those in charge get us into these wars when deep down inside and very early on we know they are wrong. I had thought that the only  good that would have come out of Vietnam was that we had learn our lesson never to get involved in unpopular wars, especially those not supported by 80 % of the American people. I was wrong.

I never took 911 as an attack by another country on us. To me it was just a bunch of angry extremist  individuals from a country that conspired the attack on 911.  It wasn't like the country of Arabia and it's government decided to attack us.  To me the revenge of 911  should have been handled like police action rather than a military action. A crime was committed.    Just like the Oklahoma bombing was.  What if the suspects of 911 had been Mexican extremist or Canadian extremist?  Would we have waged a war against those countries?  I doubt it very seriously.  And what did Iraq had to do with 911? Nothing. Nothing at all.

What can be done by the next congress and president so as it will be almost virtually impossible for the decision to enter into these silly wars to be implemented.  

We need to have very strict thresholds that must be met before a decision to go to war will go into effect.

I be interested on some of your suggestions  that could be implemented by the next congress and president to make sure  that this never happens again.  

In the last eight years, we have seen such an erosion of democracy - the thing so many have died trying to preserve - and the rise of so much disregard for the least among us.  It just appalls me how cavalier people can be about those who cannot help themselves - like children - and how willing people are to have other people's sons and daughters make sacrifices they are not willing to make themselves.

I can still remember the first time I visited the Vietnam Memorial; never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to be so affected by something so simple and beautiful.  The pictures and remembrances along the wall, the people with tears running down their faces; it was like an emotional punch in the gut.

If there was one thing I would wish for today, it is not just the obvious - that no more have to die in senseless wars - but the not-so-obvious: that those who wish to lead our nation into the future would strive to put country before party.

http://www.appleseeds.org/tomorrow.htm

The war in Iraq has already exceeded the length of World War II and is the nation's longest conflict fought with an all-volunteer military since the Revolutionary War.