In Memory...

Today's parade will probably be the shortest of the season, with (sadly) the smallest audience, and perhaps the most important one of all, as our drill team and color guard hook up to join the parade of colors past this old fella and the plain white headstones in the veterans' section of Evergreen Washelli cemetary in Seattle.

'Happy' Memorial Day doesn't really hit the mark as a holiday sentiment. Have a mindful Memorial Day. If you like, you can start with this...

No Man's Land- Eric Bogle

Well how do you do Private William McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your grave side
And I'll rest for a while in the warm summer sun
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done
And I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the glorious fallen back in 1916
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or Willie McBride was it slow and obscene

Did they beat the drum slowly
Did they play the fife lowly
Did the rifles fire o'er you
As they lowered you down
Did the bugles play the Last Post in chorus
Did the pipes play the Flowers Of The Forest

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart does your memory enshrine
And though you died back in 1916
In some faithful heart are you forever 19
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enshrined forever behind the glass pane
Of an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame

Did they beat the drum slowly
Did they play the fife lowly
Did the rifles fire o'er you
As they lowered you down
Did the bugles play the Last Post in chorus
Did the pipes play the Flowers Of The Forest

Ah the sun's shining now on these green fields of France
The warm winds blow gently and the red poppies dance
The trenches have vanished under the plough
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now
But here in the graveyard it's still No-Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To Man's blind indifference to his fellow-man
To a whole generation who were butchered and damned

Did they beat the drum slowly
Did they play the fife lowly
Did the rifles fire o'er you
As they lowered you down
Did the bugles play the Last Post in chorus
Did the pipes play the Flowers Of The Forest

And I can't help but wonder now William McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause
Did you really believe that this war would end wars
Well the suffering and the sorrow and the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain
For Willie McBride, it all happened again
And again, and again and again and again.

Did they beat the drum slowly
Did they play the fife lowly
Did the rifles fire o'er you
As they lowered you down
Did the bugles play the Last Post in chorus
Did the pipes play the Flowers Of The Forest