Thank you Carla. Unfortunately this was not the war to end all wars.

My best thoughts and wishes to all those serving in our military, past, present and future.

My father died in 2004 in my arms. when he was 19 years old he fought on the Pacific Island of Peleliu in the Palau Island chain, a place he never heard of. He was awarded the Silver Star for bravery in combat. He was one of five men of his company who walked away from the Battle of Bloody Nose Ridge, to take the high ground to protect an airfield. Most of his buddies died in that battle. He carried Bloody Nose Ridge and Okinawa to his dying day and the horrific violence he participated in. We are just beginning to realize that young men and women, if they survive combat, don't survive the wounds of psyche and soul they will carry for the rest of their lives. Yet he survived being shot by a sniper on Okinawa, and later, alcoholism and divorce, to become an alcohol counselor who worked with veterans of violent combat to help them recover and have a life, as he learned to do. At the end of his life he became my best friend, and he died in my arms.

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Today our Deficit Commission honors the sacrifice of our veterans of war by proposing that they be responsible for co-pays in the medical services they are entitled to, present and future recipients.

Thanks for posting this, Carla. I echo some of Bill's comments. My father served in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. He was in Europe in WWII and was among some of the GIs that libertated concentration camps. I was in DC a couple of weeks ago and visited the Holocast (sp?) Museum. It was heart breaking to visit it but it gave me a snapshot of what he must have seen. He never talked much about his experience but I know that, and other experiences in the war my mother shared with me, scarred him for life. He (my father) took his own life in 1991 and I will believe as long as I live that a big part of it was due to what he experienced in his military service. That is why I am outraged at the lack of assistance to our new and existing vets. The individudals and their families pay a huge price for their service. Yet when they come home they are virtually abandoned. There was a recent report on 60 minutes of the huge numbers of vets who are homeless and how quickly the current vets are becomeing homeless vs. Vietnam Vets. It is shamefull! I don't always support the 'wars' they are sent to fight (we all know what's behind them and it ain't always democracy!) but I do support and respect the indiduals who volunteer to go. Thanks for letting me vent!

This is arguably the worst war poem in English that is still being cited and quoted. The first two stanzas are admittely touching in evoking a military cemetery. But then the speaker of the poem turns bitter and polemical in calling for--more war. It's as though the speaker learned nothing from what the great British WWI poet Wilfred Owen called "the pity" of war. It is Owen's unforgettable poem (mostly in English) "Dulce Et Decorum Est" that we should be quoting:

If . . . you too could pace / Behind the wagon we flung him in, / . . . My friend, you would not tell with such high zest / To children ardent for some desperate glory, / The old lie: [it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.] (1917)

Honestly, I chose this because my grandfather (who fought in WW2) had it among some things of his I came across a number of years back. When I saw it again today, it reminded me of him.

And frankly, I think the second stanza is absolutely beautiful. The imagery it evokes is stunning to me.

"If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields."

I guess the poet intends to mean that he really thought WW1 was the "war to end wars"; therefore, in his vision, if we do not keep faith with that idea then more wars will occur.

The Treaty of Versailles pretty much screwed that vision, as far as Europe was concerned.

But what about all the other (ongoing, continuous, everlasting) wars that have happened since, which had and have nothing to do with the European situation?

Due next week: 2014 is the new "deadline" for beginning withdrawal from Agfhanistan.

And the idea of this poem as regards that situation and others the U.S. has been involved in is irrelevant- does "keeping faith" with the dead US servicepeople as regards US imperialism somehow portend and end to that imperialism? If it does, I certainly don't know how it does.

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My GGF fought in the trenches for King and country during W.W.I. and was gassed.

I always wondered why my GF didn't want to talk about his childhood in N. England until Mom told me.

God bless them all.