Thank you for your service and your sacrifice

 

You beat me to this Woof.

Observed the 2 mins. The least we can do.

11th hr 11th day 11th month.

God bless 'em all.

 

Yessir, you're right, 'Hawk

...and thank you to the person who edited my disjointed title

 

Loving the picture of your dad with the pipe No-one smokes a pipe any more, kinda miss that. All the pipe smokers I came across. were real characters, like to think your dad was one too.

My Dad joined the Merchant Navy in '39 at the grand old age of 14. So he was on the Atlantic convoys. Merchant Navy was a bit like the Royal Navy, but no guns, so you couldn't shoot back

 

What a thankless job that was.

Don't know about the UK, but the U.S. merchant marine was a civilian body. History has shown what a great contribution they made to the war effort, but they were never recognized here as armed forces and not granted the same pensions and benefits as front line or other veterans of the Atlantic Theater.

Yet their sacrifice was no less

 

Woof, your picture of your fathers headstone brings a tear to my eye. Great service and sacrifice, it again reminds me of how lucky us, of the next generation, have been.

But, collectively, I guess we haven't learnt anything, we just now send our youngest off to a couple of different theaters to risk their legs and lives for some cause that may or may not have a whole heap to do with our everyday lives.

 

Thank you to all veterans who have served and to those who never made it back. I called my dad yesterday to thank him for his service. He served in the Air Force during the Cold War/Korean War and was stationed at Geiger Field in Spokane, WA.
I don't have many regrets, but one of them is that I never served my country.

 

My Dad was Royal Navy, Cruiser "Glasgow", '39-46, then SA Navy to '55.
Mom, Royal Air Force, Bomber station in Lincolnshire, radios,'40-46
Married '42, together thick and thin for over 57 years. Both gone now.
Miss them still.

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.

God bless all our veterans, be they civilian or military.
The world would be a different place without their sacrifices.

 

Aye. Sad but true

 

Thanks to everyone for sharing here. Without beating the drum and waiving the flag,

we've managed,

the world over,

to commemorate the spirit of such a solemn day.

I raise my glass to all of you