But More Seriously

Famille Cheynier de Noblens, originally uploaded by Alison.

Today was what we used to call Armistice Day. Now it's Veterans' Day, and between all the department store sales and football games, we are supposed to remember the soldiers.

I took this photo during a three-day field trip with 40-some 9th graders back in 2004. We visited the D-Day beaches in Normandy, and then we went to the Picardie region of France, where we visited a Canadian memorial to World War I, as well as the cemetery where I took this photo.

There was much to learn at those places. I saw the tunneled landscape at the Canadian memorial. Eighty years later, the ground is still scarred by the bombs and the trenches. And this, all over the region. There are still unexploded bombs there.

And at this cemetery, I saw headstones that weren't crosses, but crescents with Arabic names and plain markers with Chinese characters on them. Not all those who died in the horrific battles were French, but this family lost three men. I don't know if they were brothers, or father and sons.

What I should have done was find the CD with all my photos from that trip on it. What I did instead was cooked up a storm. I guess I was trying to celebrate life.

It's a wonderful life. But I don't forget the fallen.

Comments

[Betty C.]

When the girls were at primary school, we used to go to those November 11th ceremonies. I remember at the first one we went to here in 1995, there was still a veteran from the village. Now I think there are only a handful left -- maybe three? Time passes.

That reminds me of how my father who is 78 told me that he remembers Civil War vets marching in some parade -- maybe Armistice Day -- in Spokane when he was a kid. I had just finished a Civil War novel, and that connection seemed really strange to me. My own dad had actually SEEN Civil War vets?

Those wars aren't that far away, are they?

I don't know why I rambled on about this one...

[bhd]

Because I could not be remotely as eloquent, I stood silent.

[Lee]

"Caring for a dead veteran is easy...bring a wreath, say a few
words and walk away. Caring for a living veteran requires
time, money and a life-long commitment. Every Veterans
Day our politicians show they don't know the difference
as they visit a cemetery instead of a VA hospital."