Respect For The Fallen

 

A moments silence.

 

As martial artists, some of you may feel as though you know combat, we know nothing in comparison to what these brave unfortunates had to endure, today we give thanks, praise and remembrance, to the survivors of these horrors, and especially to the fallen.

It is the worst thing that we still have not learned to keep peace, and that wars still continue across the world.

 

On the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month, we celebrate Armistice Day, or Remembrance Day,

A day when we give two minutes silence to those who have fallen in all wars and conflict.

 

Today marks One Hundred years since the first of these moments of silence,

one year after the end of the first ‘World War‘  (1914 – 1918), a war they then called:

 

 

The Great War

The Wat To End All Wars

How wrong they were

 

Today we remember those who have lost their lives and how those left behind have also suffered.

 

For the Fallen

By Laurence Binyon

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,

England mourns for her dead across the sea.

Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,

Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal

Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,

There is music in the midst of desolation

And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;

They sit no more at familiar tables of home;

They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;

They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,

Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,

To the innermost heart of their own land they are known

As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,

Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;

As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,

To the end, to the end, they remain.