Salute

[draconis]

Thank you, to all those who serve or have served.


In Flanders Field, by John McCrae

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.



There's one thing about this that bothers me. The last stanza charges the reader to take up the quarrel of those who have fallen, to never let it end (except presumably by vanquishing those the quarrel is against). "Carry on our fight, or we won't rest in our graves."

From the POV of the guy in the trenches, I can understand that. One of the lines I liked from the movie "Top Gun" was during their first briefing with Tom Skerritt/Viper: "Now, we don't make policy here, gentlemen. Elected officials, civilians, do that. We are the instruments of that policy." A soldier is expected to fight, and to focus his thoughts and energies accordingly.
Having never been in their boots, I can only make guesses about their experiences, their mindset, etc.

But isn't the objective in any fight supposed to be to END it? McCrae doesn't seem to think so, and that bothers me.

Almost as much as the thought that this poem makes it sound like the Zombie-pocalypse is likely to start from Flanders Fields! ;-)

Comments

[warclaw.livejournal.com]

Well, the feeling I get from it, is not that the fight is supposed to go on forever, but that there IS a goal, and it should not be left half-done.

That these men fell in service to a cause, which they would wish to see carried on until the goal is met, and the war won honorably.

That to walk away from the battles before the goal was met would be to render their sacrifice worthless, and meaningless, which would not let them rest easy.

The reader is tasked to take up the fallen's cause, not in service to endless war, but to take up an unfinished task and carry it through to its natural ending, and not to let the deaths be in vain.

[jcbdragon.livejournal.com]

And I'm completely good with the "don't let our sacrifices have been in vain" interpretation. In fact, that's how I've always read it before.

Just something about it hit me differently this time. "Take up our quarrel with the foe" rather than "Find a solution with honor," etc. as if the ONLY honorable solution is combat.

No one needs to tell either of us that there are plenty of times when that IS the only way, but there are also times when other equally honorable solutions exist.