While it isn’t “In Flanders Fields“, I have my own contribution to War Poetry…Over Tigris In The Night. Enjoy, deride, ignore, ponder…whatever you desire. I am not your supervisor. Nor am I detaining you.
Happy Veteran’s Day to my Brothers. I look back at some of the things we did, and scarce believe I was part of any of it. I will lift a glass to all of you tonight.
NOTE: The music is an original composition. It was given to me. Don’t sell it, on penalty of STEVE SMITH visiting you! Also, I did not narrate this, the music composer did…I just wrote the poem one night, after coming back to Baghdad from Taji.
Here it is in text:
In a quiet waiting line
of Soldiers at the twilight.
Stirring when we hear
the rotor whine of
blades come near.
The crew chief waves us o’er
to his waiting craft.
Armored, belted, locked we sit
near each open door
on the frame – we lift!
Over groves of date palm
and scattered farms we streak.
Turning to follow Tigris’ path along,
our rotors sound an airborne Psalm.
A turbine-soul, given song.
Baghdad’s lights catch me
with a dazzling flash.
So low flew our mission
o’er Tigris’ flow, it seemed we
slipped into a dream-like vision
A flare a-lights, joins our Iraqi night,
but soon melts into the City colors.
The door gunners keep watch upon
the River banks as our flight
soars over bridges there – then gone.
We turn by the heart of Baghdad,
and the crew scans the night
one last time. Soon we dropped
to the silent concrete pad,
the rotor hum then abated.
Though my day was passing long,
the night had shown me wonders
and I was loathe to let them go.
Reverie takes the place of engine-song
The others silent, perhaps thinking so.
Comments
136 responses to “Veterans’ Day 2019 – Something To Hear”
*lights zippo and holds it in the air*
FREEBIRD!
Swiss, where you an FA officer? Or Engineer?
Nevermind i see the branch insignia clearly now.
Swiss is useful for all sorts of things. Whether you want to do a little whittling, file your finger nails or dig out a splinter with a pair of tweezers, he is prepared to provide the right tool. He even carries a toothpick around just in case.
Are. Are you saying he’s a tool?
He is pretty sharp.
But his corkscrew really doesn’t work well.
Use the awl.
And when you really need it he’ll give his awl.
A nice piece of prose! I imagined it all, that how you do it!
God bless all you Vets out there ..,
You really are Buckaroo Banzai!
Very nice, Swissy. Thanks for sharing it with us and thanks for your service.
Indeed.
Written version available?
On my way to the airport. I will sit in the USO and update with that.
Thanks, Swissy, I’m late to the party so just X2 what everyone else said
That’s pretty damn awesome, Swiss.
Nice!
All veterans and, hell, all Glibs regardless of veteran status, have a quiet and uneventful day.
Ditto. A lot of people don’t understand when I say that boredom is highly underrated.
I hope you are bored as hell Animal. All day until the end of your days.
My horse decided to try to make it an eventful day – the douche. Fortunately no injuries to report.
Thanks to all you Vets out there!
Here’s how I picture the rest of Swiss’ night after the picture above…
Very nice, Swiss; it reminded me of Wilfred Owen.
Nice!
veterans day is not really much of a thing in Romania
Have a Poppy,
https://images.app.goo.gl/TWSVPkY6gauTmBZH8
Armistice Day? “At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month…”
Also, repost from Morning Lynx: This is the one day of the year that vets can wear their service ribbons/medals on their civilian clothes.
Thanks to all the vets. “All gave some. Some gave all.”
Armistice Day – not even mentioned on main news sites
That was very well done Swiss.
Beatnik Battle Ballad.
*snaps fingers appreciatively
Thomas Jefferson turns in his grave.
In a statement posted to social media on Saturday, university President James Ryan stated the reason was two-fold: “to minimize disruptions to classes, given that this event is located at the juncture of four primary academic buildings and is held at a time that classes are in session; and second, recognizing concerns related to firing weapons on the Grounds in light of gun violence that has happened across our nation, especially on school and university campuses.”
According to the local ABC news affiliate WHSV, the annual ceremony “marks the conclusion of a 24-hour vigil by ROTC cadets and has included the 21-gun salute for more than a decade,” but the decision to nix the salute was made by the provost’s office in conjunction with the colonel of UVA’s ROTC program.
Backlash has been so severe Ryan said the university will revisit the issue in 2020.
“[C]ommunity responses have helped us to understand that many see the 21-gun salute as an important element of the Veterans Day ceremony at the University of Virginia. Given that the plans are already in place for this year, we will follow the event organizers’ recommendation to proceed without the 21-gun salute in our Veterans Day Ceremony. Following this year’s ceremony, however, we will work with our ROTC officers and cadets to take a closer look at options for our Veterans Day events, including those that would enable us to re-introduce the 21-gun salute to the program,” Ryan stated.
Drag that twiddling little cocksucker out on the green and give the salute by shooting him. Endless attacks on the civil society have to be stopped.
Wait. Unless the President is visiting, why are they giving a 21-gun salute? Veterans Day isn’t Memorial Day.
There’s lots of memorial services on Veteran’s Day, including the laying of a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
As far as I am concerned, the more we link military service with its cost, the better off we are. Valorization of the military is one thing, fine to a point, but it should never be far from our minds that these are the men and women we send to die for us.
the more we link military service with its cost, the better off we are
I share your pragmatism and your goal, but I doubt this works the way you think it does. I should be thrilled to be wrong. American history is almost unpunctuated in this regard: an excited optimism for the tools of war, a miasma of motivations, a muddle of goals, and a widely shouted ridicule of those who warned, who remembered, who knew, and so who therefore counseled isolation. Energy fills the sails and the mast starts to lean whether a clear route is charted or not.
If you have seen steam let off gently, do please remind me.
I hold no optimism that we will abandon our warfare state any time soon. Just that any tempering of the bloodlust with an awareness of its cost is to be welcomed.
Everyone confuses the two.
That is not what this is about.
Bravo!
+1 Bivouac of the Dead
***
The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat
The soldier’s last tattoo;
No more on Life’s parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On fame’s eternal camping ground
Their silent tents to spread,
And glory guards, with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead.
***
A trip through a Military Cemetery
Wow Swiss. I liked it. ?
A hearty thank you to all the veterans here.
But who are ye in rags and rotten shoes,
You dirty-bearded, blocking up the way?
We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
Always a little further; it may be
Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow
Across that angry or that glimmering sea,
White on a throne or guarded in a cave
There lies a prophet who can understand
Why men were born: but surely we are brave,
Who take the Golden Road to Samarkand
I am on my 7th reposting of this on facederp. They still have not warned or banned me. I am a nobody 🙁
They just don’t think you could Take Ciamerlla
They’re still taking it down, right?
6 times so far.
He briefly made the news a while back for getting kicked out of the White House for being a serial leaker.
Yet still employed by FedGov.
If the Republicans were an actual opposition party, they would get rid of the Senior Executive Service, repeal the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 and anything else that protects federal employees as anything beyond at-will employees.
I’ve bitched about it before, but the fact that Citronella holds a “senior” position at an age when he should still be shining shoes and fetching coffee is a disgrace. You don’t have any real world experience or track record? Sure, you can run things.
Yeah 33 and “Deputy Director”. Crazy
Reporting directly to the DNI.
*cough* Ben Rhodes *cough*
I had the thought that where I work they should bring in a roulette wheel. Red, you’re fired. Black, you keep your job. Green, you get a promotion. Now, EVERYONE takes a turn.
Not only employed, a high-ranking honcho for Russian affairs. Proof positive, IMO, that the Deep State is, indeed in charge of itself. Otherwise, a national security employee kicked out of the White House for leaking would be either (a) fired or (b) assigned to a listening station on the Barents Sea.
Back when I was a kid reading spy novels, I would have assumed: (c) shot in the back of the head and apartment tossed to look like a robbery.
Ah, the old Clinton Clarification.
Did they get him some Depends?
Does anyone get to read it before it is taken down?
Yes, but it is not like a lot of people follow me.
I’m mostly posting it as a joke to myself.
This is the only time since I deleted my account that I wish I still had it. I’d be spamming the fuck out of those assholes.
Google image search reveals Eric Ciaramella has a strong resemblance to pajama boy.
Sadly, that was just a hack working at one of the Obama PAC’s.
Which one?
Any pictures of the purported leaker whose name can not be revealed because then he wouldn’t be anonymous and would have to publicly testify?
Thanks!
Sort of on or off topic this is the classic Romanian song / military march related to the First War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgvh4n6046U
It was basically a call for the soldiers of what was then Romania to cross the Carpathians and add Transylvania which was austria-hungary to the rest of the country
Pros: you now have Transylvania
Cons: you are now stuck with the szeklers and endless vampire jokes
we would have gotten the jokes anyhoo old Vlad was Wallachian and the szeklers are easy to ignore, they don’t hurt no one of you don’t make sudden moves
Dracula the person was Wallachian, sure, but most people outside of central Europe don’t even know that Transylvania is a part of Romania let alone where the hell Wallachia is. To most people Transylvania is associated with vampires, not Romania, so if it stayed with Hungary the jokers would probably go to Hungary; especially since Dracula the literary character was a Szekler that praised the Hungarians and mocked the Dacians, and his most famous film portrayal was by Bela Lugosi, a Hungarian.
meh who knows really…
Also I am reminded of the ending of Blackader fourth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH3-Gt7mgyM
Thanks Swiss.
I am in no way qualified to judge others’ artistic efforts, but good job.
if you have an internet connection you are qualified
New here? We’re all about judging art, whether we know anything about it or not!
Hey Mike S!
Joe Bob Briggs had a nice objective way of evaluating art.
My songs for Veterans Day
https://youtu.be/3sVYfrsaais
I think this is better than Peter Paul and Mary’s original
https://youtu.be/YNPbUkMNEwo
I know it’s about a guy living out on the streets, but both the title and lyrics feel martial to me
Reminds me, I need to call my dad today.
Here is a Vet’s Day song with the photos from 2008 Iraq.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvsLs7HCluI&t=21s
To all the veterans out there. Your service is appreciated.
PS- Don’t know how it connects with Vet’s Day but TCM has “Kelly’s Heroes” on later today.
Today’s entry in The Deep State Thinks You Are Stupid:
Do they seriously expect us to believe that Nellie and Bruce Ohr sat down for this meeting, and there was some other dude there, and they had no clue at all who he was?
And that Nellie had been passing along info from Steele to the FBI, and had no idea that he also worked for Fusion GPS?
I mean, for us to believe that, we’d have to believe that Nellie and Bruce Ohr are as stupid as two boxes of rocks . . . . oh, never mind.
Damn…
Heroes of a Generation: OSS spy Martin Gelb, 100, fought behind enemy lines
Part of the forces that liberated Buchenwald.
Thank you for writing and sharing this, Swiss. ??
Same here. Although I’ll have to wait until I get home to listen.
Reminds me, this Veteran’s Day, to hoist one to JsubD. Fair winds and calms seas, brother.
RIP JsubD.
Amen
Absolutely. A big reason I started participating at TOS.
RIP
Very nice Swiss. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for sharing this, Swiss! And a hearty thank you to all veteran Glibs; you are appreciated!
Thanks for sharing Swiss. This really is a special place.
Flanders Fields story. In about the the sixth grade our teacher had us pick a poem from our poetry book, memorize it and recite it in front of the class. I chose Flanders Fields. Pretty words, easy to memorize and not too long. The teach asked if I know what it was about. I said I didn’t so he told us. I felt like kind of a lowlife, but the experience lasted for me. Ever since then the words just come back to me at certain moments.
Did not know this about the author:
Damn.
My great grandfather died during the Spanish Flu outbreak. Thanks WWI.
I have walked plenty of battlefields and they can be powerful. But the two most forlorn I have trod were the Little Bighorn and the Somme. Even the horrors of Verdun didn’t seem like such a waste. I am not sure exactly why.
If you are ever in Montana I recommend a visit to LBH. The Interstate crosses right through the site of the Indian encampment. If you have time you can contact the family on whose ranch the “Crow’s Nest” and perhaps visit that key spot as well. (I visited in 1995.)
I sometimes wonder if I’d voluntarily go back to walk some of my battlefields.
And he was a Canuck too, dying for his King.
WW2 plane flanked by Spitfires drops 750,000 poppies above Dover cliffs in stunning tribute to British war dead
Also, from a few years ago, the Tower of London poppy installation.
Also pictured: Swiss preparing for a day at the office.
https://archive.li/Gn4bx/b706c02aee147e34608aef1a7a5f28a6971b0b4e.jpg
On the way to the office.
Words and music both brilliantly written, and the whole excellently arranged and recorded. (For full effect, I highly recommend listening on quality headphones, not just earbuds.) Very moving. Thank you so much for sharing this with us, and I hope it has reached or will reach a wider audience.
Thanks for all you’ve done.
(For one day only – this won’t make sense if you’re reading this any other day but 11/11/19 – my avatar is my maternal grandfather when he was serving in the U.S Army in The War to End All Wars [sic.])
GT – I agree. Love the chord choices, the meter and rhyme pattern. Wonderful. If I weren’t on an iPad and about to board for my final leg, I’d put the required standing ovation gif right here. Maybe tptb will hook a brother up.
My father served in the Marines during the brief quiet time between Korea and Vietnam. My mother’s youngest brother served in Vietnam. He came back a broken man and drug addict.
My sister served in the Army and was stationed in Germany in the 80s. None of my three brothers or I served.
Same for Pater Dean. His artillery unit was going to be one of the first sent to Viet Nam, his discharge date was only a few weeks before they were supposed to go. They leaned on him to stay (he was a Captain), but he declined. I believe the only person he knew who was killed in Viet Nam apparently died in a drunk driving accident.
He gave the Marines a lot of credit for getting him on the right road after somehow avoiding a criminal record as a yoot. He had absolutely no desire for either me or Bro Dean to serve in the military. I am burdened with medical issues that would probably make me a 4-F in the draft, and certainly unsuitable for our volunteer military, so that wasn’t going to happen anyway.
CNN headlines in my news feed:
Don’t leave me hanging. What is the weird Republican Argument? Cause saying “Hey this guy who instigated this all, he’s not important, seems kinda weird to me.
OT: Hong Kong is so fucked.
https://apnews.com/ecff5eaec2e84ed8889b27519d1bb65d
Hong Kong scares me.
Our economy is so deeply intertwined with China’s that anything that destabilizes them is likely to have serious repercussions over here.
And yet, I hope Hong Kong somehow maintains its freedom.
+1 on all counts.
ugh
It’s all or nothing: I hope they can figure that out and decide which way to go soon. If HK isn’t willing to risk it all, go to the mattresses, fight tooth and nail, and make every Party member on their islands pay, then there’s no point in the first guy’s dying; better to just give up today.
Syria dead are around 400k. You would think that for far fewer casualties they could have had their Bastille Day in Damascus.
I’m afraid that, with few exceptions, the great countries start with tremendous sacrifice.
Nice rack, Switzy, you debonaire devil, you. I’m on a plane so I can’t listen at the moment, but I absolutely will and send along my thoughts at some point. Thank you for your service, Brother, and to all who served.
My dad joined the Air Force out of high school in 1965. He was likely headed to Vietnam, but some idiot named Noriega claimed he was going to nationalize the Panama Canal and pops and his unit wound up in the Canal Zone while most of their colleagues were in country. I may have been allowed to exist because of Manuel Noriega’s saber-rattling. I came later and was named for dad’s Staff NCO. (Oh, the indignity for a Marine officer to have been named for an airmen!)
My grandfather humped a bazooka across fortress Europe, but I don’t want to give that story away ‘cuz it’s getting published this week.
I wonder if we’ll ever learn to stop slaughtering each other pointlessly – because Top Men said so?
I hope so, I honestly hope so. At least no draft (at the moment).
“I wonder if we’ll ever learn to stop slaughtering each other pointlessly”
Unfortunately, it’s baked in. Humans will never stop killing one another for the stupidest reasons.
Us versus Them. Since the beginning of time — until the end of time.
The only thing that changes is our tools get better.
His dress blues is clearly post service. He’s spilled whiteout over his nameplate and no long has a trusty SGM or 1SG to straighten his uniform out before he goes out in public.
*narrows gaze*
On the mantle of our fireplace at Casa BEAM are two very important possessions bequeathed to us from my maternal grandfather: artillery shells from French soixante-quinzes, 75mm field artillery guns. The shells are made of brass, and have been competently worked with small improvised tools to display grape vines and leaves. Grandpapa, who served France in the trenches during WWI, worked these two shells during the frequent lulls of boredom interspersed between episodes of terror — bombardment by artillery, gas attacks, and hailstorms of lead from numerous machine-gun emplacements.
Somehow, he survived, and came back to Canada (after having emigrated here once already!) to start a life of peace. He never spoke to any of us about the details of his life at war, other than that was where he met the woman who was to become his wife (she was a corporal driving ambulance, he was a private). Occasionally, he would mention some trifling aspect of his life then, and his voice would trail off as he adopted the Thousand-Yard Stare™. We never pushed him to talk, either.
RIP, Grandpapa.
‘Occasionally, he would mention some trifling aspect of his life then, and his voice would trail off as he adopted the Thousand-Yard Stare™. We never pushed him to talk, either.
RIP, Grandpapa.’
My deceased grandfather was the same way. All I know about his time in the Army was that he was in the South Pacific during WWII, he never discussed what he did or saw there. Can’t even image.
Good poem Swiss. A helo over Iraq at night was always an “E ticket” trip.
A coupe of years ago, I had my dad request his dad’s service record (easier and more complete as next of kin). Quite interesting. Catholic boy married to same woman until his death, had been treated for STD and had an arrest on his record (Dad thinks it was drunk driving).
Oops. Suppose to be a reply to trigger hippie above.
Tres Sr. was in the Navy, along with an Uncle. I was Army.
Grandpa Tres got to participate in WWII as a mortarman, first in North Africa and then in Europe. His unit was being moved to the Pacific Theater, and since Mama Tres was newly born, he got a furlough to stop and visit the fam, and was supposed to catch up to everyone else a couple days behind. His unit made it to the West Coast sans Gramps, everyone got on a troop ship and headed out to sea. Somewhere in the Pacific the ship was sunk, taking everyone aboard with it. Except Granpa Tres. Or at least that’s the story I was told.
Also, the few snapshots we have of his time in Europe, there seems to be the same woman somewhere in the background. This was always a running joke, family assuming he was nailing someone in his spare time. One morning about 15 years ago I was having lunch with my Mom in a small diner. A couple tables away, there was an older couple, and the woman kept blatantly staring at mom. Like a hard power-gaze. Mom didnt put up with it for long until she turned to the woman and said, “Is there something I can help you with?”. The woman apologized and said, “you look almost exactly like my son’s Mother-in-Law. In fact its uncanny.” Mom said, “Well…..OK”, and the woman said, “Well, my son’s Mother In Law lives in Germany.”
I just looked at Mom…..”mmmhmmmm”
Blind squirrel, broken clock, etc. etc.
https://freebeacon.com/politics/sanders-mandatory-gun-buyback-is-unconstitutional/
Take on the NRA and its corrupting effect on Washington. The NRA has become a partisan lobbying public-relations entity for gun manufacturers, and its influence must be stopped.-
Evidently he doesn’t believe in the 1A, thought. If we are banning dangerous lobbyists, socialist/communist should be banned. They have a higher body count than private gun owners.
A mandatory buyback is essentially confiscation, which I think is unconstitutional,” Sanders said. “It means that I’m going to walk into your house and take something whether you like it or not. I don’t think that stands up to constitutional scrutiny.”
At press time Police were dispatched to a Mr. O’rurkes Residence to enact a “Red Flag” removal. Next of Kin noticed he looked sullen and dejected after hearing Sen Sanders remarks.
Beautiful.
Let’s reboot Fantasy Island as a horror movie, that’ll be a big hit, right!? Right?….
Not that I care about the show or this movie, but apparently there is no concept from my youth that hollywood is unwilling to shit all over.
When I hung out the flag this morning, it was snowing. I thought that the weather fitted the reason that I put the flag on display.
And I thought of those of us who defended our country in times and places where the weather was less than perfect: Valley Forge, Fredericksburg, Belleau Wood, Savo Island and Bloody Ridge and the Huertgen Forest, Heartbreak Ridge and the Chosin Reservoir, A Shau Valley and Hue, 73 Easting and Raqqa…so many places where we went…and so many of us who never came back…or came back maimed in body and mind.
What do we owe to those who served our nation and what it stands for? A simple “Thank you for your service” doesn’t seem enough.
ISIS Muslima who urged Muslims to “spill blood” of Americans wants to return to US: “I want to have my own car”
https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/video/mike-pompeo-on-hoda-muthana-she-is-not-a-us-citizen-1446009923715
“Oh wait, you’re serious. Let me laugh even harder.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n5E7feJHw0
I heard living in Muslim Religious Tyrannies is liberating for women. I wouldn’t want her to be enslaved here.
oops, wrong link:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-born-isis-bride-says-everyone-deserves-second-chance-n1075046
No offense Swiss, but that second pic makes me think of a young Brockmire in the Army.
Keep it Brockmire!
Swiss is Glib-Fit and read to sex, IMO.
and thanks for your service Swiss!
Thanks Swiss.
That’s really good, Swiss.
A respectful “thank you” to you, and all the veterans here, for your service.
That’s awesome, Swiss. Thank you.
I stopped by a local funeral home this morning to get the director to sign off on a Veterans Tombstone request for an unmarked grave of a Civil War Vet. As he signed, he looked at his watch to check the date. He rotated the watch so I could see it too and, wordlessly, we both noted it was exactly the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
Damn.