Thank you for thinking of me when you put the poem here, BUT I AIN'T READY YET !!!!OLD SOLDIERS NEVER DIE, WE JUST FADE AWAY. Rocky
Please don't think I was suggesting that it was time for Rock J! It was merely the mention of flowers on the battlefield.
The "just fade away" comment makes me think of the MacArthur Speech to West Point. Whereas I may not be a big MacArthur fan, it is probably the best military-related speech ever delivered.
Here is that last few lines:
The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished, tone and tint. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears, and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen vainly, but with thirsty ears, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll. In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.
But in the evening of my memory, always I come back to West Point.
Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country.
Today marks my final roll call with you, but I want you to know that when I cross the river my last conscious thoughts will be of The Corps, and The Corps, and The Corps.
I bid you farewell.
To read the whole thing takes a while; it's a long speech, but it is well worth it.
You can read and hear it as well at the following link:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/d...hayeraward.html
Listening to it you can hear how old the man was when he delivered it. Perhaps it wasn't the years but the miles. . .