Saturday, May 28, 2016

THE POPPY FIELDS HAVE GROWN

With all the rhetoric of the primaries, it seems to me more and more each day we seem to forget our moral and patriotic duty that stands out the most in my mind yet it gets so little attention. The plight of returning veterans from the past and current war that mar our conscience and weigh down our hearts.We were merciless back in the 1970’s in our treatment of returning vets from Viet Nam, and from the comforts of our homes played into the anti-war movement that ostracized and somewhat criminalized returning vets, both the fully limbed and those who were not. Instead, we choose to associate them as warmongers, and steal their rights for the respect, gratitude and appreciation thy all so well deserved, we betrayed them.
Today it continues on a more formal level, we seem to think to watch a veteran sit on a street corner or in some psych ward, away from the public view that we owe them nothing, the government will handle it. Their mental scars, their physical pains, and their hearts ripped out from them, as we live our daily lives like they don’t exist.
So many lives have been tragically lost since WWII, lives that may have found a cure for cancer or even the common cold, so many lives prevented from realizing the growth of a child or the joy of marriage, all in the name of our flag. Today, the poppy fields have grown, the sense is that the government will take care of it, when they are the biggest reason the returning heroes are forgotten, unassisted and left jobless, homeless and forgotten.
But the government does not stand alone in this tragedy, we too must take the blame. Come this election, we should all take the time to select candidates we feel will be responsive to this terrible injustice to our heroes, partition your candidates and call their offices and representatives, demand to know where not only they stand, but what they will do about it if elected to office in November of 2016!
Thanking a vet is not enough. They are like nurses, who handle all the grunt work and get no glory, very little appreciation from the general public. To be on a field of battle, knowing someone out there is seeking to kill you, to shelter yourself from incoming dangers of bombs, missiles, and artillery shells must be so frightening, so troubling and so taxing on one’s mental well-being for so little pay and solely for the sake of duty, should be rewarded first and foremost, their lives and those of their families. Taking priority before anymore pusillanimous politicians vote themselves a raise, or are given the chance to comfortably forget the men and women who deserve our attention and be given our highest priority.
Let the fields of poppies blossom never more, let our hearts begin fertile the fields of help and support, help and thank those that have made it home.
I am sorry for writing on something so troubling in this forum, maybe tomorrow we can all smile once again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyEL3NJSHIk



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.

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