I am a Vietnam war veteran. I remember my friends who were killed in action and all of those who have gone since. Gone but not forgotten.
Today we remember those heroes who fought for their countries and sacrificed their lives to save many.
Whether a fighter on the battlefield, or part of the home-front movement, these heroic men and women fought to protect their families, country and friends – their memories will always remain with us.
Many of us may have a personal link to Remembrance Day, or Veterans Day, by honoring our own ancestors who fought and lost their lives in battle.
Last week, we asked readers to share memories of the war heroes in your family, and received many emotional stories. Let’s remember and honor some of those heroes and preserve their memories:
Rita Beck
I would like to honor the men in my family and friends who served in WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam. Mont Black, my grandfather, walked across France to fight the Germans. Also in WWII, Warren Black, Victor Black, Jay Maynard and Charles Beck, my uncles and father; and my friend Albert Campbell, in Vietnam. Thank you to all these men and others
Mark Goldman
My maternal and paternal grandfathers, a great-uncle, and several cousins all fought for the Kaiser during WWI. The uncle and one cousin gave their lives for the fatherland. My dad escaped Nazi Germany as a teenager and, when coming of age, went back over as an American GI to fight the Nazis! He was a counterintelligence agent. Sadly, that is all I know of his service to the US.
Margret Morgan
I would like to honour the memory of my father,who was a prisoner of war in Germany during WWII.He was taken prisoner during the African Campaign and then marched to a POW Camp in Germany – a 42-day march. He was on the escape committee during his confinement and was fortunate to survive and come home. Ted Heard, long shall we remember you. You were a man among men! Loved and remembered always by your family and all who knew you. I would also like to remember my brother James, a Vietnam Veteran.To all who risked your lives for others, we honour you.
Brummie Ray Moon
I served in Korea in 1953/54 with the 61st Royal Artillery. My eldest brother, Stan, was killed in action at Salerno, Italy in 1943. My brother Bill also served in Italy in 1944. My brother John served in the Navy, in Korea
Tom Norris
My grandfather died March 1916, 13 years before I was born. I have his medals, which I will wear on the right side, with my own six medals on the left. Rest in peace, Grandad.
Lest we forget.
John C Wilson
November 17, 2014
To daughter Darlene, after she visited and photographed the waterfall and flood of poppies from the Tower of Londson, 11 Oct.
You have captured the zeitgeist of 11/11 armistice remembrance
by the Tower of London 2014
With a river of blood red poppies which covered the European grain fields which became the fields of war and slayed our young.
Gallipoli was no field, no grain, no poppies, but blood.
Some poor Digger died for every square meter of those beaches and slopes.
And when at the top? What was there? What was to be there?
More of the same ?
I am sorry to have felt so very uneasy, at Gallipoli.
It was as if I was an intruder.
It was the same for me when we slept over night in a gaol cell up towards Ballarat. I had this same very uneasy feeling,
Then in the morning I found outside our cell door, and three meters to the left the gibbet that had been used on occasions
And a noose, awaiting.
I was not able to join you and dive deep to the wrecks in the bay of Anzac Cove.
I watched you and the boys visit a wreck, but I only below the surface of the crystal clear water
There I did not sense the awesomeness, as I did on the beaches.
But I see you did. Together we make a sorrowing
over spilt lives which can never be recovered
And sadly, more sadly, we the people have not learned.
While some bones have never been recovered
and blood which never could,
Our nations and communities continue
as if the spring of life has no bottom or limit
And new energies are given to creating new conflicts.
What are we better than the beasts?
Perhaps the beasts have the ascendency,
for even if they can wound, they have not the knowledge of good and evil, they have not a conscience to it.
If we should ponder the Garden of Eden saga,
Wherein man was made in the likeness of God,
Not with DNA and flesh and blood,
But in the “knowledge of good and evil,”
Which the Devil acknowledged, saying,
“God knows that in the day you eat, your eyes shall be opened
and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil”
With eyes wide open.
This was the first democracy.
This was the first choice, for without evil, there could be no choice.
Without choice there could be no democracy.
Which causes me to commemorate those who have fought with life
to defend it.
And hopefully, your schools shall teach the virtues of it,
And warn the bloody cost of singularly and collectively neglecting it,
by Knowing how to identify sound choice before the event.
For not to know and not to be proficient in identifying bad choices
and intellectually as well as emotionally choosing the wise,
is the achilles heel of democracy
with war as the goal and blood for
our generation’s irreligious sacrifices.