Very moving story. I'm not sure I could emotionally handle visiting such
memorials. I had a hard enough time in London, where every time I turned a
corner there was a memorial to this or that unit, most of whom did not survive
the conflict.
FWIW, that electric feeling is very much apparent at certain times of the day
at the American Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg, PA.
The Vietnamese believe ghosts of fallen "foreign" warriors haunt the places
where they fell, trying to find their way home but never being successful. Many
of them genuinely believe dead Frenchmen and Americans and Chinese are still
there.
--Bob
On Jun 21, 2012, at 8:35 PM, JOHN DUGGAN wrote:
> A few years ago I was involved in supervising a school trip to the First
> World War battlefields in France and Belgium. As well as visiting the Somme
> (and the Welsh Memorial at Mametz Wood) we visited the Canadian gas Memorial
> and a number of the main battlefields during a week long trip. One abiding
> memory is of the Devonshire cemetery at Mametz Wood. At the start of the
> battle for Mametz Wood the Devonshire Regiment emerged from their front line
> trench only to be mown down by machine gun fire. 163 men were buried in the
> trench from which they had emerged, with the inscription "The Devonshires
> Held This Trench, They Hold It Now.
> The trip ended in Belgium on Sunday 11/11.
> Two of our pupils - one with special needs - were selected to lay a school
> wreath of poppies at the ceremony taking place at the Menin Gate. This is a
> huge covered archway inscribed with the names of over 60,000 British and
> Commonwealth troops who have no known grave. I have been to this memorial
> before, but nothing could prepare you for the raw emotion of this event. To
> say that the air was "electric" does not do it justice. The hair on the back
> of your neck started to rise, and it was just like the moment before the
> lightning strike. There were many tears shed that day.
>
> It really brought home the sacrifice made by previous generations, many of
> whom were not much older than the pupils themselves , and graphically
> illustrated the respect still shown today by the local population.It was a
> humbling experience, I will visit again.
--
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