And so this is Christmas…

And so happy Christmas
We hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young
A very Merry Christmas
And a happy new year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear
War is over, if you want it
War is over now
And so this is Christmas
John Lennon

The WWI Christmas Truce
December 17, 2019 by Jenny Ashcraft
On December 24-25, 1914, an impromptu cease-fire occurred along the Western Front during WWI.
Amid the battle, soldiers from both sides set aside their weapons and came together peacefully
in an event that has come to be known as the WWI Christmas Truce.
Here are a few first-hand accounts of that historic event.

British and German Officers Meet in (No-Man’s Land During WWI Christmas Truce Courtesy of Imperial War Museums)

British and German Officers Meet in No-Man’s Land During WWI Christmas Truce
Courtesy of Imperial War Museums
The Canadian Expeditionary Forces 24th Battalion recorded their experience.
“Early in the afternoon shelling and rifle fire ceased completely and soon
German soldiers were seen lifting heads and shoulders cautiously over the parapet
of their front line trench. Encouraged by the fact that no fire was opened by the men
of the 24th, a number of Germans climbed over the top, advanced in
No Man’s Land, and, making signs of friendship, invited the Canadians to join them
and celebrate the occasion. Regulations frowned on such action, but curiosity proved strong,
and a group of Canadians, including a number from the 24th Battalion, moved out
to see what the enemy looked like at close range. Conversation proved difficult at first,
but a number of the Germans spoke English fluently and others, having rehearsed
for the occasion, one must judge, endeavored to establish their benevolence by
constant repetition of the phrase, “Kaiser no damn good.” For nearly an hour the
unofficial peace was prolonged, the Canadians presenting the Germans with cigarettes
and foodstuffs and receiving in return buttons, badges, and several bottles of
most excellent beer.
By this time, news of the event had reached authority, and peremptory orders were issued
to the Canadians in No Man’s Land to return to their own line forthwith.
When all had reported back, a salvo of artillery fire,
aimed carefully to burst at a spot where no harm to friend or foe would result,
warned the Germans that the truce was over and that hostilities had been
resumed…For some days after Christmas comparative quiet prevailed in the front line,
but soon activity increased and the Battalion’s losses indicated that
normal trench warfare conditions again existed.”
Captain Hugh Taylor from the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards led his company in an attack
near Rouges Bancs on December 18-19, 1914. His troops succeeded in pushing back
German soldiers and occupying their trenches. While returning alone to the
British trenches to report, Taylor was caught in machine-gun fire and killed instantly.
For nearly a week, his body lay near the German line. During the informal Christmas Truce,
soldiers from both sides collected the dead and brought their bodies to the center
space between their respective lines. They dug two trenches and buried
British soldiers in one and German soldiers in the other.
An English Chaplain conducted a service. Afterward, the soldiers spent several hours
fraternizing with one another. Captain Taylor’s body was carried to a small military
graveyard at La Cardoniere Farm and buried.

(British and German troops bury soldiers during the WWI Christmas Truce – 1914
Courtesy of Imperial War Museum)

Three Americans serving in the Foreign Legion took part in the Christmas Truce.
Victor Chapman, Eugene Jacobs, and Phil Rader were in the trenches that day.
Rader, a former United Press correspondent, wrote a stirring account of his experience.
“For twenty days we had faced that strip of land, forty-five feet wide,
between our trench and that of the Germans, that terrible No-Man’s Land,
dotted with dead bodies, criss-crossed by tangled masses of barbed wire.”
Rader recounted cautiously raising his head. “Other men did the same.
We saw hundreds of German heads appearing. Shouts filled the air.
What miracle had happened? Men laughed and cheered.
There was Christmas light in our eyes and I know there were Christmas tears in mine.
There were smiles, smiles, smiles, where in days before there had been only rifle barrels.
The terror of No-Man’s Land fell away.
The sounds of happy voices filled the air.”
The Christmas Truce of 1914 eventually ended, and the goodwill shared between enemies
for a brief moment during WWI evaporated as fighting resumed.

(To learn more about WWI and the soldiers who fought in it, search Fold3 today!)

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young
A very Merry Christmas
And a happy new year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear
And so this is Christmas
For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong
And so happy Christmas
For black and for white
For yellow and red one
Let’s stop all the fight
A very Merry Christmas
And a happy new year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear
And so this is Christmas
And what have we done
Another year over
A new one just begun
And so happy Christmas
We hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young
A very Merry Christmas
And a happy new year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear
War is over, if you want it
War is over now
la, la, ah, ah
Happy Christmas
Happy Christmas (happy Christmas)
Happy Christmas (happy Christmas)
(John Lennon)

May we all remember…

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.”
Laurence Binyon, For The Fallen

“All we have of freedom, all we use or know –
This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.”
Rudyard Kipling

(BBC)

(News.com.au)

I know what you’ll say.
I know you’ll shake your head.
I know your pride will cloud your agreement.
You’ll disagree…
You’ll say I’m wrong…
Or you’ll simply be dismissive…subjecting me to a land of ignorance and deplorables.

But never the less… there are just some things that I believe our cousins from across
the pond get right…so much more so then we do ourselves.

And one of those things is the pausing of the day in order to remember…

A Queen, clad in black, sporting the tri bloom of the red poppy.
A stalwart and determined 93-year-old monarch flanked by wreaths of red poppies.
A usually stiff upper lipped emotionless woman who stops to wipe away a single tear.
All because she remembers.

She remembers.

But the question is, do we?

Perhaps she remembers more clearly because she has lived on the soil where
wars have been fought.
Or that her family has borne the brunt of carrying an ancient Nation during those wars.

Our soil has, on the other hand, been spared.
Other than our own war of division and now a new odd war of terror, our land has remained
basically untainted by world wars.

However, we cannot say the same about our people.

We have sent countless numbers of young men and young women toward the sound of gunfire rather
then holding them tightly in our arms, safely back home.

Some of them returned, some did not.
Some returned…different.

For those who did and have returned, they have done so changed…
both physically as well as emotionally.
And as long as humans have wars…this sad reality will continue.

(Dailymail)

(US wounded at Omaha Beach / US Army file)

(image courtesy American Grit)

Remembrance Day
Armistice Day
Veteran’s Day

Call it what you will.

It is a specified day in November, always the 11th, in which the British Commonwealth,
Canada, the European Nations, Australia, New Zealand, The US…
each pause to mark the recalling of the sacrifices made…
sacrifices that were readily and freely offered so that our collective nations might remain free.

Originally it was a day to mark the end of WWI—it was on the 11th hour of the 11th day
of the 11th month that the war ended when the Germans signed the Treaty of Versailles.

Sadly and most ominously little did the world know then that that treaty would actually usher
in a new and even larger horror—only to follow suit not long after…
A more terrible horror than the first…

And so thus the UK, who marked Remembrance Day yesterday on Sunday with the laying of
poppy clad wreaths on tombs, monuments, and graves, now remember two world wars.

Perhaps one of the more poignant moments during yesterday’s ceremony in London was when
the Queen’s wreaths were placed on the Cenotaph.

The Cenotaph is an empty tomb and monument in London that is a physical and tangible reminder that
not all soldiers come home…as many physical remains still lie elsewhere…
on foreign soil, long forgotten.
Buried or merely lost to the decay of time.

(The Telegraph)

And so we Americans will pause today, on this Monday, November the 11th, to offer our
own remembrance.
Banks and the Postal services will be closed.
Some schools and businesses will close.
Some communities will have parades.
As a president lays a wreath in Arlington at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

(courtesy Conservative Daily News)

But I fear that this nation of ours will not unite in its remembrance.
It will rather remain divided.

Say what they will about their monarchy, seeing their Queen shed tears during her public
remembrance of those who gave their all will draw the British closer, not further apart.

Our Nation will continue to throw caustic jabs at her President.
Her governmental leadership will continue insulting and publically hating one another.
Some in leadership will continue to cry out, hoping to drown out the somber markings
with their own shouts for socialism and that of antisemitism and progressive liberalism…
All of which are the makings of the unforgiving black hole that only aids to usher in the very
thing we now pause to remember…
that of broken nations, wars and eventual loss.

Her people will continue attacking one another over perceived political wrongs.
There will be little in the way of a national coming together in order to remember.
The bias will be heard and seen throughout the newsfeeds.

And so yes, I believe the United Kingdom, who has her own wealth of woe, as Brexit comes to mind,
does a far better job standing united in order to recall and to remember those that
they have loved and lost.

There are a few lessons this proud nation of ours still needs to learn…
A humbling remembering is one of them…

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.

by Major John McCrae, May 1915

This means war!!!!

“Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.”
― Martin Luther

Do you have any idea as to what this picture is all about?
You think it’s just some sort of stem don’t you?
You are partially correct, it is a stem–sans all its leaves.
And you should know that this is not just any sort of stem!
This is one of almost 50 plants just like it.
Rows upon rows of “topped off” plants.
Topped off you ask?
Yes, as in eaten off.
As in all of my green, wax, bush, french beans have been pillaged.
Pillaged you ask?
As in decimated.
As in eaten to the nubs.

Do you remember this little fellow? I took this shot back in the fall.
“Oh how pretty”
“Oh how majestic”
I had mused as I watched the bucks and does come and go in our yard.
Little did I know of the impending treachery. . .

Well it now seems as if this little buck has called all his friends.
The antlers are long gone and this is the time of year that food is at its peak.
Food?
Yes, my food.
As in my garden.
UGH!!!!

I try to keep this garden of ours as organic as possible. The strongest stuff I use on pests is the poison I sprinkle on those d@m%ed fire ant mounds which ring the garden like the infamous ring of fire—quite fitting indeed.
Oh how I hate those evil little biting devils. . .

But after my rows of beans, my pepper plants now minus their tops, an entire cucumber plant MIA, crushed stalks of young corn and even branchy vines from my tomatoes all mysteriously disappearing—daily . . .
I’m mad.
Really mad.
Fighting mad.

Do you remember George C. Scott’s role as General George S. Paton?
Remember that opening fiery profanity laced monologue?
That man didn’t play.
Just ask the Germans.
And thank God for the Allies he didn’t mince words. . .
Well, by George S. Patton, it is now time for the big guns!!
As in, this means war!!!

Recently an old-timer (that’s what my husband calls the elderly men who have spent their lives working in the fields) came into my husband’s store recently and shared with him a tried and true little secret weapon that he swore by to ward off deer from ones garden. . .Irish Spring.

What you say?
As in Irish Spring, green, highly fragrant, soap??!!
Yep.
Supposedly the deer don’t like the smell.
We bought boxes of the soap and have cut slivers, much like Hansel and Grettle leaving little crumbs, surrounding the entire perimeter of the garden, plus up and down each and every row.
All the while I whistled the little sailor ditty from those iconic Irish Spring commercials.

Next, I went for the old standard pie pans.
Shock and awe.

Clinking, clanging and banging in the breeze. We tied 15 pans all around the garden. They’re hung in tress, from the tomato cages, and even from the bean poles.

And then there was the non poisonous pest granules which are spread on the ground, not the plants. It has an irritating effect on the nostrils of varmints large and small.
Hummmmm.
Yeah, and I’ve got some swamp land for sale. . .the jury is still out on the granules.

But— there is a secret weapon.
I don’t know his name yet.
But he is two faced.
He’s doubly mean
And he’s doubly bad.
Plus he smells.
Smells you ask?
Yes.
Stinks to high heaven.
As in he’s been doused with perfume.

I figured a good dousing of perfume might signal that a human just may be lurking in and around the beans.
Fingers crossed.
My only other recourse. . . send my husband out all night with a spot light.
Somehow I don’t think he’d be too keen on that thought. . .
I’ll keep you posted. . .