Herf and Pray for OUR troops today

[vstrommark]

This may be in the wrong forum, but it really is about cigars. It is about the ability of most of the people on this forum to have a quiet smoke today and think hard about what it took to create a world in which we have the freedom to have that smoke. It is also about those on this forum and beyond who will have their smoke after risking death to help others. Finally, it is about all those who gave their full measure of devotion so that I might have the opportunity to raise a cigar and spend a moment contemplating the power of their sacrifice.

There are two pieces of writing, one from WWI and one from the American Civil War, that are never far from my thoughts. They help me to understand the willingness to go into harms way and the necessity to "never forget." I would like to share these with the forum on this day. No matter which country you serve or served, as a veteran, I respect and admire your service.

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-191
Canadian Army

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.


The Gettysburg Address
A. Lincoln

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.


I ask that all who can to smoke a favorite cigar today and think about how much different the world would be without the sacrifice of the brave men and women who provide the fortress wall that we call freedom.

[[OT] Loki]

We did this yesterday at the herf i was at....We have about 200 stogies going overseas