Lest we forget
The Green Fields Of France (Originally "no man's land" by Eric Bogle).
Well how do you do young Willie McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside
And rest for a while 'neath the warm summer's sun
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
when you joined the great fall-in in nineteen sixteen.
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
Young Willie McBride was it slow and obscene?
Chorus
Did they beat the drums slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
And did the band play the "Last Post" and chorus?
Did the pipes play "The Flowers of the Forest"?
Did you leave ere a wife or a sweetheart behind,
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined.
Although you died back in nineteen sixteen
In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen.
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed in forever behind a glass frame.
In an old photograph, torn, battered, and stained,
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.
Did they beat the drums slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
And did the band play the "Last Post" and chorus?
Did the pipes play "The Flowers of the Forest"?
The sun now it shines on the green fields of France,
There's a warm summer breeze, where the red poppies dance.
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds,
There's no, gas, no barbed wire, there's no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard, its still no mans land,
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand,
To mans blind indifference to his fellow man,
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned.
Did they beat the drums slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
And did the band play the "Last Post" and chorus?
Did the pipes play "The Flowers of the Forest"?
Ah, young Willie McBride, I can't help wondering why,
Do those that lie here do they know why they died?
And did they believe when they answered the call,
Did they really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain,
The killing and dying were all done in vain,
For young Willie McBride its all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.
Did they beat the drums slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
And did the band play the "Last Post" and chorus?
Did the pipes play "The Flowers of the Forest"?
Did they beat the drums slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
And did the band play the "Last Post" and chorus?
Did the pipes play "The Flowers of the Forest"?
Green Fields of France - WW1 Memorial
Sung By: The Fureys with Davey Arthur
Well worth a listen - just to hear Davey Arthur
(the footage contains war horror)
*********************************************************
The Independent on Sunday is campaigning for the Military Covenant to be honoured. It is a campaign supported by families, retired generals, politicians from the three major parties and the British Legion.
What they want:
* Soldiers to have the right to expect a war to be
lawful
*
to have adequate resources and equipment
* the right to be cared for in the event of injury
(There are
900,000British ex-servicemen who currently live with a disability.)
* and the right to know that, in the event of their death, their families will be properly looked after.
Cenotaph ban on wounded war heroes
Families accuse government of being 'ashamed' of victims of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2209308,00.html
