Saturday, May 29, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
MEMORIAL DAY
MEMORIAL DAY
This Memorial Day most Americans will believe that all the soldiers from ours and other countries, who died in combat, are resting for eternity in large or small cemeteries across their respective lands. For the U.S. only, this is more or less true only since the Vietnam War.
The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), which was established by Congress in 1923 to commemorate the military dead since 1917 (WWI) oversees 24 overseas military cemeteries that serve as resting places for almost 125,000 American war dead; on Tablets of the Missing that memorialize more than 94,000 U.S. servicemen and women; and through 25 memorials, monuments and markers.
As you read this, an operation to recover and identify the remains of about 400 British and Australian soldiers killed during a WWI battle in Northern France has just begun.
Point of Reference: Only an estimated 60% of the Civil War dead were ever identified. (Source: History Detectives, PBS, air date 7/12/10)
Below is my poem written in a journalistic-minimalist style:
FALLEN SOLDIERS
On distant foreign shores
Like tin soldiers lying in a row
In some forgotten cigar box
Their faded flags no longer unfurled
Forgotten soldiers at war no more
This Memorial Day most Americans will believe that all the soldiers from ours and other countries, who died in combat, are resting for eternity in large or small cemeteries across their respective lands. For the U.S. only, this is more or less true only since the Vietnam War.
The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), which was established by Congress in 1923 to commemorate the military dead since 1917 (WWI) oversees 24 overseas military cemeteries that serve as resting places for almost 125,000 American war dead; on Tablets of the Missing that memorialize more than 94,000 U.S. servicemen and women; and through 25 memorials, monuments and markers.
As you read this, an operation to recover and identify the remains of about 400 British and Australian soldiers killed during a WWI battle in Northern France has just begun.
Point of Reference: Only an estimated 60% of the Civil War dead were ever identified. (Source: History Detectives, PBS, air date 7/12/10)
Below is my poem written in a journalistic-minimalist style:
FALLEN SOLDIERS
On distant foreign shores
Like tin soldiers lying in a row
In some forgotten cigar box
Their faded flags no longer unfurled
Forgotten soldiers at war no more
HILO MASSACRE
"On August 1, 1938 over two hundred men and women belonging to several different labor unions attempted to peacefully demonstrate [supporting Honolulu strikers] against the arrival of the SS Waialeale in Hilo. hey were met by a force of over seventy police officers who tear gassed, hosed and finally fired their riot guns [birdshot and buckshot] in the crowd, hospitalizing fifty of the demonstrators." This first day of August, 2008 marks the 70th anniversary for the "Hilo Massacre".
William J. Puette documents this event in his book, "The Hilo Massacre" (UH Press, 1988). If you Google "Hilo Massacre" on the internet, you can read the book and see archival footage of event.
At the circular area just inside the gates of Hilo harbor a plaque was dedicated on 8/1/88 commemorating the 50th anniversary of this incident.
Tomas Belsky, local artist, made reference to the Hilo Massacre on one panel of his mural that once graced the wooden wall that surrounded the construction are of the new court house in Hilo.
Is history a boring blur of names and dates best left to High School or a perpetual unfolding paper puzzle of causes and effects that ripple down through time?
Note: unpublished letter-to-the-editor by Roger B. Sheetz, 2008
William J. Puette documents this event in his book, "The Hilo Massacre" (UH Press, 1988). If you Google "Hilo Massacre" on the internet, you can read the book and see archival footage of event.
At the circular area just inside the gates of Hilo harbor a plaque was dedicated on 8/1/88 commemorating the 50th anniversary of this incident.
Tomas Belsky, local artist, made reference to the Hilo Massacre on one panel of his mural that once graced the wooden wall that surrounded the construction are of the new court house in Hilo.
Is history a boring blur of names and dates best left to High School or a perpetual unfolding paper puzzle of causes and effects that ripple down through time?
Note: unpublished letter-to-the-editor by Roger B. Sheetz, 2008
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