Dartblog

For anyone on campus this Memorial Day, the Dartmouth Undergraduate Veterans Association will be holding a flag-lowering ceremony and a non-denominational prayer service on the Green at 7:10 pm. Boy Scout Troop 218 from Windsor, Vermont will perform the flag duties and Air Force Major (Ret.) Breese from the Office of Institutional Diversity & Equity will conduct the prayer service.

Also, a couple photos from my visit to the American Cemetery in Normandy last fall and a poem I have always liked, written by Canadian solider John McCrae during World War I.

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.

JENN adds: A brief poem that I feel all Americans, and particularly Dartmouth students, should take to heart:

It is the soldier, not the reporter,
who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet,
who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.

It is the soldier, not the lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the soldier,
who salutes the flag,
who serves under the flag,
and whose coffin is draped by the flag,
who allows the protester to burn the flag.

-Father Dennis Edward O’Brien, USMC