Monday 4 July 2011

Words

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.



What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.

We've over 50 RAF careers. Tell us your age, qualifications and salary expectations and we'll show you what your next move could be.


The Royal Navy isn’t just about ships and submarines. We also fly the world’s most advanced military aircraft, including Harrier fast jets. We also have three types of helicopter – the Merlin, Lynx and Sea King.


I also understand concern over immigration controls. We will put in place strict controls that work. They will be part of our first legislative programme if we are re-elected on May 5. These controls will include the type of points system used in Australia for example to help ensure our economy gets the skills we need.

“The biggest threat that we face comes from terrorist attacks, some of which are, sadly, carried out by our own citizens.”

“The assumption with the Carter years was that it was a failure of the elites, not the system. We thought the people in charge screwed up. We didn’t blame ourselves. Every institution in America has gone through a collapse. The Church is not what it was, thanks to all those religious scandals, the media is much less trusted today than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Big business does not have credibility.”

Firstly you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own regarding their propriety. Secondly, you must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your king; and thirdly you must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil.

Gentlemen, when the enemy is committed to a mistake we must not interrupt him too soon.

Our country will, I believe, sooner forgive an officer for attacking an enemy than for letting it alone.



and, seeing as it's the 4th of July, I think the last 268 words should go to dear Abe:

Fourscore 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 battlefield 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 cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot 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.





9 comments:

sparkflash said...

Today, I will give this cast-iron guarantee: If I become PM a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations.

No treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum.

sparkflash said...

You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.

Conan the Librarian™ said...

Quem si ab inceptis desisteret, regi Anglorum aut Anglicis nos aut Regnum nostrum volens subicere, tanquam inimicum nostrum et sui nostrique Juris subuersorem statim expellere niteremur et alium Regem nostrum qui ad defensionem nostram sufficeret faceremus. Quia quamdiu Centum ex nobis viui remanserint, nuncquam Anglorum dominio aliquatenus volumus subiugari. Non enim propter gloriam, diuicias aut honores pugnamus set propter libertatem solummodo quam Nemo bonus nisi simul cum vita amittit. Hinc est, Reuerende Pater et Domine

sparkflash said...

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the
lamentation of their women.

Hogdayafternoon said...

Sparkflash`
We shall line up along the south coast, with bayonets fixed and march north. All those with us gets behind us, all those agin` keeps moving.

Conan: (Had to Google that!)
Re above, If you can organise the same, in reverse, we can sort out the wasters when we meet on the borders.

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

Listen up, you characters, behave yourselves, lest we send The Big Badger Boat to smite you most heartily!

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

Sorry, forgot the link.

Big Badger Boat makes loud BOOM!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfEB8TSu1Pw

Hogdayafternoon said...

Scott: I felt that! There is no substitute for cubic capacity or Naval artillery!

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

The MK 37/22 directors for the 5"/caliber Dual Purpose guns are called SKY One through SKY Four.

In the spring of 1945, when IOWA; MISSOURI; SOUTH DAKOTA; MASSACHUSETS; HMS KGV, and the BIG BADGER BOAT were shellin the Hitachi Steel Works on Kyushu, The WISCONSIN had to break off, as the overpressure from her MK7 16"/50 cal guns was breaking the steel mounting brackets for the radar antenna on SKY One.

The MK8 Fire Control Radar on the IOWA class was and is capable of amazing accuracy. The IOWA, firing at the Roosevelt Roads Range at Puerto Rice, once consistently dropped 9 round salvos into an area the size of a football field, 100X300 feet, at 22 miles.