it's armistice day

Hope for our sons and daughters in the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month

A shout out to our Veteran's who bravely served our nation and this world, in times of peace and especially as today, in times of war. My Pop served as an officer in the Royal Dutch Army during WWII, and suffered at the hands of the Japanese, as a POW for nearly four years, building the Japanese railway from Burma through Siam in the early 1940's.

My most pressing memory is watching William Holden and David Niven in the movie, Bridge over River Kwai every year. I was eight or nine when I asked my Pop, why we watched that movie every time it came on.

To give you a snapshot of my Pop's view;

"I like this movie! ....You know the bridge was never that big, ....as soldiers we were never that clean, and we were never that fat, ....of course we were never that happy, either!", he commented whimsically.

"So Pop, why are we watching it again?!" I asked...Wasn't he there, didn't he want to forget that time in his life? He was visibly getting agitated and then said in Dutch..."Dit ist hoe ik zal denken om deze vreselijk onzettentijd" (This is how I want to remember that frighteningly horrific time in my life!). ..that's what I want to remember..." he trailed off as he kept his eyes fixated on our Zenith console television...and then I knew to be quiet and just curled up on the sofa with him.

Once again we watched those actors depict brave men facing death, either for themselves or their band of brothers in the most horrific of circumstances, when diplomacy fails.