The Great War

My grandfather Clovis Cagle (my mother's father) faught in the First World War. I don't know what he did in the war other than than this: He was in the field artillary and was in charge of a horse team that pulled a gun. I also know this about his service in the Army: He marched across Doughboy Field (the parade grounds at Fort Dix, New Jersey) when he graduated from basic training. I graduated from basic training on that same field about 70 years later.

Later in his life he was a postman. And he was the father of 7 daughters and one son. He was also a pastor (and so were several of his brothers) in the United Pentecostal Church. When the United States entered World War II he tried to enlist but he was too old. I never knew him, he died a few weeks before I was born. But I have seen his picture and heard many stories. I think I would have loved him had I known him.

I guess I've been thinking about WWI lately because I heard about a British veteran of that war who died recently. He was a horse cavalryman. His name is Albert Marshall.

I suppose everyone knows the heart breaking poem "In Flanders' Fields" by John McCrae. But I am not sure everyone knows "We Shall Keep the Faith" by Moina Michael. If I remember the story correctly, in 1918 she was working in a YWCA in London when she read the poem. Being moved to tears she picked up a pencil and wrote...

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.

I didn't write about it on Memorial Day (I was afraid you might think I was bragging) but I'll tell you, now that a few days have passed. On Memorial Day I took the little boy to a cemetery near here. We have no relatives in that cemetery nevertheless we drove in and looked for the veterans section. It was easy to find since there were little American flags on each of the graves. Most of the graves had flowers on them, too. But a few did not. I told the little boy to find a grave with no flower and he did. We put a rose (the floral emblem of the United States) on it the grave and prayed for that fallen soldier and all of those men and women who protected us from harm, though they did not know us, though we had not even been born when they were fighting for us. I want my little boy to remember them, to learn the lessons that they wrought.