Writer's Block: Thank you veterans
Nov. 11th, 2011 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jooles34[Error: unknown template qotd]
During the silence my thoughts always turn to those that I know who are serving, and the friends and family of my friends who are serving. I am fortunate that at the moment my closest armed forces friend is tucked safely in this country with his wife and baby.
I also think of all the members of my family who fought in the last World War, and the ones that stayed at home and lost their loved ones.
But one man who always comes into my mind is a man I never met, and have never even known the family of. His name was Corporal Neville and I came across him a few years ago while researching an incident that my great Grandfather was involved in. The story is long and I won’t re-tell it right now, but 15 men worked and fought together in tough circumstances with no support. Over the months that I worked researching their movements over those weeks just after the capitulation of Singapore, I started feeling like I got to know the 15 men, as well as my great Grandfather. When I came across Neville’s death in action notice and discovered that he had died during their journey, I sat in the public record office and cried. He was the only one not to make it back from that mission.
For men and women like Neville, I wear my poppy with pride and gratitude.
During the silence my thoughts always turn to those that I know who are serving, and the friends and family of my friends who are serving. I am fortunate that at the moment my closest armed forces friend is tucked safely in this country with his wife and baby.
I also think of all the members of my family who fought in the last World War, and the ones that stayed at home and lost their loved ones.
But one man who always comes into my mind is a man I never met, and have never even known the family of. His name was Corporal Neville and I came across him a few years ago while researching an incident that my great Grandfather was involved in. The story is long and I won’t re-tell it right now, but 15 men worked and fought together in tough circumstances with no support. Over the months that I worked researching their movements over those weeks just after the capitulation of Singapore, I started feeling like I got to know the 15 men, as well as my great Grandfather. When I came across Neville’s death in action notice and discovered that he had died during their journey, I sat in the public record office and cried. He was the only one not to make it back from that mission.
For men and women like Neville, I wear my poppy with pride and gratitude.
