Remembrance Sunday

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

Composed at the battlefront on May 3, 1915
during the second battle of Ypres, Belgium

(A great history of Flanders Field here)

UK soldiers remember the fallen

Troops on parade at Camp Bastion, Helmand

A Remembrance Sunday service has been held at Camp Bastion in the Afghan province of Helmand on the day another British soldier has been killed.


Later the Queen is to lead the Remembrance Sunday commemorations at the Cenotaph in London's Whitehall.

Representatives from the Commonwealth will join Prime Minister Gordon Brown, military leaders and religious heads for a service and military march-past.

The latest soldier to die was killed in a blast in Helmand, the MoD said.

He was the 94th British fatality in Afghanistan this year.

A two-minute silence will be held at 1100 GMT across the country to remember the UK's war dead.

A 105mm Light Gun of from 1 Royal Horse Artillery signals the 2 minute silence at Camp Bastion

Earlier 2,000 British servicemen and women gathered on a dusty, windblown patch of open ground at the camp in Afghanistan to join in prayer, lay wreaths and remember fellow soldiers killed serving their country.

One padre spoke of the dangers of glamorising war and another urged leaders of nations to shape a better world through "wisdom, humility and a common love for peace"....
(Read more on the Helmand Blog here)

"They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them." -