There’s a 100-year-old newspaper on the wall outside my office at the Delta Democrat-Times. It’s lead headline is probably the greatest foreshadowing headline ever written in the history of newspapers.
On Nov. 11, 1918, the lead headline reads simply, “World War Won.”
In print, it is what is supposed to be, a headline describing the end of a world war.
Now, say it out loud and the context changes. “World War One.”
The end of the first world war was assuredly the beginning of the second world war as much as Hitler’s invasion of Poland was.
Memorial Day is often confused with Veteran’s Day, but this holiday is specifically designed to remember the men and women who have lost their lives in service to the United States of America.
The impetus for the holiday started in the 1860s, during the Civil War, where women in Virginia and Mississippi placed flowers on the graves of soldiers. There are some differences of opinion on where the actual practice started, but suffice it to say, ladies in the South starting laying flowers on graves during the Civil War. The practice was picked up in the North and on May 5, 1868, U.S. General John A. Logan proclaimed a Memorial Day to remember fallen soldiers. The practice has continued in May since then.
Now the holiday is known as the official start to summer and probably the weekend with the best war movie lineup of the year. Flags are still placed on graves and, I’d like to think, most folks take the time to remember the fallen.
If war movies are on your agenda for the weekend, I’d make one sure recommendation: They Shall Not Grow Old.
The movie is as much a special effects exercise as a true documentary, but it brings to life a time period most of us have only seen in jerky, silent, black-and-white news reels.
Peter Jackson, the director of the Hobbit movies, restored 100 hours of newsreel footage from the Imperial War Museum and used some of it to create the documentary.
In his movie, Jackson corrected the often-jerky framerate produced by the hand-cranked cameras and colorized the film.
But, the most impressive part of the documentary is the addition of sound to the silent newsreels of those days.
Jackson used Foley artists and voice acting to bring the films to life. You can actually hear a man speak from 1917 and see his lips move on the screen.
Tanks crash through hedgerows and bombs burst in the distance all while the recorded voices of 120 veterans of World War I tell their story.
It’s stories like these we should take the time to remember this weekend.
Take the time to enjoy the world and the place we live in because of these rough men who stood ready in the night to protect our way of life against those who would seek to end it.
While many of us have family members who served in the military, not so many of us are able to find a member of their family who died during service.
I’ve traced our family service records from my brother Lt. Adam Alverson, U.S. Navy, back to Elijah Alverson who served in the war of 1812 and is buried in the Harkey’s Chapel Cemetery in St. Clair County, Alabama. Another John Alverson served in the War of Independence. They all made it through their service and so this day isn’t for them.
It’s for those men and women who died while serving and as the Lawrence Binyon poem, “For The Fallen,” says, “They shall not grow old.”
A stanza of the poem follows. It is often read at Remembrance Day in England as part of the Ode of Remembrance.
They shall grow not 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.
Angel Alert goes out to all the angels from all the wars who ever fell. Happy birthday to my good friend, Tom Sharman.
Jon Alverson is proud to be publisher and editor of the Delta Democrat-Times. Write to him at jalverson@ddtonline.com or call him at 335-1155.
