Imagine charging over open ground against an elevated position with a well armed adversary with lots of ammunition and MG's I guess each country has its sad memories from that god awful conflict, Frommelles, Somme, Vimy, Ypres x 3, Cambrai, Pozieres on and on it goes as did the losses.
When I stood on the Arizona memorial I was pretty much dumb struck it was quite an unsettling experience to stand and look down at her shattered hulk and then face that wall with oh so many names etched into it and the real irony of it there were allot of people from that country taking happy snaps I took a few just so I could remember them and thought how ludicrous the situation was at that point in time, it was not their generation but I found it weird.

When I went to the ACT as I have done a few times and walked along the bronze wall with all those diggers names I also remember pictures I have seen of the very dark wall dedicated to those in the USAicon that gave up their lives in that other place so far from home. Its pretty darn hard not to feel touched and quite emotional about what they had to endure.
I am just reading a book on Slaves to the War Lords about a soldier from Englandicon experiences on the Western front and have just finished where he was in the Somme episode and just how he describes that battlefield, being lost and often their view of the world was just a strip of sky above the trench. As for meals most ate their rations when they got them as their chances of returning to enjoy it later were marginal to say the least.

As long as there are the types like Gil and others I am sure that those that gave it all will for ever be a candle to us free folk no matter how dark the world gets.......................