Hi Ben & Bob,
I hope that all is OK for you and all your
family.
Here many things move a lot !!!....
In Le Muy there is a new mayor.
Madame Liliane BOYER.
She really cares about keeping and
ameliorating great celebrations in Le MUY, with her new team, and she
has some good projects to perpetuate the memories of your action in South of
France.
I'm working with her staff to organise the
célébrations in August from the last 2 months.
This year the célébrations will be on 3 days
!!.. I join with this mail the scan of the ad.
A Dragoon March on 2 days from Le Muy to Le Muy
in the Drop Zones.
Re-enactment of an American Camp.
Spécial celebration at the American
Cimetery in Draguignan.
Big parade with Jeep, Dodge, GMC,
Harleys..... with more of one hundred men re-enactors in Parachutists.
I know that you had some pictures of the last
year.
Some veterans are already
booked.
Peter MATTHEWS; 2° Brigade GB and his
family.
Jo CICCHINELLI; 551st PIR.
Dick FIELD; 551 st PIR and his
Daughter.
Can you communicate this
information to all the members of 517th and families,and if you know if some of them, plan to came in South
France in August, thank you to tell me, so I can finalise correctly their
reception in France.
I'm in contact with the town of Draguignan
too, a good celebration will also be organised this year, but just the
16th August at 18h00 to 20h00.
For more informations don't hesitate to contact
me and I'll try to do the best.
Warmest regards.
Very friendly
Eric RENOUX
Robert Kennedy
Ben
I have not heard from Tom Mcavoy since
June. Wondering if maybe you knew anything about him. I know he usually writes
to you often. Did he change his e-mail? Thanks for any info you might have.
Robert Kennedy, CoF,517th.
Luckey Heirs
NO
REFUGE COULD SAVE:
BY DR. ISAAC ASIMOV
I was once asked to speak at a luncheon. Taking
my life in my hands, I announced I was going to sing our national anthem --
all four stanzas. This was greeted with loud groans. One man closed the door
to the kitchen , where the noise of dishes and cutlery was loud and
distracting. "Thanks, Herb," I said.
"That's all right," he said. "It was at the
request of the kitchen staff"
I explained the background of the anthem and
then sang all four stanzas. Let me tell you, those people had never heard it
before -- or had never really listened. I got a standing ovation. But it
was not me; it was the anthem.
More recently, while conducting a seminar, I
told my students the story of the anthem and sang all four stanzas.
Again there was a wild ovation and prolonged applause. And again, it was
the anthem and not me.
So now let me tell you how it came to be
written.
In
1812, the United States went to war with Great Britain, primarily over
freedom of the seas. We were in the right. For two years, we held
off the British, even though we were still a rather weak
country.
Great Britain was in a life and death
struggle with Napoleon. In fact, just as the United States declared war,
Napoleon marched off to invade Russia. If he won, as everyone expected, he would
control Europe, and Great Britain would be isolated. It was no time for
her to be involved in an American war.
At first, our
seamen proved better than the British. After we won a battle on Lake Erie
in 1813, the American commander, Oliver Hazard Perry, sent the message, "We have
met the enemy and they are ours." However, the weight of the British navy
beat down our ships eventually. New England , hard-hit by a tightening
blockade, threatened secession.
Meanwhile,
Napoleon was beaten in Russia and in 1814 was forced to abdicate. Great
Britain now turned its attention to the United States, launching a three-pronged
attack.
The northern prong was to come
down Lake Champlain toward New York and seize parts of New England.
The
southern prong was to go up the Mississippi , take New Orleans and paralyze
the west.
The central prong was to head for the mid-Atlantic states and then
attack Baltimore , the greatest port south of New York. If Baltimore was
taken, the nation, which still hugged the Atlantic coast, could be split in
two. The fate of the United States, then, rested to a large extent on the
success or failure of the central prong.
The British reached the American
coast, and on August 24, 1814, took Washington , D.C. Then they moved
up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore. On September 12, they arrived and
found 1,000 men in Fort McHenry, whose guns controlled the harbor. If the
British wished to take Baltimore, they would have to take the fort.
On one of the British ships was an aged physician, William Beanes, who
had been arrested in Maryland and brought along as a prisoner. Francis Scott
Key, a lawyer and friend of the physician, had come to the ship to negotiate
his release.
The British captain was willing, but
the two Americans would have to wait. It was now the night of September 13, and
the bombardment of Fort McHenry was about to start.
As twilight deepened, Key and Beanes saw the American flag flying over
Fort McHenry. Through the night, they heard bombs bursting and saw the red glare
of rockets. They knew the fort was resisting and the American flag was still
flying. But toward morning the bombardment ceased, and a dread silence
fell. Either Fort McHenry had surrendered and
the British flag flew above it, or the bombardment had failed and the American
flag still flew.
As dawn began to
brighten the eastern sky, Key and Beanes stared out at the fort, trying to see
which flag flew over it. He and the physician must have asked each other over
and over, "Can you see the flag?"
After it was all finished, Key wrote a four stanza poem
telling the events of the night. Called "The Defense of Fort McHenry ," it was
published in newspapers and swept the nation. Someone
noted that the words fit an old English tune called,
"To
Anacreon in Heaven" -- a difficult melody with an uncomfortably large
vocal
range.
For obvious reasons, Key's work became known as "The Star
Spangled Banner", and in 1931 Congress declared it
the official anthem of the United States.
Now
that you know the story, here are the words. Presumably, the old doctor is
speaking. This is what he asks Key:
Oh! say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we
hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright
stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so
gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
Oh! say, does
that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home
of the brave?
("Ramparts," in case you don't know, are the
protective walls or other elevations that surround a fort.) The first stanza
asks a question. The second gives an answer:
On the shore, dimly seen thro' the mist of the deep
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that
which the breeze, o'er the towering steep.
As it fitfully blows, half
conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first
beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream
'Tis the
star-spangled banner. Oh! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the
home of the brave!
"The towering steep" is again, the ramparts. The bombardment has
failed, and the British can do nothing more but sail away, their mission a
failure.
In the third stanza I feel Key allows himself to gloat over the
American triumph. In the aftermath of the bombardment, Key probably was in no
mood to act otherwise?
During World War I when the British
were our staunchest allies, this third stanza was not sung. However, I
know it, so here it is:
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war
and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge
could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of
the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the
land of the free and the home of the brave.
(The fourth stanza, a pious hope for the future, should be sung more
slowly than the other three and with even deeper feeling):
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved
homes and the war's desolation,
Blest with victory and peace, may the Heaven
- rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto --"In
God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
I hope you will look at the national anthem with new
eyes. Listen to it, the next time you have a chance, with new ears.
Pay attention to the words.