Tag Archives: Ypres
Some Things Never End
As conflict in Ukraine brought on by the illegal Russian invasion shows no sign of ending, I’ve been thinking of the aftermath of the war when it finally does end. Maybe it is the date – August 6, the anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. When the guns stop firing […]
The Costs of War
Time to take a look back with a post from this date in 2015. I figure you either haven’t read it becasue you weren’t a subscriber back then, or have forgotten it. When we toured the First World War battlefields in the Ypres area of Belgium last summer, the enormity of the human toll was […]
New Things
Let’s call this Flashback Friday, with this post from eight years ago today. For me travel is about discovery: New places, new things, new people. Vacation is about rest and relaxation. Five countries in four weeks in July 2014 was definitely travel. In Ypres, as I have mentioned, admission to the In Flanders Fields Museum […]
Trench Warfare
Welcome to re-run time. Some of my favorite posts, mostly older and travel related, while I myself am on the road. When I was a pre-teen I was for a while very interested in war stories. Which would explain why in both 2009 and 2014 I visited the Ypres area in Belgium. This post is […]
Time To Remember
I was planning on continuing my commentary on the US election today, then I looked at the calendar. It is almost November 11, Remembrance Day. We who have never experienced war can only dimly understand the sacrifices previous generations paid for our freedom. Today though, and for the next couple of days, some older posts […]
That Unending War
I am reading a book about the First World War that brought some memories of a trip to Belgium in 2014 and this post from September of that year. A century later, it haunts them still. The last Canadian veteran of the First World War died in 2010, and I would imagine that is pretty […]
The Building Project
This blog was essentially born as I wrestled with some thoughts during a European vacation in the summer of 2014. This post, from October of that year, shows some of those thoughts, and was the seventh most viewed of 2019. At the end of the First World War, Winston Churchill suggested that the town of […]
Tonight At Menin Gate
It is Flashback Friday, with a post from five years ago. Today seemed like a good time to provide a reminder of the Great War. Tonight at 8, for the 29,758th time (31,583rd time in 2019), the Last Post, the traditional salute to fallen warriors, will be played at the Menin gate in Ypres. It’s […]
Playing The Last Post
With the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War coming up this Sunday, I thought I would revisit some older posts related to that conflict. This one was published on November 10, 2014. It has been four years – tonight is actually the 31,220th time the ceremony has taken place. Tonight […]
Passchendaele at 100 – III
When I opened up my newspaper Tuesday morning, the first thing that I saw was coverage of Prince William’s trip to Belgium to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele. I’d been concentrating on other things in my life and had forgotten that date was fast approaching. Canadians fought at Passchendaele, and while […]
random thoughts from lorne 
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