Memorial Texts

[+Skytracker]

I was recently reading through some local logs and was reminded of the text on the plaque at the Ataturk Memorial, which was quoted in the log.

 

It really got me thinking and I thought that I'd like to share it. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was the founder of modern Turkey and the associations between New Zealand, Australia and Turkey go back to the Galipoli campaign of WW1, when thousands of ANZACs lost their lives.

 

This was Ataturk's message:

 

"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives.. you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours.. You the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are now living in our bosom and are in peace. Having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well"

 

I don't think I have ever come across a more moving text.

 

Does anyone else have others to share?

 

Thanks to Shine Kelly for reminding me of this.

 

Edited for stupid typo.

Edited December 13, 2007 by Skytracker

[+whistler & co.]

The first time I saw this, I was about 7 years old and had never really "known" any dead people. Reading this in a windy autumn graveyard was the first time I really and truly understood that we are ALL here for a brief time and is my earliest recollection of feeling death's cold fingers on the back of my neck with their promise of "not yet, but one day..."

 

Remember me as you pass by

As you are now, so once was I

As I am now, so you will be

Prepare for death and follow me

 

Simple, but thought-provoking for a little kid with a vivid imagination!

[+fairyhoney]

The first time I saw this, I was about 7 years old and had never really "known" any dead people. Reading this in a windy autumn graveyard was the first time I really and truly understood that we are ALL here for a brief time and is my earliest recollection of feeling death's cold fingers on the back of my neck with their promise of "not yet, but one day..."

 

Remember me as you pass by

As you are now, so once was I

As I am now, so you will be

Prepare for death and follow me

 

Simple, but thought-provoking for a little kid with a vivid imagination!

Thanks for sharing this. It is So true!

[+Nachtraaf]

Such texts are very personal, so for some it is a moving text, for others it is nothing more than a poem. But I gladly want to share the one I read on the funeral of my grandfather: (it is translated)

 

===

Where will you be?

 

In the secret of the stars

We look at it together

Or maybe in the song of the wind?

And if the spring is in that rare shade,

Tar and briefly flourishing as the cherry.

 

Where will you be

when we, silent of sorrow,

hear your footsteps again and

you close the door gently

and yet...we don't find you

 

Maybe you have something left,

Just a note in a drawer,

With a cautious note.

That you soon will be,

Surrounding on your way,

But inviolable from illness and pain.

 

We will, as before, keep calling your name.

Just a bit softer, although the silence was rarely so hard.

Things are quiet and yet your seat at the table was never so empty.

 

But give a sign, wink or lay a hand on my shoulder,

When you are walking together with me.

You can never leave us so far

that there is no glimpse of you would anymore

 

Because death is not the last.

The love is so much stronger.

===

 

So, hopefully someone likes it as much as it moves me. Each time I read this text, my grandfather is near me...

 

Regards,

Hans

 

Hopefully

[+Renegade Knight]

The first time I saw this, I was about 7 years old and had never really "known" any dead people. Reading this in a windy autumn graveyard was the first time I really and truly understood that we are ALL here for a brief time and is my earliest recollection of feeling death's cold fingers on the back of my neck with their promise of "not yet, but one day..."

 

Remember me as you pass by

As you are now, so once was I

As I am now, so you will be

Prepare for death and follow me

 

Simple, but thought-provoking for a little kid with a vivid imagination!

My wife saw one like that when she was a teen. It haunted her for a long time.

[Keystone]

Some fine words of wisdom have been posted!

 

Please be sure to post text from memorials that you've seen while geocaching. Otherwise, this thread would be better suited for the Off Topic forum. Thanks.

[+tabulator32]

Remember me as you pass by

As you are now, so once was I

As I am now, so you will be

Prepare for death and follow me

That is very thought provoking.

 

I might even use that in an upcoming cache, maybe next year at Halloween.

[+Skytracker]

Some fine words of wisdom have been posted!

 

Please be sure to post text from memorials that you've seen while geocaching. Otherwise, this thread would be better suited for the Off Topic forum. Thanks.

 

As OP I would appreciate it if Keystone's advice is heeded. I would prefer this thread to to remain where it is.

 

Sorry if I was unclear about my intentions.

 

Thanks

 

Skytracker

[Tahosa and Sons]

Yes I have seen a few on virtual caches that were a somber story that needed to be told. There is one on a waypoint for one of my caches but I don't have the phrases handy at this time. Maybe tomorrow I can swing by there and jot down what it has said.

[+mommio]

Here is a cache I recently did when I happened across the memorial: GC17W89 Florene Miller Watson Memorial

 

During World War II, a hand-picked group of young women pilots became pioneers, national heroes, role models.. called Women’s Air Force Service Pilots. These ladies flew their way into the annals of women’s history as the first women in U.S. history trained to fly American military aircraft.

 

Florene Watson was born on December 7, 1920 in San Angelo, Texas. She grew up in Big Lake, Texas, where her father, T.L. Miller owned a jewelry store. In 1937, Florene graduated from Reagan County High School. Her first flight at 8 years old was in Big Lake in a World War I barnstormer plane. By age 19 she had finished two years of college and had also obtained a pilot’s license. Mrs. Watson earned her flight and ground school instructors’ ratings and was teaching men to fly in the War Training Program in Odessa and Lubbock, Texas, when World War II began.

 

Florene Watson was one of the elite group of only 25 experienced women civilian pilots who met the military requirements in 1942 and volunteered to fly for the Ferrying Command. They were called the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS). Almost a year later in 1943, their name was changed to Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) to include women pilots as they graduated from their military training schools in 1943 and 1944. Some of the 1078 graduates flew for the Ferrying Command, but most were assigned varied flying duties in the Training Command. Thirty-eight WASPS lost their lives during their service to the war.

 

Mrs. Watson was the first commanding officer of the WAFS-WASP stationed at Love Field in Dallas, Texas. She flew all the basic Arny Air Corps trainers, fighters, and cargo planes, including twin and four-engine bombers, transporting them all over the United States for the Ferrying Command. In addition to her ferrying duties, Mrs. Watson tested radar equipment and served as a military airline pilot in 1944. Her favorite airplane was the North American Mustang p-51.

[+whistler & co.]

Here is one from our most recent cache hide in the Dunmore Cemetery (PA):

 

 

The cache is The Bivouac of the Dead (GC17FJN).

Edited December 14, 2007 by whistler & co.

[+briansnat]

The first time I saw this, I was about 7 years old and had never really "known" any dead people. Reading this in a windy autumn graveyard was the first time I really and truly understood that we are ALL here for a brief time and is my earliest recollection of feeling death's cold fingers on the back of my neck with their promise of "not yet, but one day..."

 

Remember me as you pass by

As you are now, so once was I

As I am now, so you will be

Prepare for death and follow me

 

Simple, but thought-provoking for a little kid with a vivid imagination!

 

To follow you I'll not consent, unless I know which way you went.

[+whistler & co.]

The first time I saw this, I was about 7 years old and had never really "known" any dead people. Reading this in a windy autumn graveyard was the first time I really and truly understood that we are ALL here for a brief time and is my earliest recollection of feeling death's cold fingers on the back of my neck with their promise of "not yet, but one day..."

 

Remember me as you pass by

As you are now, so once was I

As I am now, so you will be

Prepare for death and follow me

 

Simple, but thought-provoking for a little kid with a vivid imagination!

 

To follow you I'll not consent, unless I know which way you went.

 

I love it! That riposte would have made me feel a bit better as a kid!

[+briansnat]

One that I found particularly moving was at a cache in a small veterans cemetery. It said simply:

 

Floyd Morris

b. Sept 11, 1900

KIA Champagne, Juey

July 15, 1918

 

Of course I know that teens go off to war, but my step-daughter was just about to turn 17 and the idea of her and her friends being old enough to fight and maybe die in a far off land really hit home.

 

I though about Mr Morris, who probably enlisted right out of high school was fighting in France just months after his biggest worries were whether he was going to pass the math test and if the girl in the next row liked him.

 

It made me pause to think about the sacrifices that so many made throughout our history.

 

One of the reasons I'm all for caches in cemeteries.

Edited December 14, 2007 by briansnat