Post you favorite Memorial Day tune

[afterburn 549]

Pick your tribute to the Vets

[id10t]

[afterburn 549]

Wow !

[wdfifteen]

Taps is a very haunting sound when played plainly and starkly. IMHO that is it greatest strength.

[afterburn 549]

[afterburn 549]

[id10t]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Taps is a very haunting sound when played plainly and starkly. IMHO that is it greatest strength.

Agree, but it needs an echoing player in the distance to really run the chills down my spine...

Finally found a good version with a echoing player...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38wx8C7VmB4

[dan88911]

Don't have a favor. However, Theme to the HBO films "The Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific" were quit moving to me.

[Hard-Deck]

Native American - Amazing Grace (in cherokee) - YouTube

[drcoastline]

It's not an American group and the song was probably not intended to have a military meaning but I like it coupled to the attached photos.

The Marmalade - Reflections of My Life - Vietnam Vets - YouTube

[gshase]

Reflections of My Life - Vietnam Vets .....Watched this last month possibly a dozen times and my wife just does not get it..USS Forrestall CV59 1976-1980

[Hugh R]

Not a war dead memorial, but I really like this one from a guy who eventually "Got it"

Gene Simmons of KISS: Don't click if you don't like that but you should. Gene Simmons Military Tribute - YouTube

[Racerbvd]

One of our Entertainers, a Former Marine, introduced me to this song, and since he served in that era (as I think Hugh & a few others here have) he put a bit of emotion every time he plays it that, I'm sure only you guys who were there in the 60s would understand. Thank You all who served & serve..

[Racerbvd]

With any luck, this will become a Classic, it is the new Theme Song for Wounded Warriors,
Available on i-Tunes.

http://itunes.apple.com/album/the-warrior/id527818278?i+527818289
Sorry for the crappy phone video.. But this was the 1st public Play of the song and I was too close to the speakers.



https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150976190442184&set=vb.171891078121&type=2&theater#

[sammyg2]

#1 has to be...... a medley:






My uncle gave me this album when I was about 7 when he came home from southeast asia (yeah, I'm that old).


Another of my favorites but it isn't directly a memorial theme:

[afterburn 549]

love Barry Sadler and the Gal with the Violin !

[Baz]

Twenty-four notes. It's a simple melody, 150 years old, that can express our gratitude when words fail. Taps honors the men and women who have laid down their lives and paid the ultimate sacrifice for the cause of freedom. Fair winds and following seas, shipmates.

[Racerbvd]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Taps is a very haunting sound when played plainly and starkly. IMHO that is it greatest strength.

The Greatest strength of Taps is when played to salute a fallen Hero..

[Baz]

Other countries have their days of remembrance - I salute their fallen on our day as well. God Bless you all.....

Alec Campbell,the last known survivor of the ANZAC forces at Gallipoli (and the last known survivor of Gallipoli) died on Thursday, May 16, 2002 at the age of 103.

Mr. Campbell enlisted at 16, and served at Gallipoli in 1915. He led Hobart's ANZAC Day parade three weeks prior to his death.

The Turkish suffered the biggest loss with approx 86,000 soldiers then The British and Irish approx 21,000, followed by the French approx 10,000, Australia approx 8,500 New Zealand 2,700 not forgetting the Indian, Ceylon, Gurkhas.




Lyrics:
When I was a young man I carried my pack
And I lived the free life of a rover
From the Murrays green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over
Then in nineteen fifteen my country said Son
It's time to stop rambling 'cause there's work to be done
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we sailed away from the quay
And amidst all the tears and the shouts and the cheers
We sailed off to Gallipoli

How well I remember that terrible day
How the blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter
Johnny Turk he was ready, he primed himself well
He chased us with bullets, he rained us with shells
And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell
Nearly blew us right back to Australia
But the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we stopped to bury our slain
We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then we started all over again

Now those that were left, well we tried to survive
In a mad world of blood, death and fire
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
But around me the corpses piled higher
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over tit
And when I woke up in my hospital bed
And saw what it had done, I wished I was dead
Never knew there were worse things than dying
For no more I'll go waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs two legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me

So they collected the cripples, the wounded, the maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia
The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla
And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where my legs used to be
And thank Christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
Then turned all their faces away

And now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
And I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reliving old dreams of past glory
And the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and sore
The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask, "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question
And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men answer to the call
But year after year their numbers get fewer
Some day no one will march there at all

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me
And their ghosts may be heard as you pass the Billabong
Who'll come-a-waltzing Matilda with me?
============

Notes from the video:
WALTZING MY MATILDA:: This song has been claimed by some to be a Vietnam-era anti war song written by a Scottish-Australian singer songwriter named Eric Bogle. He wrote it in 1971. It has been claimed by some that Erick Bogle used the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 as a metaphor for the Vietnam war. However others claim, and rightly so that it is a song to honor the many Australians who died in the war. One commenter from Australia made the following comment: "Australia was not involved at all in the landings at Suvla Bay. Bogle stated he used that because it was more well known than ANZAC Cove, and that it was better for rhyming. The landings at Suvla Bay were performed by the British and were unopposed. Second uve said 55,000 Aussies died at Gallipoli. Around 55,000 Aussies died all together in ww1, 8,000 died at Gallipoli". To make this video I started with WW I and WW II and passed through Korea and Vietnam and on to the entrance into Iraq. You'll keep hearing the re-occuring lyrics "THERE'LL BE NO MORE WALTZING MATILDA FOR ME". WALTZING here means walking, dancing, traveling, doing things together with your mate so there is a lot of double meaning here. The soldier lost his legs and many people have lost their loved ones and their mates to sickness, or to passing on. In either case for the person who lost limbs or a loved one there'll be no more waltzing for that person for a while. So as you go through the video keep in mine the Australian word Waltzing. Matilda means the duffle bag or a wife or girl friend. The title of the song is THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA sung by Priscilla Herdman. My Judy is in the Vietnam section with her MASH 4077 tee shirt on. She is also layered in the first photo with the soldiers raising the flag at Iwo Jima.

[drcoastline]

Since others have posted more than one. Heres a few more.

He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother - The Hollies - YouTube.

Johnny Cash - I Won't Back Down (US Army Tribute). - YouTube