If you are wondering why:

Military & historically focused memorials from Canada, USA & around the world. 99.9 percent of these military memorials were abandoned to the 3,000,000+ Find-a-Grave holding bin so I decided to look for them and take them on. Many of these soldiers had their lives significantly abbreviated in body, mind, and soul so I made a point of printing their rank and the unit they were with, in full, in the biographies I created - which are few. The youngest soldier, in the memorials I manage, was a Royal Marine Light Infantry, Bugler, lost at sea, age 15 - his body was never recovered. The youngest in my virtual cemeteries was killed in action on Iwo Jima at age 14; Another at age 16 was fatally wounded at the Battle of Jutland - he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for the actions he took at the end of his life. Many in my virtual cemeteries gave their lives for causes or for reasons that have withered in value over time and may seem politically incorrect to some, many, or all in this day and age. General William Tecumseh Sherman described the endeavour succinctly. "War is Hell!." ------ Yrs. truly, Billy Budd.

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A touching letter:

The following is from the book "Attlebridge Arsenal, The Men and Aircraft of the 466th Bomb Group" by Earl Wassom and Chris Brassfield.

"Sir, Madame,

I have not the pleasure of being known by you. Allow me then to introduce myself: John Bourdouche, farmer. Queue-du-Bois (Liege, Belgium). It was in my home that your son Robert took refuge on the 19th of June after a forced landing in Holland. It was in my home that he lived, hidden, but surrounded by attentions and affections that every good Belgian owes the citizens of free America.

It was in my home that he spent his days talking to me about you, telling me of his great joy when finally he would be able to see you again. It was at my home, alas, that he died, the 7th of September, without suffering, struck by a stray German bullet (that was certainly not meant for him) a few hours before the arrival of the American Army.

I closed his eyes. My wife and I wept for him very much. Wasn't he a little bit of our family? Hundreds of persons accompanied him to the cemetery in our village. The coffin was completely covered by a heap of flowers, a tribute of admiration and gratitude to Lt. Garrett who symbolized the valiant American Army, which twice, in less than thirty years, has crossed the ocean to deliver us from the German yoke. May my letter somewhat lessen your grief, which I know is deep.

Please accept, Sir, Madam, the expression of my deep sympathy, of my admiration and my eternal gratitude."

John Bourdouche, Belgian farmer and member of the resistance.

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Before he died Lieutenant Kennedy scrawled a letter on the back of a photograph as he lay dying in a Japanese prison camp. He handed the photograph to a fellow POW who delivered it after the war ended:

"Momie and Dad: It is pretty hard to check out this way without a fighting chance. But we can't live forever. I'm not afraid to die, I just hate the thought of not seeing you again. Buy Turkey Ranch with my money and just think of me often while you're there. Make liberal donations to both sisters. See that Barry has a car his first year. I guess you can tell Patty that fate just didn't want us to be together. Hold a nice service for me … and put a headstone in my cemetery. Take care of my nieces and nephews don't let them ever want anything as I want even warmth or water now.

Loving & Waiting for you in the world beyond.

Your son, Lt. Tommie Kennedy"

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Who is Billy Budd you may ask?

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"I'm nobody! who are you?

Are you - nobody - too?

Then there's a pair of us!

Don't tell! they'd advertise - you know

How dreary - to be - Somebody!

How public - like a Frog -

To tell one's name - the livelong June -

To an admiring Bog!"

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Emily Dickinson.

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"I am not, sir, a bad person, though in all truth I am not lacking in reasons for being one. We are all born naked, and yet, as we begin to grow up, it pleases destiny to vary us as if we were made of wax. Then, we are all sent down various paths to the same end: Death. Some men are ordered down a path lined with flowers, others are asked advance along a road sown with thistles and prickly pears. The first gaze about serenely and in the aroma of their joyfulness they smile the smile of the innocent, while the latter writhe under the violent sun of the plain and knit their brows like varmints at bay. There is a world of difference between adorning one's flesh with rouge and eau-de-colgne and doing it with tattoos that later will never wear off."

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La Familia De Pasquale Duarte - Escrito por Camilo José Cela.

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Photos & Biographical Information:

Thank you very much to all who have uploaded photographs and missing information to memorials on this site and to those who took the time, went looking for grave markers, and sadly found none. Thanks again to all of you. Thank you too if you have transferred a memorial outside of the guidelines notwithstanding the fact that I am related to no one including all those listed above under my name - Sincerely, Billy Budd. ****************************************************************************************************

"We did not flinch but gave our lives to save Greece when her fate hung on a razor's edge." From the Cenotaph at the Isthmos

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"Go tell the Spartans that we died in accordance with their laws." Simonides of Ceos (c. 556 BC – 469 BC.) writing about 300 Spartans who, to the last man, gave their lives at Thermopylae's Fire Gates.

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"In obedience to the laws of my country I fill a soldiers grave." Private James Alson Holmes (1840-1864) age 24.

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Speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln November 19, 1863 at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

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An Irish Airman Forsees His Death by William Butler Yeats

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate,

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death

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Requiem For The Croppies – by Seamus Heaney

The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley...

No kitchens on the run, no striking camp...

We moved quick and sudden in our own country.

The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp.

A people hardly marching... on the hike...

We found new tactics happening each day:

We'd cut through reins and rider with the pike

And stampede cattle into infantry,

Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown.

Until... on Vinegar Hill... the final conclave.

Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.

The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.

They buried us without shroud or coffin

And in August... the barley grew up out of our grave.

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Dulce et Decorum Est - by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

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The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner - by Randall Jarrell

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,

And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.

Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,

I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.

When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

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Success is Counted Sweetest - by Emily Dickinson

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne'er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host

Who took the Flag today

Can tell the definition

So clear of victory

As he defeated – dying –

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph

Burst agonized and clear!

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The Man He Killed - Thomas Hardy

"Had he and I but met

By some old ancient inn,

We should have sat us down to wet

Right many a nipperkin!

"But ranged as infantry,

And staring face to face,

I shot at him as he at me,

And killed him in his place.

"I shot him dead because —

Because he was my foe,

Just so: my foe of course he was;

That's clear enough; although

"He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,

Off-hand like — just as I —

Was out of work — had sold his traps —

No other reason why.

"Yes; quaint and curious war is!

You shoot a fellow down

You'd treat if met where any bar is,

Or help to half-a-crown."

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"War settles nothing." Dwight D. Eisenhower

A 5-star General in the US Army who was Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe and the 34th President of the United States. His presidential farewell address included the following words and I quote: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

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"I don't know what they'll do to the enemy; but, by God, they frighten me."

Field Marshall Arthur Wellesley 1st Duke of Wellington. (Referring to the men in his Army.)

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BLOODIEST BATTLE OF THE 21st CENTURY:

Battle of Avdiivka (2023–2024)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Avdiivka_(2023%E2%80%932024)

Also: A PBS Frontline (full documentary): 2000 Meters to Andriivka ****************************************************************************************************

Ugetsu (Japanese-1953) Tale of family, love, & ambition set against the backdrop of the Sixteenth Century Japanese Civil Wars. (Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi.)

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The Burmese Harp (Japanese-1956.) Directed by Kon Ichikawa.