M.B. HENRY 
The “Let Me Tell You How I Died” series is back! Continuing this week with Part II, which has seven segments about World War I. Segment two of Part II covers the horrors of charging out of the trenches against well-fortified positions, machine guns, and barbed wire. It was a tragic scenario that played out countless times across the Ypres Salient, and I saw the results with my own eyes – the thousands of white grave stones all across Belgium.
LET ME TELL YOU HOW I DIED
PART II – SEGMENT 2
Over the Top!
Over the top and give ‘em hell!
That’s the command we know so well
The watch hands tick, it’s almost time
The shells start flying and churn up the grime
It was May 5, 1864.
Spring had arrived in the state of Virginia, but so had the Union army. It wasn’t the first time, either. In fact, they had marched through Virginia for quite some time. Month after month, battle after battle, year after year. Since 1861, the boys in blue had slugged it out, and lost, against the formidable General Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. These fights carried a heavy price tag. Thousands of lives had been lost. Countless more were wounded from physical scars, or the painful emotional blows from the losses of fathers, sons, husbands, and brothers. That said nothing of the many civilians caught in the crossfire whose lives were lost and houses burned. There weren’t many tables across the country that didn’t have the tragic vacant chair.
If any of you were following me around Halloween, you learned that I have a bit of a sweet tooth. It’s really hard for me to refuse candy, especially when it comes to Candy Corn (if you weren’t following me then, click here and read all about it).
Well, I decided to make a two-parter out of that post, because it’s not just Candy Corn that I love. It’s holiday candies in general. Something about seeing it packed on the store shelves makes me giddy. Maybe it’s all those fun shapes and pretty colors. Because I have somewhat of a short attention span at the supermarket. Who doesn’t, right?
Easter seems to be an exceptionally festive time at the grocery store. After a hard winter (and I think we all had one this year), all those pastel pink, yellow, and green wrappers are a sight for sore eyes. So are all the chocolate bunnies, rainbow jelly beans, and brightly-speckled Robin’s Eggs.
You know what isn’t a sight for sore eyes, though? Peeps. Those mangy Marshmallow creatures that swallow up every candy aisle at Easter. Even through my deep love of all things holiday, Peeps have managed a place on my hate list.
The first time I saw “the Sound of Music,” I was in love. Not just with that happy-go-lucky story (quite a boast for a movie with Nazis), but also with Salzburg. The mountains that drew Maria to their wild peaks also had a powerful hold on me. So much so that the opening sequence, where they just sweep over Austria’s beauty, was my favorite part.
Although, to be honest, I didn’t believe it really looked like that. I’ve been around film and its “movie magic” for too long. The mountains couldn’t possibly be that green. The waters wouldn’t be that clear. In this day and age, no village is that picturesque. I was a cold, hard skeptic. So, I made myself a promise. Someday, I would go and see it with my own eyes – no “fixing it in post,” and no movie magic. Read More
Last year, I tapped into my long-dormant poetry well, and I posted a series of seven poems about World War II. They were all from the vantage points of the many people, from many places, killed during the conflict. This year, the “Let Me Tell You How I Died” series is back with seven segments from World War I. It was a conflict so encompassing in its devastation that it came to be known as “the Great War.” Before it was through, it had laid waste to most of Europe as well as an entire generation of fighting soldiers. Here for you is the first segment of Part II of this poem epic. I hope you enjoy it, as well as the following six that will be posted over the next few months. Read More
It was June 7, 1917, a little after three in the morning. Over a small swath of Belgium known as Messines Ridge, the first rays of dawn glittered on the horizon. Mud-splattered German soldiers slumbered in their trenches, while their British counterparts huddled across the way. A few flares fizzled over the soggy fields that were riddled with shell holes and puddles. Sporadic artillery guns woke up and belched the first cannons of “morning hate.” It looked like this day would be just like any other…
…Until the clock struck 3:10am exactly. Then, the Battle of Messines Ridge opened with a bang. A really, really big bang. A bang that took almost two years to put into place, that involved nineteen separate mines, thousands of personnel, and about 990,000 pounds of explosives. A bang that killed 10,000 unsuspecting German soldiers in one fell swoop, injured countless others, caused eternal hearing problems, and left a permanent scar in the plains of Belgium that is still visible today.
It was a hot day in the isolated countryside of Belgium. So hot…. The horizon was vast and unbroken. On either side of the car, there were just open farm lands, and tidy hay blocks that were stacked in pyramids or speckled in uniform over the fields. Tall, green grass rippled in the wind. The sky topped it all with its fantastic sapphire dome.
While my husband drove, I fiddled with the GPS. It babbled some robotic nonsense back at me. It couldn’t help me. It didn’t really know what I wanted.
Read More
Once upon a time there was a young girl who was obsessed with Ancient Egypt. She read any book she could get her hands on. She dressed as an Egyptian Queen for Halloween. She was mesmerized by hieroglyphics and even learned how to write her name in them. She was absorbed by the lives of pharaohs and especially their mummy tombs that were filled with treasures. She especially marveled at pictures of the many treasures of King Tut. While flipping through these photos, she dreamed of seeing them with her own eyes someday.
Twenty years later (or so…), this young girl was a fully-grown woman with a deep passion for history. Egypt wasn’t as big of an obsession anymore, but the enchantment of this ancient culture never left her. And, she has now seen with her own eyes some of the magnificent treasures from those books. She didn’t have to go far either, thanks to the King Tut exhibit at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. The exhibit was there for a few months in 2018, and let me tell you, it didn’t disappoint. There were three or four rooms packed with treasures that were found in the boy-king’s tomb. Although these items were thousands of years old, they looked brand new. The gold still sparkled on the many statues and figurines. Scarabs had paints of red and deep blue that looked like they were just applied yesterday. There were golden chests, hand-carved chairs, and stunning pieces of jewelry. Seeing it all with my own eyes was way more powerful than I ever dreamed it would be. And as it turns out, it was a part of something way bigger as well. In reading those books as a little girl, and in seeing that exhibit as an adult, I was actually part of saving an almost-forgotten pharaoh’s life. Because in Ancient Egyptian culture, there is an awful lot to something as simple as saying a name.
Hello everyone! As promised, here is the final segment of Part I of my Poem epic – the conclusion to the WWII part of the series (which is brought to you with some mild confusion on the new block editor … so apologies if it doesn’t look the same!) I hope you have enjoyed this first part! Next year, the epic will return with Part II which covers the First World War. I will look forward to seeing you then.
I won’t lie to you guys. I’m one of those people that goes a little crazy on Christmas. The pumpkins from Halloween are barely soft before the Christmas decorations go up. The stair railing gets wrapped in holly garland, lights adorn our kitchen window, and unwitting cats are dressed in various Christmas outfits. There is lots of fun in preparing for the holidays, but it’s the Christmas Tree that holds an extra-special place in my heart.
There’s just something comforting about sitting in the glow of a Christmas Tree. My favorite is picking out ornaments to decorate it with. I love it when stores cram their shelves with colorful balls, fun shapes, and sparkling decorations. We already have plenty in our own ornament stash (because I have little control at Christmas), but we add to it every year in one of our own traditions. Each Christmas, my husband and I get each other an ornament that marks something special about that year. In addition to that, I splurge on at least one new box of regular ornaments. Last year, it was Shiny Brites (click here to read all about it). This year took me in a slightly different direction.
