For Services Rendered.....THANK YOU

Nearly 70 years have passed and only after years of campaigning the 55,000 RAF Bombers who lost their lives in World War 11 have finally been recognized with a breathtaking memorial in Green Park, London. Andy and I listened to the touching ceremony on the radio and unveiling by the Queen last Thursday, June 28th.  It was impossible to hold back the tears as several veterans shared their accounts of their missions, crashes and losses and escapes. To think how willingly these brave men gave their lives to enable future generations to afford and enjoy life they would not see.

Air Chief Marshal Dalton said: "Many of those who gave us our freedom, and to whom this memorial is dedicated, cannot join us physically, but their spirit is certainly here. For their bravery and sacrifice which helped to give us our freedom, we will never forget them."

Doug Radcliffe, secretary of the Bomber Command Association, read an extract from the WWI poem "For the Fallen". The repetition of the final words, "We will remember them," by all gathered at the ceremony, was followed by a trumpeter playing the "Last Post" while veterans and current service personnel saluted.

Following the ceremony, an old Lancaster Bobmber flew over central London and dropped thousands of paper poppies in honour of the fallen. Andy and I are still stumbling across some of these poppies at Kenwood.

Andy and I paid personal homage to these heros earlier this week when we visited the memorial. We read a number of touching memorials and notes left with flowers. The faces etched in to the statues was heartbreaking as it captured their pain at seeing their friends did not make it home from a mission.

So many of us fail to recognize the sacrifices made until we are much older and more painfully aware of our own destiny.  THANK YOU BRAVE SOLDIERS FOR YOUR FEARLESS FIGHT AND BELIEF IN FREEDOM AND A FUTURE.