I shall not fail that rendezvous

Lately, I seem to have a little more free time to myself. I suppose that can be attributed to having turned my law review paper in, and a legal writing deadline looming several weeks on the horizon (rather than right in my face).

Whatever it is, I have had time to brush up on the Battle of the Somme, the subject of my 2004 history honors thesis. I bought a visual history book / DVD on the Somme, and leafing through it reminds me of what it was like to write papers as a history student, rather than a burgeoning lawyer-to-be.

And coincidentally, World War One has been in the news lately; it seems the U.S.'s last surviving doughboy, Frank Buckles, has recently been honored for his service to his country.

Thinking of that era of my life, when I was writing one of my favorite papers of all time, makes me smile. I had piles of dusty history books in my too-small bedroom, and I was elbow-deep into a subject that I not only found interesting, but vitally important to memorialize. Plus, I was a strange bird back then:


At any rate, my recent revisits into the land of trench warfare have led me to a decision - I'd like to go back to France in 2016 for the 100-year anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, and attend the memorial ceremonies there on July 1. (July 1 was the opening day of the Somme battle, and some of the bloodiest, saddest few hours of British military history.)

I especially want to see the monument at Thiepval and the cemetery at Serre Road. I think it would be a fitting thing for me to do; out of all the European war cemeteries I visited, I never did get to the Somme.

So here's to you, Frank Buckles. If only the rest of you could have made it to the ripe old age of 107.

I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope or battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ‘twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear….
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

“Rendezvous” by Alan Seeger, American Harvard graduate and Somme soldier