VLADIMIR

The news out of America is grim.
Today, we receive news that there has been a shooting at the university where Nephew Vladimir has just started his Junior year.  Vladimir was never in danger, but it underlines how widespread this trend is: any mother's son can fall in the slaughter.

What is it all about?

We originally bought the house in France because we were pretty sure that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were likely to continue for a long time. We worried that Vladimir might someday have to go to war as a draftee. We were right about the 100 Years War - there is no sign of it ever ending. But Vladimir and others of his generation escaped the conscript's fate and could grow up in peace. Now, it looks like the wars are coming to those kids anyway, right on the college campuses where they should be feeling safest.

Playlist:

Green Fields of France
Eric Bogle


My Youngest Son Came Home Today
Mary Black


MY YOUNGEST SON CAME HOME TODAY
©Eric Bogle

My youngest son came home today
His friends marched with him all the way
The pipes and drum beat out the time
While in his box of polished pine
Like dead meat on a butcher's tray
My youngest son came home today

My youngest son was a fine young man
With a wife, a daughter and two sons
A man he would have lived and died
Till by a bullet sanctified
Now he's a saint or so they say
They brought their young saint home today

Above the narrow Belfast streets
An Irish sky looks down and weeps
At children's blood in gutters spilled
In dreams of freedom unfulfilled
As part of freedom's price to pay
My youngest son came home today

My youngest son came home today
His friends marched with him all the way
The pipe and drum beat out the time
While in his box of polished pine
Like dead meat on a butcher's tray
My youngest son came home today
And this time he's home to stay