"Wave On Wave" - Pat Green, 2003

John and I watched the Remembrance Sunday service of remembrance on TV this morning...broadcast from the Cenotaph in London. It's an beautiful service, in tribute to soldiers and others who have served the United Kingdom from countries within the UK and also from other countries in the Commonwealth.

There were two interesting features in this year's ceremony. One was that representatives of the US Marines marched in the remembrance parade for the first time. And the other is the topic of this entry.

The brainchild of a British artist, a message was sent along the Thames River by 20 war veterans. Did they use mobile phones? No. It was a silent message sent by semaphore flags, from the Royal Observatory at Greenwich to Whitehall, in London. The message read, "War turns us to stone. In remembrance we shine and rise to new days." It was transcribed onto a piece of paper and was then placed, on a wreath of poppies, at the Cenotaph. There's a good article about the semaphore message here.

To see a message sent silently by a group of veterans waving yellow & red flags, in this age of fancy electronic communications technology, was amazing. God bless them...and the artist who conceived this idea.

Janet