Quote Originally Posted by BigPoppy View Post
First let me say I hope everyone is all right after this night the storms are some of the worst I ever seen in winter. Now to my real post, I was coming home from dialysis, sitting at a red light and next to me a hearse big gray, stately looking vehicle. I know that it was not from our town so I slowed up a little and looked at the plates and the car was from Indiana. In the back there was a coffin with the American Flag draped over it and folded at the corners with the great detail that is befitting such an honor. Then I noticed that there was no one around no escort, no officer, no family. I have got to say it hit hard, here was a soldier going for the last convoy, I don't know if it was a soldier from the war on terror or an aged veteran. It just seemed so wrong that there was someones child, father. or mother and yet he traveled alone. As the hearse turned and went down another street, I thought about that old poem about fiddlers green. I can not remember the whole verse, but it mentions a place known as Fiddlers Green a watering hole of sorts where a soldier goes before he reaches heaven or hell it is a place to fill his canteen and talk to his fallen brother and sisters, and then make his trip the rest of the way. Then at the end of the poem it says that if you run out of water just come on back to fiddlers green, and rest a while longer. I do not know who or how old this person was but they had been a soldier and that is enough to make him an unforgotten friend.

Halfway down the trail to hell
In a shady meadow green,
Are the souls of all dead troopers camped
Near a good old-time canteen
And this eternal resting place
Is known as Fiddler’s Green.
Marching past, straight through to hell,
The infantry are seen,
Accompanied by the Engineers,
Artillery and Marine,
For none but the shades of Cavalrymen
Dismount at Fiddlers' Green.
Though some go curving down the trail
To seek a warmer scene,
No trooper ever gets to Hell
Ere he's emptied his canteen,
And so rides back to drink again
With friends at Fiddlers' Green.
And so when man and horse go down
Beneath a saber keen,
Or in a roaring charge or fierce melee
You stop a bullet clean,
And the hostiles come to get your scalp,
Just empty your canteen,
And put your pistol to your head
And go to Fiddlers' Green.