Identified by DNA, soldier laid to rest 94 years after death

[cory777]

Source: IANS

LONDON - A soldier who was killed in the First World War and placed in an unmarked grave has now been given a proper burial after his remains were identified with the help of DNA.

Private Harry Dibben was shot in the chest while attacking a German trench at the battle of Fromelles in 1916.

The Germans sent his identity tags to London, but the soldier’s body wasn’t recovered, Daily Express reported Thursday.

There was only an inscription of his death on the grave of his parents in his village of Buckland Newton, Dorset.

Read more: http://breakingnews.gaeatimes.com/2010/04/22/identified-by-dna-soldier-laid-to-rest-94-years-after-death-22682/

[proteus_lives]

1. It's never too late to show respect to the fallen.

[Historic NY]

2. ..your no longer a stranger without even a name.....

Well, how do you do, Private William McBride,
Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside?
And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916,
Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

chorus
Did they Beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fir o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you always 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

The sun's shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

And I can't help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

[provis99]

4. I've also liked two other anti WWI songs

"And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" by Eric Bogle, and "1916" by Motorhead. Both as sad and cynical as Green Fields of France. The lyrics in "1916" are particularly poignant.

[Libertas1776]

3. May be 94 years late,

but Pvt. Dibben has not been forgotten. Rest in peace now.