Just been watching the World at War episode dealing with the Russians and hearing Laurence Olivier recite this poem made me mist up a bit:

Wait For Me

Wait for me, and I’ll return
Only wait very hard
Wait when you are filled with sorrow
Wait in the sweltering heat
Wait when the others have stopped waiting,
Forgetting their yesterdays.
Wait even when from afar no letters come to you
Wait even when others are tired of waiting…
And when friends sit around the fire,
Drinking to my memory,
Wait, and do not hurry to drink to my memory too.
Wait. For I’ll return, defying every death.
And let those who do not wait say that I was lucky.
They will never understand that in the midst of death,
You with you waiting saved me.
Only you and I know how I survived.
It’s because you waited, as no one else did.

- Konstantin Simonov

Cheers and well-wishes to our soldiers, active-duty and vets…