Fifty years have passed, and outward scars are gone,
but fellowship is abiding, and memories linger on.

Blots upon the landscape, have all but been erased,
but the mind recalls the turmoil, the tasks to be appraised.

Places that are hallowed now, silent dignified,
and a multitude of stones mark, old comrades here abide.

Victims of the conflict, our brethren in the strife,
robbed of youthfulness, they paid, for freedom with their life.

War breeds trust in fellow men, warriors with a cause,
discipline and loyalty, are with you without pause.

Allies multi-national, came from far and wide,
cross oceans, seas and continents, to muster side by side.

Forget not too the brave folk, of this precious land,
the young, the old, gave all they knew, the enemy to withstand.

Theirs was not a choice to make, occupied for four long years,
we could not quantify their pain, their hopes, their fears.

Now they laud and praise us, welcome us this day,
thanks us for their freedom, the right to work or play.

Their children care for monuments, and graves with flowers tend,
they keep alive the memories, of our absent friends.

Our freedom too was on the line, our future under threat,
no other choice that we could make, no other course to set.

What matters in the end is that, the fight was not in vain,
we must dispense with fears of war, the traumas and the pain.

Let us pray that nations can, in harmony persist,
and toil ‘gainst hate and avarice, and in peace co-exist.

And those that fell can rest in peace, hostilities condemn,
old comrades all, with you today, we will remember them.

Dedicated to the brave residents of Nijmegen, 1994, and donated to the children of Nijmegen, past, present and future, by the Veterans 1994.

Dennis G. Sear, Ex 30 Corps.

The poem which was presented to the Mayor of Nijmegen

Afke and Marin and the poem

It was, it is, september (pdf)