– In early June, Headquarters Joint Force Command Brunssum’s Training & Exercise Division conducted its annual Staff Ride to the Ypres/Flanders region, where various battles between Germany and the Allies took place during the First World War.
The Division, whose staff comes from 15 different nations under the lead of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Training & Exercise, Brigadier General Raimundas Vaiksnoras, Lithuanian Army, also took part in the Last Post Ceremony in Ypres on Tuesday, 04 June. The Last Post Ceremony in Ypres is a daily tradition starting in 1928, where those killed during the First World War are commemorated.
The Last Post was a bugle call played in the British Army to mark the end of the day's work and the beginning of the night's rest. In the context of the Last Post ceremony, it represents the final farewell to the fallen at the end of their earthly labour and the beginning of their eternal rest.
Similarly, the Reveille was a bugle call played at the beginning of the day, to wake up the troops and call them to their duties. In the context of the Ceremony (and in the broader context of remembrance), the Reveille symbolises not only a return to daily routine at the end of the act of homage, but also the ultimate resurrection of the fallen on the Day of Judgement.
The Last Post Ceremony at Ypres was an opportunity for the JFC Brunssum delegation to honour and remember the victims of World War I and to promote NATO in the frame of the 75th anniversary of the Alliance.
During the ceremony, the Training & Exercise Division laid a wreath at the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing, which commemorates soldiers of the British Commonwealth who fell at Ypres during World War I before 16 August 1917 and who have no known graves.