Members of the UAE Armed Forces participate in a Commemoration Day ceremony at Wahat Al Karama on Saturday. WAM

ON MARTYRS’ DAY

There was a deep sense of unadmitted anxiety at the root of all thoughts, but there was also an equally deep sense of forbearance as the men in boots walked out of their homes in the interest of their motherland.

There was forbearance because the homes where such men are raised are homes where sacrifice plays the mortar, where acceptance is fashioned as a divine chip and where the defeat of evil is designed as living man’s most pious triumph.

Therefore, the sun shall never set on our martyrs. It hasn’t ever and it shall never set on the immortal.

And the brave sons of the UAE, who left us all for their heavenly abode, passed into immortality.

They went, they “fell upon the thorns” of the battlefield, they got bruised, they bled and for us. And only for us.

And they said goodbye to our universe only to enter the high world of martyrdom where millions have been living for millions of years. In that world piety dwells forever. There dwell those who have sacrificed their whole beings for nations and causes.

The perpetuation of truth and only truth was the goal of all those who make up that world.

Untouched by the lure of easy material life they — uniformed personnel of the Emirates — decided to keep awake through the days and nights of their lives so that every baby, every mother, every father, every brother, every sister in the UAE could sleep in peace.

The bravehearts had walked out of their lovely homes leaving behind many a crying mother but came back like real heroes draped in their national colours.

The proud world of the Emiratis watched as the bugle was sounded and the salutations were put in order as the martyrs found their way to their final destination. To Him they belonged, to Him they returned.

Today we remembered their supreme sacrifices and observed a minute’s silence in their honour. They laid their lives to keep us alive. Can we match that act of sacrifice? Never.