Very apt words with 11 November looming. A day when we can honour the Fallen on both sides of the fence. I think all old soldiers and combat veterans will agree that it is honourable and right to honour the fallen enemy as much as our countrymen and/or comrades. Young men with rifles in their hands don’t make policy, and on both sides they did in the belief that they were fighting to protect their loved ones. It is sad that young men had to die on the battlefield for the stupidities of politicians and demagogues.
Wilfred Owen said it better than I ever could:
Dulce et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
[color=#FF0000]The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.[/color]