This explains alot (page 2)

berten

THE POOR BLOODY INFANTRY
By David Icke

Oh hello lad,
Nice of you to come,
To fight for king and country,
You are a hero, son.
Now let's have a look at you,
Just say "ahhh" and cough,
Yes, that's fine,
I'll sign the form,
You're ready for the off.
(In fact he's got a problem,
Something not quite right,
But I have to close my eyes to that,
We have a war to fight.
I have to say that he can go,
Even when there's doubt,
I have to send them down the line,
Get them kitted out.)

So off they go to Normandy,
Verdun or the Somme,
Bits of kids and fathers,
Fodder for a bomb.
And fodder for the generals,
With their master plans,
The educated idiots,
With blood upon their hands.

Wam! bang!, wam! bang,! bang!
Bloody hell, hit the ground.
Screech! Capow!
Their bodies never found.
Each a grim statistic,
Each a telegram.
Your loved one killed in action.
He was a hero, ma'am.

And by way of compensation,
we have a pension here for you,
To help you bring the kids up,
To help to see you through.
(We don't tell her it's a pittance,
That she'll never see her husband's grave.
That he's no longer any use to us,
When we have the world to save.

And what of the survivors,
With broken body,
Broken mind?
When they come home from battle,
What justice do they find?
Right, move along now,
I have so much to do,
I have a lot to see today,
Can't spend much time with you.

Now you say you've been acting funny,
Since you came back home from war.
That everytime you close your eyes,
You re-live the hell you saw.
You say you seem to drink a lot,
That you've tried to take your life,
You say you're unemployable,
Depend upon your wife.
Well I have to say I'm sorry,
The answer must be no.
We can't pay you compensation,
I can't bend the rules you know.
It's clear you have a problem.
You may even be insane.
But you cannot prove to me,
It was caused at Alamein.

But its no good you complaining,
We all we all made a sacrifice,
You'll try to make the best of it,
If you ask for my advice.
It could have been much worse, you know.
After all we won.
Like I told you years ago,
You are a hero, son.

Simon

I think a very powerful and moving piece is by the 1st world-war poet Wilfred Owen. I remember reading it at school.

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,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori

DULCE ET DECORUM EST - the first words of a Latin saying (taken from an ode by Horace). The words were widely understood and often quoted at the start of the First World War. They mean "It is sweet and right." The full saying ends the poem: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country

stillajwexelder

Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori - Literally "It is a sweet and noble thing to die on behalf of the fatherland " but the poem and this line has to be spoken with a lot of irony and sarcasm and contempt - What Owen saw told him the exact opposite -- there was nothing sweet and noble about death and war

Misty Dawn

I watched the flag pass by one day.
It fluttered in the breeze
A young soldier saluted it, and then
He stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud
With hair cut square and eyes alert
He'd stand out in any crowd.
I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers' tears?
How many Pilots' planes shot down?
How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
No Freedom isn't free

I heard the sound of taps one night,
When everything was still.
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.
I wondered just how many times
That taps had meant "Amen"
When a flag had draped a coffin
of a brother or a friend.
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard at the
bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.....
No -- Freedom isn't free!!

frenchbabyface

... ...

Misty Dawn

Sorry, I left a line out.........

I watched the flag pass by one day,
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Marine saluted it,
And then he stood at ease.

I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud,
With hair cut square and eyes alert
He?d stood out in any crowd.

I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil
How many mothers? tears.

How many pilots? planes shot down?
How many died at sea
How many foxholes were soldiers? graves?
No, freedom isn?t free.

I heard the sound of Taps one night,
When everything was still,
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.

I wondered just how many times
That Taps had meant ?Amen,?
When a flag had draped a coffin,
Of a brother or a friend.

I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.

I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington,
No, freedom isn?t free.

patio34

Mother's Day Proclamation 1870"

by Julia Ward Howe

Arise then... women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonour,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God --
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

frenchbabyface

1870 by Julia Ward Howe (we are in 2004 ...)

Thanks for sharing Patio !

When are we gonna learn for good ? ...

Crazy151drinker

If you are so concerned about people dying, then maybe you should stand on the corner and protest mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes have killed more people than all the wars combined.

I find it interesting that poems written by soldiers express the desire to protect freedom, and poems that are written against war express the destruction of freedoms.

Simon, I hope you dont have any no-stick teflon frying pans.

How wany people here refuse to use technology that was developed for war?

My point being that so many here are against war, so are you against using products that were developed by war? It would seem hypocritical to speak out against war and yet benefit from its occurance.

Any takers?

frenchbabyface

C151D : Everything else you said aside (I'm tired - sure you are too - well maybe not)

Mosquitoes have killed more people than all the wars combined.

Maybe enough death with mosquitoes ... (weird comparison)

This explains alot

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