DULCE ET DECORUM EST

[Barman]

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.

Wilfred Owen

[Uncle Mort]

Thought I'd share this picture with you taken in 1937:

My Grandfather centre - fought in the First World War

My Dad on the right - fought in Burma 44-45

My Uncle on the left - lied about his age and fought in Italy

The youngest Uncle - Called up to the RAF and was posted to Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising.



We and our children at least come from more fortunate generations that haven't faced total war.

[Barman]

Excellent Uncle... 

[Bar Wench]

I've been thinking along the same lines it seems.

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
that is forever England. There shall be
in that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
a dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
a body of England's breathing English air,
washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
a pulse in the eternal mind, no less
gives back somewhere the thoughts by England given;
her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
and laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
in hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

        --Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)

[Nick]

My dad was at the D Day landings. I have been to the cemeteries.Shocking

[Bar Wench]

Opa, my great grandfather, was part of the newly formed royal flying corp in WWI. He didn't speak about it much.

[Nick]

Opa?

[Barman]

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

[Bar Wench]

Opa?

Dutch for Grandfather, my Mum is half Dutch.

[Barman]

Opa, my great grandfather, was part of the newly formed royal flying corp in WWI. He didn't speak about it much.

I only discovered that my father was at Dunkerque after his death... he wouldn't speak about it at all... 

[Nick]

I must get his war diary off my mean sister.She could give me a copy for Xmas.

[Grumpmeister]

Not quite in the same league as the poems already mentioned I came across this researching an english assignment back when I was in school.

16 years old when I went to war,
To fight for a land fit for heroes,
God on my side,and a gun in my hand,
Counting my days down to zero,
And I marched and I fought and I bled And I died
I never did get any older,
But I knew at the time, That a year in the line,
Is a long enough life for a soldier,
We all volunteered,
And we wrote down our names,
And we added two years to our ages,
Eager for life and ahead of the game,
Ready for history's pages,
And we fought and we brawled
And we whored 'til we stood,
Ten thousand shoulder to shoulder,
A thirst for the Hun,
We were food for the gun,and that's
What you are when you're soldiers,
I heard my friend cry,
And he sank to his knees,coughing blood
As he screamed for his mother
And I tell by his side,
And that's how we died,
Clinging like kids to each other,
And I lay in the mud and the guts and the blood,
And I wept as his body grew colder,
And I called for my mother, but she never came,
Though it wasn't my fault, I wasn't to blame,
The day not half over
And ten thousand slain,and now
There's nobody remembers our names
And that's how it is for a soldier.

I only discovered that my father was at Dunkerque after his death... he wouldn't speak about it at all... 

My grandfather was a POW held by the Japanese and he never talked about it to anyone. I think that experiences like these are impossible to convey to anyone who hasnt gone through something similar themselves. There is no frame of reference.

[Pastis]

Mum played croupiers during the war in an Ops. Room up in Scotland just like the one in the pic.



On the evening of May 10, 1941, she was on duty plotting traffic and nothing much was going on. She began to plot a single plane over the North sea coming inland. She followed it over the coast and further but eventually the signal on the radar ceased. She told me she was torn off a strip by the CO who said it couldn't just disappear! The pilot had bailed out and the plane crash landed. It was Rudolph Hess.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world...
To be continued if I can find a pic

[Barman]

My Mum serviced army trucks...

[Nick]

Mum played croupiers during the war in an Ops. Room up in Scotland just like the one in the pic.



On the evening of May 10, 1941, she was on duty plotting traffic and nothing much was going on. She began to plot a single plane over the North sea coming inland. She followed it over the coast and further but eventually the signal on the radar ceased. She told me she was torn off a strip by the CO who said it couldn't just disappear! The pilot had bailed out and the plane crash landed. It was Rudolph Hess.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world...
To be continued if I can find a pic

#


Fantastic story!! Well done!