A poem from a WWI vet for this day.

[Dyler Turden]

The Stretcher-Bearer
Robert Service


My stretcher is one scarlet stain,
And as I tries to scrape it clean,
I tell you wot -- I'm sick with pain
For all I've 'eard, for all I've seen;
Around me is the 'ellish night,
And as the war's red rim I trace,
I wonder if in 'Eaven's height,
Our God don't turn away 'Is Face.

I don't care 'oose the Crime may be;
I 'olds no brief for kin or clan;
I 'ymns no 'ate: I only see
As man destroys his brother man;
I waves no flag: I only know,
As 'ere beside the dead I wait,
A million 'earts is weighed with woe,
A million 'omes is desolate.

In drippin' darkness, far and near,
All night I've sought them woeful ones.
Dawn shudders up and still I 'ear
The crimson chorus of the guns.
Look! like a ball of blood the sun
'Angs o'er the scene of wrath and wrong. . . .
"Quick! Stretcher-bearers on the run!"
O Prince of Peace! 'ow long, 'ow long?


If inclined, you can read more of Robert's poetry from after the war here. http://www.robertwservice.com/modules/smartsection/category.php?categoryid=13

He's worth the read.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_xYUmbleMHrQ/Svpz7kKusOI/AAAAAAAADWI/tna01_iwIvk/s640/Hewitt+Swearingen+WWI+Soldier.jpg

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. How long, indeed, how long?

Perfect for today.........and every day.

War is an abomination against all people. Why do we love it?

Recommended.

:cry:

:patriot:

[Dyler Turden]

5. How long indeed. The last four verses of his LEnvoi give a hint.

I see across the shrapnel-seeded meadows
The jagged rubble-heap of La Boiselle;
Blood-guilty Fricourt brooding in the shadows,
And Thiepval's chateau empty as a shell.
Down Albert's riven streets the moon is leering;
The Hanging Virgin takes its bitter ray;
And all the road from Hamel I am hearing
The silver rage of bugles over Bray.

Once more within the sky's deep sapphire hollow
I sight a swimming Taube, a fairy thing;
I watch the angry shell flame flash and follow
In feather puffs that flick a tilted wing;
And then it fades, with shrapnel mirror's flashing;
The flashes bloom to blossoms lily gold;
The batteries are rancorously crashing,
And life is just as full as it can hold.

Oh spacious days of glory and of grieving!
Oh sounding hours of lustre and of loss!
Let us be glad we lived you, still believing
The God who gave the cannon gave the Cross.
Let us be sure amid these seething passions,
The lusts of blood and hate our souls abhor:
The Power that Order out of Chaos fashions
Smites fiercest in the wrath-red forge of War. . . .
Have faith! Fight on! Amid the battle-hell
Love triumphs, Freedom beacons, all is well.


The man wrote with a tongue in cheek passion.

[gkhouston]

16. Another from WWI:

Does It Matter?

Does it matter?—losing your leg? …
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When the others come in after hunting
To gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter?—losing your sight? …
There’s such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.

Do they matter?—those dreams from the pit? …
You can drink and forget and be glad,
And people won’t say that you’re mad;
For they’ll know that you’ve fought for your country,
And no one will worry a bit.


-Siegfried Sassoon


Actually, one of the books about WWI that has affected me most is Testament of Youth, an autobiography by Vera Brittain. At the beginning of the book, she's a young woman consumed with the idea of escaping the merchant town she's grown up in and attending Oxford. She no sooner gets there than the war breaks out. Throughout the book, we see almost all the young men in her life--brother, friends, boyfriend--killed, maimed, blinded, gassed, shell-shocked. She leaves Oxford and becomes a nurse on the Western Front and a life-long pacifist. You see a hole blown through a whole generation of British society from one person's perspective.

[MineralMan]

2. And from WWII:

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
by Randall Jarrell

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

[Dyler Turden]

6. Powerful.

I had read that before and am glad to be reminded of it. Thank you.

[MineralMan]

3. Another from WWII:

Reed, Henry. "Naming of Parts." New Statesman and Nation 24, no. 598 (8 August 1942): 92 (.pdf).


LESSONS OF THE WAR

To Alan Michell
Vixi duellis nuper idoneus
Et militavi non sine gloria
I. NAMING OF PARTS

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For to-day we have naming of parts.

[Dyler Turden]

7. Ouch. Beautiful.

[pinboy3niner]

4. Thanks for the poem. Allow me to return the favor with a classic song...

"Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye"

While goin' the road to sweet Athy, hurroo, hurroo
While goin' the road to sweet Athy, hurroo, hurroo
While goin' the road to sweet Athy
A stick in me hand and a tear in me eye
A doleful damsel I heard cry,
Johnny I hardly knew ye.


With your drums and guns and guns and drums, hurroo, hurroo
With your drums and guns and guns and drums, hurroo, hurroo
With your drums and guns and guns and drums
The enemy nearly slew ye
Oh my darling dear, Ye look so queer
Johnny I hardly knew ye.


Where are the eyes that looked so mild, hurroo, hurroo
Where are the eyes that looked so mild, hurroo, hurroo
Where are the eyes that looked so mild
When my heart you so beguiled
Why did ye scadaddle from me and the child
Oh Johnny, I hardly knew ye.


Where are your legs that used to run, hurroo, hurroo
Where are your legs that used to run, hurroo, hurroo
Where are your legs that used to run
When you went to carry a gun
Indeed your dancing days are done
Oh Johnny, I hardly knew ye.


I'm happy for to see ye home, hurroo, hurroo
I'm happy for to see ye home, hurroo, hurroo
I'm happy for to see ye home
All from the island of Sulloon
So low in the flesh, so high in the bone
Oh Johnny I hardly knew ye.


Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg
Ye're an armless, boneless, chickenless egg
Ye'll have to put with a bowl out to beg
Oh Johnny I hardly knew ye.


They're rolling out the guns again, hurroo, hurroo
They're rolling out the guns again, hurroo, hurroo
They're rolling out the guns again
But they'll never will take my sons again
No they'll never will take my sons again
Johnny I'm swearing to ye.
___________________________________

Joan Baez performance, Berkeley, CA 1974
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiMt5-V-tQ4&feature=related
___________________________________

Love & Peace,
pinboy3niner

[Dyler Turden]

10. Listen/watch the video people.

It brought tears to me. Thank you for posting this.

[yellowwood]

8. Here Dead We Lie

Here dead we lie
Because we did not choose
To live and shame the land
From which we sprung.

Life to be sure
Is nothing much to lose
But young men think it is,
And We were young.

A. E. Housman

[Posteritatis]

9. And one of the best-known ones from WWI:

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 disappointed shells 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 floundering 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," Wilfred Owen, March 1918

I've always thought Owen's poem drove the point home better than a lot of the other standards of today - I like "In Flanders Fields" but it's become the sort of thing people recite without understanding because they're supposed to, and a lot of other options like contemporary music about the concept tend to be pro-war as often as not.

The fact that Owen's family received word of his death even as the church bells in their hometown were sounding the end of the war is kind of a stark underline of the whole thing.

[melm00se]

11. seeing you mentioned it

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.

[gkhouston]

17. and one I think of when "In Flanders Fields" is recited....

"There Will Come Soft Rains" by Sara Teasdale


There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white.

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly:

And Spring, herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

[gort]

18. Ray Bradbury wrote a remarkable story inspired by There Will Come Soft Rains

about an automated house that keeps running after a nuclear explosion.

Haunting poem.

Here is link:

http://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/mp3/sci-fi/X-1/x-minus-one-561205-there-will-come-soft-rains--zero-hour.mp3

[gkhouston]

20. That's where I first read the poem, then later learned it was published in a

collection in 1920. To the generation that survived the Great War, it seemed like the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust and nothing worse could be imagined. Sad, sad delusion.

[gkhouston]

12. I heard this set to music, years ago. It was haunting. n/t

[Dyler Turden]

13. One of the more recognizable poems. Grass by Carl Sandburg

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

[yellowwood]

14. No Man's Land--Song Eric Bogle and Wacholder

I love this song--in English and German

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUzQ6Am-bbc

[struggle4progress]

15. I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier

... American Mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne sings Al Piantadosi's 1915 anti-war song, "I Didnt Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier" ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkSxtqzAFlE&feature=related

[Rabrrrrrr]

19. My favorite anti-war poem is another Owen, The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

Parable of the Old Man and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
and builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Wilfred Owen

[Posteritatis]

22. Ouch. (nt)

[nolabear]

21. Christmas in the Trenches

A sweet, sad Christmas song played here on the radio every year.

Oh my name is Francis Toliver I come from Liverpool,
Two years ago the war waiting for me after school
To Belgium, and to Flanders, to Germany to here,
I fought for King and country I love dear

'Twas Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung.
The frozen fields of France were still no songs of peace were sung
Our families back in England were toasting us that day,
Their brave and glorious lads so far away

I was lying with my mess mates on the cold and rocky ground
When across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound
Now listen up me lads says I each soldier strained to hear
As one young German voice sang out so clear

He's singing bloody well you know my comrade said to me
Soon one by one each German voice was joined in harmony
The canons they were silent and the gas clouds rolled no more
As Christmas brought respite from bloody war

As soon as they had finished and a reverent pause was spent
"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" struck up some lads from Kent
The next they sang was "Stilly Noct" 'tis "Silent Night" says I
And in two tongues one song filled up the sky

There's someone coming towards us now our front line sentry cried
All sights were fixed on one lone figure trudging from their side
His truce flag like a Christmas star shone on that plane so bright
As he bravely strolled marched into the night

Then one by one from either side walked into "No Man's Land"
With neither gun nor bayonet they met there hand to hand
We shared some Christmas brandy and we wished each other well
And in a flare lit soccer game we gave them hell

We shared some chocolates, cigarettes and photographs from homes
These sons and fathers far away from families of their own
Young Saunders played the squeeze-box and they had a violin
This curious and unlikely band of men

Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more
With sad farewells we each began to settle back to war
But the question haunted every heart who lived that wondrous night
Whose family have I fixed within my sights

It was Christmas in the trenches and the frost so bitter hung
The frozen fields of France were still as songs of peace were sung
And the walls they built between us to exact the work of war
Had been tumbled and were gone for ever more

My name is Francis Toliver in Liverpool I dwell
Each Christmas comes since World War I I've learned its lesson well
That the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and maimed
And on each end of the rifle we're the same

[pinboy3niner]

23. '19 in Vietnam' by Pete Kennedy

19 in Vietnam (song lyrics)
by Pete Kennedy

Well I'm a bushhog scratchin' for a rat underground
in the jungle of the valley A Shau
I gave him 18 rounds and he didn't go down
I'm dealin' with the devil again

I turned 19 in Vietnam
19 in Vietnam

Well we started out thinkin' we were some kind of heroes
Fightin' just like our daddies did
But now the gung-ho crew is very few
and the rest are just frightened kids

I turned 19 in Vietnam
19 in Vietanm

You spend a year in hell feelin' so alone
Seein' more than a kid can bear
Countin' the days 'til they ship you home
But there ain't no welcome there

When you're 19 in Vietnam
19 in Vietnam
And Wond'rin' Why?

[yellowwood]

24. Liam Clancy singing Waltzing Matilda

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFCekeoSTwg&feature=related

Here are the lyrics


http://www.pogues.com/Releases/Lyrics/LPs/RumSodomy/Waltzing.html

[Dyler Turden]

25. thanks. The Green Fields of France.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntt3wy-L8Ok&feature=watch_response_rev

[yellowwood]

26. Nice Version

This is what we need to be remembering on Veterans' Day.

I don't know why more people don't care about these lost souls. A dead cat would get more sympathy.

[Dyler Turden]

27. Agreed.

In another post, I talked about a meeting I had with an Afghanistan vet who was destined to return after a brief furlough here at home. He broke my heart and forever changed the meaning of this day for me.