With all the past weekend's 'celebrations' of war (WWI in particular), it brought to mind the fact that perhaps the non-romantic realities of war are still all too fresh in the minds of my generation of South African men, who not too long ago were fresh-faced 18 year olds finishing Matric, and about to have a rifle shoved in our hands, with the chance of never coming back. Many didn't, and many more who did, were never the same again..
I don't see war as a celebration in any make or form, and this poem by Siegfried Sassoon puts it rather succinctly for me:
"You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye -
Who cheer when soldier lads march by -
Sneak home and pray you'll never know -
The hell where youth and laughter go."
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The author during the Angolan and Cold Wars 1985 / His Great Grandfather Nathan McLeod circa 1920 who served in both WWI & WWII
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