Dreamers

Soldiers are citizens of death’s grey land,
Drawing no dividend from time’s to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.

--Siegfried Sassoon

Oscar Poppa has another excellent poem that I hadn't seen before.

I had completely forgotten what day today really is.

Oscar Poppa reminds us.

Well how do you do young Willie McBride,
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside,
And rest for a while neath the warm summer sun,
I've been working all day and I'm nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only 19,
When you joined the great fallen in 1916,
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean,
Or young Willie McBride was it slow and obscene?

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the dead march, as they lowered you down,
Did the band play the last post and chorus,
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest.

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind,
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined,
Although you died back in nineteen sixteen
In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Enclosed in forever behind a glass frame,
In an old photograph all torn, tattered, and stained,
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.  

The sun now it shines on the green fields of France,
There's a warm summer breeze that makes the red poppies dance,
And look how the sun shines from under the trees,
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard it's still "No Man's Land",
The countless white crosses a mute witness stand,
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned.  

Now young Willie McBride I can't help wonder why,
Do all those who lie here know why did they die,
And did they really believe when they answered the call,
Did they really believe that this war would end wars.
Well, the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain,
The killing and dieing were all done in vain,
For young Willie McBride it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

Willie McBride.mp3 by The Clancy Brothers (2.5 MB).

Editorial:  This would be a truly great song if it weren't for the last part about having died in vain.  In some sense, that might be true.  But in a greater sense, there is no way that while we are on this earth we can entirely banish the darkness.  The darkness will always return.  The best anyone can hope to do is to hold it off a little longer.

To preserve bandwidth this file will be removed at the end of the month.

Soldiers are citizens of death’s grey land,
Drawing no dividend from time’s to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.

--Siegfried Sassoon

I really have nothing profound or insightful to say about Memorial Day.  I come from a family whose members never went out of their way to serve in the military.  I had one great-uncle who was in the Navy, my grandmother's brother, who died during World War II when he drowned during a training accident.  My own father served in the Army Reserves during the early 60's, but he never had to leave the United States.  When I was young Memorial Day was just the holiday that marked the beginning of summer vacation, when our family took a short vacation at a park on Lake LBJ outside of Marble Falls every year.  When I graduated high school--the time when most young men who join the military do so--I was a very anti-establishment type of person with college ahead of me and joining the Service was not something I would even consider.  I guess I am still a very anti-establishment type of person, but my attitude toward those who serve has changed greatly since then.

Several years ago, I participated for a couple of years in Army MARS--the Military Affiliate Radio System--and I came to know personally many World War II veterans.  I guess it was during this time that I got to thinking more about what they had done, the sacrifices they had made, and those who never lived to come back home.  Back then there was a MARS station at Fort Sam Houston which I visited occasionally, and that meant driving past all those neat rows of markers at the Fort Sam cemetery.  It forced one to contemplate certain things.

Tomorrow I will honor those who should be remembered by doing nothing special.  I will play with my children and barbecue a brisket.  Those who died did so so that people like me could live a quiet normal life and--hopefully--never have to suffer what they suffered.  I will fly my flag with the proper Memorial Day protocol and try to explain to my young children why it flies at half-staff until noon.  And I will try to teach them why we should remember and honor people who we never knew.

There are some new Memorial Day posts up at Operation: Noble Duty.  Be sure and pay them a visit.

Operation: Noble Duty now has a website.  Check it out for info on this worthy cause.

This project has been created mostly to help support the Texas Military Family Foundation.

You'll be seeing a graphic and permanent link go up soon on this blog.