[Peace-discuss] 11:00/11/11/1918

[C. G. Estabrook]

When Kathy Kelly was in town she quoted the conclusion of the poem by
Wilfred Owen, dead at 25, described in this article.  Here's the whole
thing:

	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.**

*(apparently 5.9-inch calibre shells)
**(from the Latin poet Horace, "Sweet and seemly is it to die for one's
country")

And BTW there's a brilliant trilogy of novels describing the events
mentioned in this article -- Pat Barker's REGENERATION, THE EYE IN THE
DOOR, and THE GHOST ROAD.  --CGE


On Tue, 11 Nov 2003, Morton K. Brussel wrote:

> At 11 o'clock, on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, the "war to 
> end all wars" came to an official end. November 11th used to be called 
> Armistice Day. Now, we obscure the message of relief that peace brought 
> at the end of WWI to glorify veterans and implicitly the militaries 
> they served. Of course, we should consider sympathetically and solemnly 
> the tragedies of young military men killed in battle "defending our way 
> of life", but we ought equally to emphasize the tragedies brought to 
> civilian society by these military men.
> 
> A nice piece, although incomplete, commemorating this date is to be 
> found on:
> 
> http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1110-09.htm
> 
> MKB
>