As we prepare for the onslaught of patriotic fervor this November 11th with all the flag waving, jets flying over, taps at the cemetery and discount sales, it is well that we remind ourselves that all to often the reasons we have so many veterans is because they believed:
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
"It is sweet and right to die for your country."
Many did not die but came back changed forever. I buried one last month and will bury another one on Monday. Neither one believed in the end that their service was worth it or that the cause was just.
"When you discover the truth through the
door of betrayal, and become a global
citizen, it is as if you acquired a quantum
leap in intelligence. The world you once
lived in is no longer your primary residence."
Mike Hastie
Army Medic Viet Nam
BOHICA
RA18960500
Repentant ex member of Murder Inc.
Southeast Asia Division
Our motto, "Kill Anything That Moves"
Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est
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.