Tuesday, November 11, 2008

For Remembrance Day

There's a poem that's recited a lot on November 11 in Canada. It's not a bad poem, for the most part. But this one is far better:

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.
-- Wilfred Owen

Today isn't just about remembering the people who served and died for our country. It's about remembering why they died -- and 90 years ago, looking back at the unspeakable carnage of the previous four years, there was no answer, no reason. Millions and millions dead, for nothing. Anything good to come from that war -- such as a portion of our Canadian identity -- is incidental, and not worth the cost.

That's all I have to say about Remembrance Day this year. But you'll be doing yourself a favour if you read this post, too.

3 comments:

Romantic Heretic said...

The surest way to become a pacifist is to join the infantry. - Bill Mauldin

Carolyn said...

When I was a musician in the reserves, I always was moved by one of the veterans reciting this on:

"They shall not grow old, as we who are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we shall remember them."

sooey said...

The war dead are being drowned out by the patriots.