Dulce Et Decorum est (To the troops)

DULCE ET DECORUM EST (1917)

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.

what's going on in Iraq right now. I think Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" or Tim O'Brien's "Going After Cacciato" are more a propos. But thanks for posting.

don't forget Catch 22

post '45, imho. Then there's "Slaughterhouse Five," although that one will become more a propos after we nuke Teheran.

We still haven't learned. :(

finest anti-war poems stories and art. I would like to suggest also the poems of Sigfried Sassoon, the art of Katie Cowlitz, and actually when you read some of J.R.R. Tolkien's novels, you can see some of his expieriences of his fighting WWI in it. PBS did anexcellent documentary, "The Great War". a very eye opening story.