It’s Armistice day! I remarked yesterday in a post that my father and his brothers fought in the war plus other family members on my mothers side all were ‘lucky’ and came home:
https://www.facebook.com/…/a.80637947…/5520834594631923/
I think of the great poet Sassoon:
“I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
“In winter trenches, cowed and glum
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
“You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.”
Image: ‘Mad Jack’ the poet Siegfried Sassoon
Bernard Moffatt
AGS Celtic League (11th November 2023)
