Large Fierce Mammal

“… If you think those wars and the things these people were or are called upon to do, are horribly wrong, then I would suggest that every one of them might agree with you, for let it never be forgotten that the soldier hates war worse than anyone, but being good at waging it does not make the soldier the cause of war, only the one who puts a temporary end to it for as far as he can see from where he’s standing, and justifiable pride can be found in winning the fight without it being misinterpreted as a glorification of war itself. My maternal Grandfather, who served as a sniper in WW1, when sufficiently provoked was wont to tell the provocateur, “I killed better men than you in the war,” meaning that while he never got to know the full measure of those men, he knew enough to make a comparison with what stood before him in the present moment. Think on that sentiment.

“I began this piece with a reminder that time distances those now living from the lessons to be learned from the lives of those who have come before. Let me add this – Adolf Hitler didn’t invent genocide, and ideals of world domination exist as strongly today as they have always done. If it only takes a single generation to forget this, then the same can be said of anything, including skill at arms and a willingness to stand in harm’s way. When the Wolf is at the door, you will be happy that a few have never forgotten.” ~ My Poppy is Red

Vergissmeinnicht
(Forget-me-not)

by

Keith Keith Castellain Douglas
(24 January 1920 – 9 June 1944)

Three weeks gone and the combatants gone
returning over the nightmare ground
we found the place again, and found
the soldier sprawling in the sun.

The frowning barrel of his gun
overshadowing. As we came on
that day, he hit my tank with one
like the entry of a demon.

Look. Here in the gunpit spoil
the dishonoured picture of his girl
who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinnicht.
in a copybook gothic script.

We see him almost with content,
abased, and seeming to have paid
and mocked at by his own equipment
that’s hard and good when he’s decayed.

But she would weep to see today
how on his skin the swart flies move;
the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.

For here the lover and killer are mingled
who had one body and one heart.
And death who had the soldier singled
has done the lover mortal hurt.

Remember.