The Old Lie

I know I don't come across as a poetry person. What to do, "I not stupid 2". But, literature in sec 2 was like my favourite subject cos we were doing war poems. Specifically Wilfred Owen's ones written during the heyday of the First World War.

One of those poems really affected me. Cos, when you analyze war poems and then go on to do history and study the war, you kinda get the entire picture. The men on top, the men on the ground, and the men who make things happen and the men who plan for things to happen.

Something that I think of constantly whilst in the SAF.
The men on top vs. The men on the ground.
Professionalism vs. Patriotism.

Here it is:

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!⁷ 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.

For explanation of terms you don't know click here

To all the soldiers in the SAF, regulars and NSFs, just know. You are not fighting a lost cause. You are not training to conquer vast others' lands. You are training to protect your own homeland. Trust me you, you do not want another nation invading us. Just ask ur mum and pops bout those days. Or your gramps if he's still alive.

Not some propaganda bullshit but what I truly believe. Especially when day in day out, when more than 1 guy happen to sit down together to shoot the breeze, about the only topic that is discussed is how fucktype their camp is. Trust me, if and ever if, you have some enemy charging you down with his M-16, you'll be glad you learnt how to do an IA drill.