I read the headline on my MSN homepage: Iraq general wants the US to stay until 2020. Ten more years in a war that should not have been, served the purposes of one man - and his father - and costs us billions of dollars every day we're there: not to mention our most valuable assets, our fellow citizens.
Upon reading the words of the headline, my heart sank and a great sadness swept over me. A poem by one of my favorite writers, Robert Service, a Canadian (born in England), came to mind and I went searching for my worn volume of his works.
(My grandson, disabled with autism, turns 18 this year, and if the draft is reinstated, his disability probably will not prevent his having to go. This is the source of the sadness that overtook me for awhile this morning.)
Here is Robert Service's poem, "The Stretcher-Bearer":
THE STRETCHER-BEARER
My stretcher is one scarlet stain,
And as I tries to scrape it clean,
I tell you wot --- I'm sick with pain
For all I've 'eard, for all I've seen;
Around me is the 'ellish night,
And as the war's red rim I trace,
I wonder if in 'Eaven's height,
Our God don't turn away 'Is Face.
I don't care 'oose the Crime may be;
I 'olds no brief for kin or clan;
I 'ymns no 'ate: I only see
As man destroys his brother man;
I waves no flag: I only know,
As 'ere beside the dead I wait,
A million 'earts is weighed with woe,
A million 'omes is desolate.
In drippin' darkness, far and near,
All night I've sought them woeful ones.
Dawn shudders up and still I 'ear
The crimson chorus of the guns.
Look! like a ball of blood the sun
'Angs o'er the scene of wrath and wrong.
"Quick! Stretcher-bearers on the run!
O Prince of Peace! 'Ow long, 'ow long?
7 comments:
The request for 2020, in itself, seems to cry out for a negative response. One hopes. Preparations are under way for withdrawal, I don't imagine we are going to change horses on this one at this time. One hopes.
And the lesson as always is: we can throw ourselves into modern warfare with a bare 6 months preparation... but extricating ourselves from one take decades and entire lives...
Kipling, too. This is the last verse of The Young Soldier (please note the location; some things never change). But if this seems too fiery, too enthusiastic, there is a sad aftermath. Kipling's son was killed in WW1 and he was never the same again. No more thoughts of Empire, no more talk of honour in battle. It was time for Wilfred Owen to move in and reflect dispassionately on war's only commonalities: death and the threat of being killed.
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
War. Technology changes, but the blood stays the same...
...And there is the First World War poet, Wilfred Owen.
"What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns,
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them from prayers or bells,
Nor any voices of mourning save the choirs, -
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires."
Thank you, everyone, for your comments.
ArtSparker: Susan, I fear we will not see an end to this war in my lifetime, but, as you wrote, one hopes.
Steve: I pray your beautiful boy never has to go to war. It is so wasteful, with so little gained and so much lost.
BB: Thank you for the poem. I knew Kipling's son had died in WW1, but I didn't know this poem. 'Zone de guerre' duly noted.
Fresca: The blood, and the pain for all involved.
Plutarch: Owen's (and Kipling's) poetry has dredged up memories of young men I met, while in the Navy, who made it home, though not whole, in body or spirit, my brother Tom among them. I am hopeful, selfishly so, that my grandson is spared the horrors of the battlefield.
a remarkable poem and powerful necessary reminders from you about the vulnerability and fragility of so many and the absolutely absurdity of managing conflict and difference this way.
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