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Like a grenade

By Will 3 years ago, mid-November Add your comment below

I’m watching a brilliant programme by Jeremy Paxman on Wilfred Owen, the great poet of the First World War, and in it they’re looking back on the “Great War” and the weapons that were used, grenades chief among them. For maximum distance, the soldiers were taught to throw them as though bowling “with a straight arm”. No ICC officers back in the day, then.

I was surprised to see a young cadet (or maybe he was in the full army, who knows) sell not a single poppy at Hammersmith yesterday lunchtime. I was further disturbed when one unmitigated bastard shouted “No” to him out of frustration. I doubt he knows what they even signify.

War really is a bit of a bugger. My Grandfather, who I never met, somehow survived the first war by riding a horse in France. That’s all we were ever told. His son, my uncle, then fought in Malaya in the 1950s and was shot through the stomach, again somehow surviving (though he lost all his hair within months). And again that’s all we know of it. I suppose it’s common for ex-soldiers to not say anything of what they saw, but you can’t help wonder…

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 now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

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6 Responses to “Like a grenade”

  • Mike wrote:
    November 11th, 2007 at 8.33 pm

    I laughed the ICC reference and then nearly cried at the poignancy of the poem.

    My nephew is 19. He flies out to Basra tomorrow for a six month tour of duty.

    Personally, if I’d seen the bastard who shouted at the cadet, I would have kicked seven shades out of him.

  • Tony T. wrote:
    November 12th, 2007 at 12.32 am

    That must be the untold story of war; my grandfather lost all his hair in the WWI.

  • Marcus wrote:
    November 12th, 2007 at 2.48 am

    My grandfather was a bomber pilot in WWII, and he also lost his hair when I saw him- of course, he was 70 at the time. :)

    Good luck to your nephew Mike. I’m sure everyone’s proud.

  • Kathy wrote:
    November 12th, 2007 at 8.47 pm

    All the best to your nephew, Mike.

  • Mike wrote:
    November 13th, 2007 at 2.03 am

    Thanks, guys. It genuinely means a lot to me.

  • steeplingbounce wrote:
    November 14th, 2007 at 4.00 am

    None of them much talked about it. My grandfather was in France in the First Great Unpleasantness, and spoke not a word about it until the day he died. My father was in the Second G U (Greece, Crete and a lengthy spell as a non paying guest of Uncle Adolf) and spoke about it for the first time only two years ago.

    When he finally opened up, one of his first comments was that those who tended to be front and centre at Anzac Day parades and Rememberance Day services tended to be those who had been least exposed to the horrors of battle.

    Articles such as the most recent one by Frank Keating in the Guardian bring home what a scourge these useless, pointless, wasteful exercises are.

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