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
Ronnie's Blog 
Wow, Ronnie. Thank you for sharing such a powerful testament to one of the tragic, but often ignored, costs of war.
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Thank you, Carol. I knew men who had fought in WW2, and although they did not usually talk about the war, their contempt for Winston Churchill was quite common.
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Both my brother and father survived different wars, Ronnie, but remained emotionally scarred from their experiences.
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An aphorism by blogger Kelly Hartland about abuse, demonstrates the effect of trauma in a such a concise way, I added it to an image.
LINK: Abuse
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Beautiful poem! War only bring destroy! Well shared
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Thank you. War brings destruction for many, but brings profits for the few. If the people who start wars had to fight in them, there would not be many wars.
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Yes
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Always loved this poem. Sassoon was a fantastic poet, and this is one of my favourites. I am also quite keen on The Death Bed.
Thanks for sharing!
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Thank you, I agree with you, Sassoon was a fantastic poet. I have a tendency to measure the depth of quality of a piece of writing, by how much I want to read it again. Sassoon’s work achieves that with me. The Death Bed is excellent.
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Wow, damn powerful poem, Ronnie!! I love it… so tragic!! What hell rages in so many places inside so many people!! This poem captures it so tragically.
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Very often young men go to war in another country, under the misapprehension that what they are doing is for the greater good. Then they realise there is no moral, or logical justification to what they are doing.
Not so many years ago, a soldier told me that in the eyes of the public, what he had done in another country was admirable, but he thought some of the things he had done were disgraceful. The destruction is aways brought about by the people who are out of harm’s way.
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I know.
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The exception being the Israelis who take sadistic glee in filming their destruction of civilian lives, which is different from going to war.
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