I went to New Menin Gate, and the battlefields of Ypres when I was in Belgium many years ago. The Gate is unbelievable, a huge huge stone building, every inch of it covered with tiny names. Thousands upon thousands of young men snuffed out of existance. It was one of the most powerful experiences I've ever had.
I have to admit, I haven't been. I have been to the graveyards on the D-Day beaches, and indeed the beaches themselves. I remember sitting on the top of a German bunker on Omaha beach with my brother, and the two of us wondering how anybody got off that beach alive, and how anyone had the guts to get on it in the first place. I don't think I would have in all honesty.
I always remember this poem at this time of year. I remember first reading it many years ago, and it had a profound effect on me. And it's at this time of the year I thank whatever deities may exist that my father (who served in the Blues and Royals for 12 years) and my grandfathers (one was a motorcycle dipatch rider in the British army in WWII, and the other was part of the Polish resistance, and a Free Polish Infantryman) survived all they went through, so that I could know them, and hear their stories first hand.
That is one of my favorite poems ever, and am a huge S. Sassoon fan. And that and the last ever scene in Blackadder Goes Forth can always reduce me to tears. Baldrick: Why can't we just stop, sir? Why can't we just say, "No more killing; let's all go home"? Why would it be stupid just to pack it in, sir, why?
George: Now, now, now, look here, you just stop that (conchy?) talk right now, Private. It's, it's absurd, it's Bolshevism, and it wouldn't work, anyway.
Baldrick: Why not, sir?
George: "Why not?" Well, what do you mean? "Why wouldn't it work?" It-- It wouldn't work, Private-- It wouldn't work because, there, well, now, you just get on with polishing those boots, all right? and let's have a little bit less of that lip!
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I always remember this poem at this time of year. I remember first reading it many years ago, and it had a profound effect on me. And it's at this time of the year I thank whatever deities may exist that my father (who served in the Blues and Royals for 12 years) and my grandfathers (one was a motorcycle dipatch rider in the British army in WWII, and the other was part of the Polish resistance, and a Free Polish Infantryman) survived all they went through, so that I could know them, and hear their stories first hand.
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And that and the last ever scene in Blackadder Goes Forth can always reduce me to tears.
Baldrick: Why can't we just stop, sir? Why can't we just say, "No more killing;
let's all go home"? Why would it be stupid just to pack it in, sir,
why?
George: Now, now, now, look here, you just stop that (conchy?) talk right now,
Private. It's, it's absurd, it's Bolshevism, and it wouldn't work,
anyway.
Baldrick: Why not, sir?
George: "Why not?" Well, what do you mean? "Why wouldn't it work?" It--
It wouldn't work, Private-- It wouldn't work because, there, well,
now, you just get on with polishing those boots, all right? and let's
have a little bit less of that lip!
Dammit. Am now crying.
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