Was soldiers’ dying vain answered by god or mother?
Gods and generals, and the mass made of but common clay.
None can speak when seas rolled red with blood
All the air whizzed and hummed,
Shot and shell, bursting,
Bodies broken, riddled, ripped and torn asunder.
What was man or humanity?
Marshalled and planned.
The arc of history is but the pendulum’s swing.
What was, what would be;
There must be opposition in all things.
Landing craft that sank, men drowned
Or beaching, slaughtered when the ramp went down.
They say a coward dies many deaths a brave man only one,
But dead is dead.
What nebulous dream did a school boy soldier imagine should come of this?
Carnage sprawled, sand and tidal pools crawled,
Stumbled and dashed to the safety of seawall
Reached among countless trails off blood.
What drives men forward through hell’s barrage
To scale the cliffs and become the myth.
Their children, we fair sons and daughters no longer count the cost.
Dont remember what was lost.
Flogged through endless wars:
Korea, Nam, the Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan.
War begats war and peace is strangled at birth.
Eighty plus years, two generations;
What has liberation wrought?
The greatest generation is what we’re taught.
Killed, wounded, missing in action,
And those who walked through the valley of the shadow of death,
Whose tale’s untold behind distant eyes,
Slip, the last sands in the hour glass.
Sword, Juno, Omaha, Utah,
Who marked the moment the guns fell silent over charnel smoke and flame,
The broken bodies of once proud young men,
Lives scythed, and tallied in bundles.
And yet the day was won.
Yet, somehow something seems lost.
Is this the world that dying has won?
The sacrifice palpable, the suffering unimaginable. It’s significant that people see war as this thing that just “happens”, not considering all the coordination, planning and propaganda that goes into it. They don’t accidently happen….never mind that it makes NO sense that humanity would be MORE warlike with the progression of time, but it certainly appears as if there is more war now than ever before in known history….and that’s a LOTTA planning & coordination! And propaganda (to “prop the agenda”)
Great tribute for D Day, EZ Joe. Good to see you again. I appreciate their sacrifice.
I agree 100%. “…it makes NO sense that humanity would be MORE warlike with the progression of time, but it certainly appears as if there is more war now than ever before in known history….and that’s a LOTTA planning & coordination! And propaganda (to “prop the agenda”
Good to hear from you again.
“Death is death.”
“Peace is strangled at birth.”
The whole piece moved me. War is gruesome and no one wins. We must remember all of those who served, fought and lost their lives in the pursuit of peace. Funny how fighting is the way to find peace.
Those two lines just stuck with me. Very good peace.
Heroic things are done in every war. Men rise up to give beyond the common measure of courage. But war never brings lasting peace. There has been no war to end all war. There’s just a continual slough through hell. Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts. 🌼