Never been to war so can't possibly speak of it - only imagine. Have my grandfather's stories and GGFs letters to help. A visit to the battlefields is one of the great trips of a lifetime imo - a profound experience and one which you never forget (been 5 times)- and takes the Ode of Remembrance to another level.
I like this poem by Sassoon - written just after the great war and addressed to his fellow survivors who he feared where getting on with their lives and perhaps forgetting. But it lives across the ages and is quite prophetic in parts.
'Aftermath'
Have you forgotten yet?
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare....
But the past is just the same and War's a bloody game...
Have you forgotten yet?
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.
Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz? The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets? Do you remember the rats, and the stench of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench? And dawn coming; dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain.. And do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'
Do you remember that hour of din before the attack And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back With dying eyes and lolling heads Those ashen-grey masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?
Have you forgotten yet?
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget!
