Page 19 - Flaming Cauldron – Issue 54

ACC ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER

LEST WE FORGET

They call it the Great War… Don’t let the children forget me, tell them about me and
How great Passchendaele and the Somme? my life.
A pointless waste of humanity, so many souls lost, survivors Each man embraces one another with terror and fear in
long gone. their eyes
So many of Lord Kitchener’s boys marched off for their For the majority of them, there’s no going back, these are
country and bravely off to war. their final goodbyes.
But nothing would ever prepare them for the atrocities that The whistling of shell bursts and bullets zipping everywhere
they saw. overhead
Misguided romantic notions of conflict, off to do their duty, Trying to find an unwilling victim to further add to the dead,
so many young boys and men. The distant rumble of artillery and tank comes rolling across
For many never to return, to feel the touch of a woman or the land
be held lovingly in their mother’s bosom again. Drowning out the screams of war, as the fighting becomes
On their way to “victory,” riding the waves on the senseless hand to hand
sea of slaughter Poor living corpses living in squalor, full of lice and trench
But never coming back with dreams of a family….a wife, foot.
a son, a daughter. Wet, hungry and exhausted, soiled with mud, carbon
Dante’s inferno, a living hell of carnage, of horror, and soot.
of suffering and chaos, Weapons of mass destruction….mustard and chlorine gas
The futility of war….just “send us victorious,” no matter The only ones who can escape its clutches are the ones who
the human cost. have a mask.
The air stinking of death and destruction, full of A Christmas Day truce of goodwill between the Tommy and
blood-curdling cries, the Bosch
The choking black smoke of conflict, lingering under Just one brief encounter forgetting differences and the loss.
blood-red skies, It was such a pointless, terrible war, an horrific war of attrition
So many young men thinking of heroism in the glory of Trying its best to wipe out humanity with countless bombs
all battle and munition
Going over the trenches, just a few yards, before being mown Men shot for cowardice – no PTSD, no battle stress
down and butchered like cattle. These “cowards” were heroes, but no pardon given or medals
Fighting for yards and metres, everyone fighting over this hell. on their chest
Rats gorging themselves on the fallen…..left rotting where Man has never been fearful of where he dares to tread
they fell. But it is a man-made path he lay, a battlefield strewn with
So many left injured and dying alone, entangled in the maze the dead.
of barbed wire So now Armistice Day should be solemnly remembered,
No chance of absolution or comfort under such murderous fire. Wear your poppies with a real sense of pride
The world’s biggest sacrifice of souls in so many foreign fields Each one signifies every drop of blood spilt by the ones who
The harbinger of death is happy with such a plentiful yield. came home,
The generals and brigadiers play war games, in a tent far And the ones who sadly died.
from the misery and mud So many graves and memorials carved the words of
But the real leaders of men are with their comrades and are “Soldier Unknown”
paying with their blood. Destined always to be on the battlefield and never to come
“Tally Ho, chaps!” We’ll storm the Hun trenches at dawn, home
We’ll go over the top as brothers, gleaming steel of Lest we forget…..there’s really no more that can be said
bayonets drawn. Every day for another 100 years, remember the fallen….
This letter is my final will and testament….to you my Long live the glorious dead.
darling wife
REMEMBER THEM
Pete “Henry” Cooper – ACC 1985 – 1990

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