He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark, And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey, Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn, Voices of play and pleasures after day, Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him… He thought he’d better join. He wonders […]
Soldiers Quotes
It would repel me less to be a hangman than a soldier, because the one is obliged to put to death only criminals sentenced by the law, but the other kills honest men who like himself bathe in innocent blood at the bidding of some superior.
There’s many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory but it is all hell.
What passing bells for these that die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin they think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.
What makes you go abroad, fighting for strangers When you could be safe at home, free from all dangers? A recruiting sergeant came our way To an Inn nearby at the close of day He said young Johnny you’re a fine young man Would you like to march along behind a military band, With a […]
Soldier, in a curious land All across a swaying sea, Take her smile and lift her hand – Have no guilt of me. Solider, when were soldiers true? If she’s kind and sweet and gay, Use the wish I send to you – Lie not lone til day! Only, for the nights that were, Soldier, […]
A professional soldier understands that war means killing people, war means maiming people, war means families left without fathers and mothers. All you have to do is hold your first dying soldier in your arms, and have that terribly futile feeling that his life is flowing out and you can’t do anything about it. Then […]
Humilities are piled on a soldier… so in order that he may, when the time comes, be not too resentful of the final humility – a meaningless and dirty death.
In war it is not just the weak soldiers, or the sensitive ones, or the highly imaginative or cowardly ones, who will break down. All will break down if in combat long enough. “Long enough” is now defined by physicians and psychiatrists as between 200 and 240 days. For every frontline soldier in the Second […]
