From: bob1@cos.com (Bob Blackshaw)
Subject: Re: !*! In Flanders Fields ... !*!
Organization: Corporation for Open Systems
Distribution: world 
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 21:22:58 GMT

In <1992Nov10.001404.1317@eng.ufl.edu> garry@monarch.eng.ufl.edu (Garry Peterson) writes:

>'In Flanders Fields' is an example of the crap which helps
>manufacture the death we remember on Nov. 11.

>Try one of these not so glorious poems instead.


>Do Not Weep

>Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
>Because your lover threw wild hands towards the sky
>And the affightened steed ran on alone,
>Do not weep.
>War is kind.

>     Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
>     Little souls who thirst for fight,
>     These men were born to drill and die,
>     The unexplained glory flies above them,
>     Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom -
>     A field where a thousand corpses lie.

>Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
>Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
>Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
>Do not weep.
>War is kind.

>     Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
>     Eagle with creast of red and gold,
>     These men were born to drill and die,
>     Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
>     Make plain to them the excellence of killing
>     And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

>Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
>On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
>Do not weep.
>War is kind.

>-Stephen Crane



>The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

>From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
>And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
>Six miles from earth, and loosed from its dream of life,
>I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
>When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

>-Randall Jarrell



>And remember the wars of today.
>The families they shatter,
>the lovers they are taking,
>the lives they are rubbing out,
>and ripping apart.


>Garry Peterson
>Arthur R. Marshall Lab, University of Florida

Whoa! Garry. No one said war was wonderful, nor did I ever in
my schoolboy days memorizing In Flanders Fields ever get great
feelings of patriotism. Rather, it brought home the desire to
try for the end of war, IMHO the one *real* obscenity left in
this world.

But tomorrow at 11:00, I will be silent in remembrance of those
men and women who "short days ago lived, and were loved".

If it was up to me, the next time some idiot politicians and
dictators decide to give a war, I would put them in the trenches
and foxholes and make them fight it out. Then when they are all
out of the way, the rest of us could get on with our lives.

Wishful thinking with all the tinpot dictators out there who
are bound and determined to build big armies out of people
who have nothing in their lives and so find the uniform
attractive.

I do reserve the right to open my home to any person who has
served. Simply because the war, or police action, might have
been right or wrong, does not color my opinion of those who'
served.

Sometimes we do not have choices. As in my personal life, I
will cross the road to avoid a fight, but if someone insists
on bringing the fight to me, then I will do my best to dispatch
that person by whatever means are available.

So, in closing, I do not believe anyone posting on this thread
was glorifying war, but simply remembering those we lost to wars.

Peace;

Bob.

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