What could be more honorable and glorious than to fight for one's country? To go out into the world and fight the enemy to protect those you love? To fight side by side with your brothers and bring victory home to your country? We all have at one time or another fantasized about living out an adventure filled with battles and excitement where we emerge victorious amidst terrible odds and we get to go home to those we love. My childhood was full of these fantasies, reenacted countless times in play with my brothers. But childhood fantasies are far from what happens in war.
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| https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/10-photos-of-life-in-the-trenches |
Dulce Et Decorum Est is a chilling poem which gives the listener a small taste of the horror of war. This poem bares us the bitter truth that war is not an adventure, it is not romantic, it is not a fantasy. The extended title of the poem is Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori which translates to "How sweet and honourable it is to die for one's country." This poem calls out all who dare call war romantic. It strips away the adventurous facade and shows us the grit and gore and horror found within. The author doesn't seek to denigrate the soldiers who fight for their country, for surely there is honor in that. But he denigrates those who pretend to these men who are signing up for war that it will be a holiday, that they will have their own chance at adventure.
We as citizens of a free country should always be grateful for those who have fought for our freedoms. We should honor them, and part of how we can do that is by understanding what they had to go through. We need to get the romantic notion of war out of our minds and understand its ugliness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB4cdRgIcB8
I think the romanticism of war is caused by two things. One, of course, is the natural and dark craving for violence that each of us has buried deep, along with greed, envy, and rage. The second might be the propaganda that nations employ to try to recruit soldiers. Willing soldiers are a lot more effective than rebellious ones. Thus, seeking glory is a motive that they can preach in order to attract future soldiers.
ReplyDeleteI think that Owen Wilfred was absolutely saying that there was no honor in fighting for a country. That is the old lie: that there is honor in dying for a country. Nationalism is what paints that picture of honor, but in the trenches with disease and death, that honor just isn't there
ReplyDeleteIn speaking with a man I knew who served in WWII, he spoke of the excitement of going off to war. He said that they were all just young and adventurous ,and that they weren't scared. But, having seen and experienced the horror and cruelty of it all, he came home, like many others, and never spoke of it until he was in his 80s. So much for the romantic and the adventurous appeal of war.
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