Hello,
I was surprised to find a site from WWII veterans - I hope you all are well and living good, satisfying and healthy lives.
What prompted me to write this evening was a poem I read by Rudyard Kipling, which I emailed to my son. I’ll reveal this and his response later on.
But first, I wanted to let you know that my father in law was a member of the 10th Mountain Ski Division in WWII. He was injured by machine gun fire and after recovering, returned to the front. He would rarely discuss his experiences during the war.
My father was not able to serve in the regular army because of his eyesight but did join the Merchant Marine in order to help the urgent cause in any way he could.
To the Rudyard Kipling poem - I’m sure most of you are familiar with this author - and I’ve made his poem “If” for boys a staple in our home.
I found this poem by Kipling today, and emailed it to my youngest son (a literary minded fellow with interesting insights). I thought perhaps some of you would be interested. I quote:
Rudyard Kipling
A great and glorious thing it is
To learn, for seven years or so,
The Lord knows what of that and this,
Ere reckoned fit to face the foe –
The flying bullet down the Pass,
That whistles clear: ‘All flesh is grass.’
Three hundred pounds per annum spent
On making brain and body meeter
For all the murderous intent
Comprised in ‘villanous saltpetre!’
And after – ask the Yusufzaies
What comes of all our 'ologies.
A scrimmage in a Border Station –
A canter down some dark defile –
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail –
The Crammer’s boast, the Squadron’s pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!
No proposition Euclid wrote,
No formulae the text-books know,
Will turn the bullet from your coat,
Or ward the tulwar’s downward blow
Strike hard who cares – shoot straight who can –
The odds are on the cheaper man.
One sword-knot stolen from the camp
Will pay for all the school expenses
Of any Kurrum Valley scamp
Who knows no word of moods and tenses,
But, being blessed with perfect sight,
Picks off our messmates left and right.
With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem,
The troop-ships bring us one by one,
At vast expense of time and steam,
To slay Afridis where they run.
The ‘captives of our bow and spear’
Are cheap – alas! as we are dear.
My 23 yr. old son’s response:
Dash Shourt
to me
show details 6:06 PM (2 hours ago)
This is basically analogous to the bumper sticker “when will the army
have to have bakesales for bombs” or whatever. He is admonishing the
British Empire for its expansions into the near east in the 19th
century, particularly with the Afghans. He basically states that they
have not to lose, and all to gain. The 5th stanza says this perfectly,
stealing from the British grants them an education, and without one
they have the advantage of perfect sight (this is derived from being
exposed to the world as opposed to books generally being a more adept
soldier). the last line of the 4th stanza, and the last line of the
6th stanza reflect that they are our captives, but that a war on
insurgency is infinite.
He says we are wasting ourselves, dying educated, and we are wasting
those we are enslaving, by not educating them. Basically war is a
waste. duh. Very straightforward poem. I like how each stanza is
basically making the same statement, they can all be removed and make
sense alone, though there are various ties between the stanza’s in his
mode, but few… that’s what makes it so simple.
“The ‘captives of our bow and spear’
are cheap – alas! as we are dear”
Dash
Me again - I realize that WWII was so much different than the sort of war Kipling is referring to when he wrote this. But it seems so apropos to the wars that the US has been involved with since.
I simply hate the fact that our young men are sent off to fight in battles between foreign countries which realy have nothing to do with our personal safety, or security as a nation. And now that jobs are so difficult to find, there are so, so many more young men willing to join the Armed Forces hoping they will be able to use the promised benefit of a college education (I hear this from my sons as well as other people in the community.)
I want to express my deep gratification for all of you who fought, exposed yourselves to such danger of serious wounds and even death in order to protect our country, as well as other European nations, from such a horrific future at the hands of the Nazi regime or the Japanese dictatorial ideal. I don’t think any of us can thank you enough.
I simply wanted to share what I thought was a different, and uniquely put, view of warfare - especially when it didn’t involve actually protecting one’s own country; mainly one’s country’s interests (at least those of certain influential people in that country).
I seriously mean no disrespect. I would be interested in how you feel about what you had to endure, what you thought you were getting into, your feelings about what you actually went through - and how you feel about it all now.
Sincerely,
Connie Hafeli Shourt
And don’t worry to be a fan of the German Army during WWII doesn’t make you nazi 