The Poetry of War

On my way home on the bus last night I came across these two stanza’s from Where Are the War Poets? quoted in Ronald Eyre’s National Service.

Where are the War Poets?
They who in folly or mere greed
Enslaved religion, markets, laws,
Borrow our language now and bid
Us to speak up in freedom’s cause.

It is the logic of our times,
No subject for immortal verse –
That we who lived by honest dreams
Defend the bad against the worse.

Cecil Day-Lewis- Where are the War Poets? - 1943

As the body of Trooper Darryl Caswell, the latest fatality from the Canadian Forces mission in Afghanistan, was being laid to rest news came of three more deaths. Though the numbers on the Canadian casualty list is insignificant compared to Afghani or American deaths it is disproportionate to the number of combatants taking part in what was sold to the Canadian Public as a Peace Mission.

The purpose of the mission has changed in the past two years but despite the hollow rhetoric calling for the support of our troops, Canada’s New Government is still sending soldiers out badly equipped and in unprotected vehicles. According to old Snake Eyes because I don’t support our involvement in Afghanistan I don’t support our forces; seems to me that his Government’s support should go beyond speeches and sound bytes.