trish123: I know some of you wont like this but here it is anyway -
He's five foot-two, and he's six feet-four,
He fights with missiles and with spears.
He's all of thirty-one, and he's only seventeen,
Been a soldier for a thousand years.
He'a a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn't kill,
And he knows he always will,
Kill you for me my friend and me for you.
And he's fighting for Canada,
He's fighting for France,
He's fighting for the USA,
And he's fighting for the Russians,
And he's fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way.
And he's fighting for Democracy,
He's fighting for the Reds,
He says it's for the peace of all.
He's the one who must decide,
Who's to live and who's to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.
But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can't go on.
He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from here and there and you and me,
And brothers can't you see,
This is not the way we put the end to war.
Nice poem, Trish...where is it from??? I'd agree with it, except for the reference to Dachau...those were NOT understood by 'normal soldiers' to be in any way 'normal'.
When I saw the title, it reminded me of a book by that title published by Guinness Superlatives Ltd. Enfield, Middlesex..(love that name!) 1971...a history of all basic soldiers from Caesar to modern times.
But as poems go, I prefer this one:
These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when Earth's foundations fled,
Followed this mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and Earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.
"Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries" from The Collected Poems of A.E. Housman" 1922
Uniforms? I think that most males look better in one; always better than any 'monkey suit' be it by Armani or Sally Ann...%)
Apologies for going off topic...