This post has gone a bit off topic, but it is what it is, and I make no apologies for it.

When I first began this post I had a very different heading and something else totally in mind, but the memories of two men, who despite their many flaws, have left an indelible impact on me as a man and as a person, have changed this post. Today Australians honour those brave citizens who fought for our country, many of whom gave the ultimate sacrifice.

Our family was one of the lucky ones. I had a Great Grandfather who fought against the Turks at Gallipoli, and Palestine, and the Germans on the Western Front in World War One, and a Grandfather who fought against the Japanese on the Kokoda track. I said lucky because both returned to their families, but they were both far from lucky.

I only remember my Great Grandfather from when I was very young and he was nearing the end of his life. We called him Little Grandad because he was short of stature (compared with Grandad who was a tall strapping man), slight of build, and always slumped over because of the impact of gas attacks. According to my Grandfather he returned a shell of the man he was. I will return to the legacy he left me a bit later.

I new my Grandfather very well and spent most holidays with him and Nana in their country house in Murtoa in Central Victoria. I remember vividly as if it was today waking up in the middle of the night to a commotion because Grandad had heard a train sound its horn and did a barrel roll through his bedroom window shattering glass everywhere because his half asleep instinct told him we were under aircraft attack. This was despite the fact that as a railway works foreman he was very used to train horns.

He only talked to me once about his experiences and it was with tears that he related that they were on patrol in the hills above an airfield and could see a Japanese attack about to commence. Lacking radios, they had no way of warning the airfield about the impending surprise attack without giving away their own position, and so they had to keep going with their mission. Twenty men died during that attack and my Grandfather always believed they had failed their mates. He charged me with never ever letting my mates down like that. These must have been memories that haunted him all of his life.

Lucky…. I am not so sure. Neither would talk any any further of their exploits and I understand why, as they were not events they wanted to remember.

I remember sitting on Little Grandad’s knee in his dimly lit front lounge in Newport, under his photo in uniform and his service medals, having him read three poems to me. I did not enjoy this at the time, but with advantage that the wisdom of years gives you, I now understand why he did it. They were from a tattered book of poems by Wilfred Owen that I still have to this day.

One of the most admired poets of World War I, Wilfred Edward Salter Owen is best known for his poems “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, “Dulce et Decorum Est”, and “Red Lips Are Not So Red”. These were the three that Little Grandad read to me. Owen was killed in France on November 4, 1918, one week before the end of the war.

Dulce et decorum est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori – or the “old Lie”, as Owen describes it – is a quotation from the Odes of the Roman poet Horace, in which it is claimed that “it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”.

The main message of this poem is totally the opposite. It is NOT “sweet and fitting to die for one’s country” as so many people choose to believe; war is tragic and awful and gruesome and miserable, and so are the effects that it has on the young people that fight it.

Little Grandad wanted me to understand this.

Now don’t get Little Grandad and I wrong, he was not wanting to undermine his own, or his mates sacrifices that they willingly made “for God and country”, but rather to say that the slaughter was a total waste of a generation of men and women.

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
      — Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
      Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; 
      Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
      And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
      Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
      The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

“Anthem for Doomed Youth” was written while Owen was in the hospital recovering from injuries and trauma resulting from his military service during World War I. The poem laments the loss of young life in war and describes the sensory horrors of combat. It takes particular issue with the official pomp and ceremony that surrounds war (gestured to by the word “Anthem” in the title), arguing that church bells, prayers, and choirs are inadequate tributes to the realities of war.

Greater Love (Red Lips Are Not So Red)

Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Kindness of wooed and wooer
Seems shame to their love pure.
O Love, your eyes lose lure
When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!

Your slender attitude
Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed ,
Rolling and rolling there
Where God seems not to care;
Till the fierce Love they bear
Cramps them in death’s extreme decrepitude.

Your voice sings not so soft, —
Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft, —
Your dear voice is not dear,
Gentle, and evening clear,
As theirs whom none now hear
Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.

Heart, you were never hot,
Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot;
And though your hand be pale,
Paler are all which trail
Your cross through flame and hail:
Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.

This poem is in stark contradiction to the two above, and demonstrates what Little Grandad was really trying to say – that men can survive the horrors of war outlined in the first two poems, because of the “love”, bond and comradeship they have with their mates.

Owen seems to suggest that the artificialities of love pale in comparison to the true honor and love of men on the battlefield – men who cough, struggle, and die. Owen is calling attention to the authenticity of these soldiers’ actions and finding within them meaning.

My Grandfather’s tale supports this.

To my Great Grandfather, David Smith, and to my Grandfather, David Smith, I say on behalf of my own father, David Smith, who is no longer here, thank you for the memories, the legacy you have left, and your service and sacrifice. Eternal rest God grant them.

David Smith

25 April 2021.

P.S. The original post I had written is scheduled for publication at noon AEST today.