Sombre thoughts

My mind seems very solemn today - don't know why but I'm thinking of blokes who died before their time. Even found the piece of poetry that I used to know off heart

No Man's Land (Green Fields of France) - Eric Bogle

Well, how'd you do, Private Willie McBride,
D'you mind if I sit down down here by your graveside?I'll rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
Been walking all day, Lord, and I'm nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916,
I hope you died quick and I hope you died "clean,"
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?
CHORUS:Did they beat the drum slowly, did they sound the fife lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered ye down?
Did the bugles sing "The Last Post" in chorus? Did the pipes play the "Floors O' The Forest"?
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you forever nineteen?
Or are you a stranger, without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?
Well, the sun's shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard it's still No Man's Land;
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.
And I can't help but wonder now, Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "the cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it's all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.
Our business in the field of fight,
Is not to question,
but to prove our might.
I firmly believe that the old wars were the best. The bosses who stirred things up and decided to send men into battle led their forces from the front. Now, they skulk at home with mealy-mouthed semi-excuses for the decisions they took that have caused grief and suffering for so many. And, let's not forget, many innocent human beings have died as a by-product of the politicians' wrong-headedness. The soldier realises it is part of his contract to die - that does not make it any better when they do but surely the employers' side of the contract is to show due care?