Shame

One of the blogs I read regularly is Chairbourne Stranger, posted by a US serviceman stationed in Iraq. It has been interesting to get an insider’s perspective on the situation there, and although I have no idea who he is, I have begun to feel as if I know him somewhat.

So when I read this post, I almost cried. And then I became so angry I couldn’t speak. It is one thing for our nation’s armed forces to have to face the horrors of war in actions that protect the people of this country, but I know the invasion of Iraq has done nothing to make the world safer for US citizens. In fact it has done much to make it less so.

We as a nation are in the wrong. I know it is trite to use comparisons with the Nazis, but by our unwarranted invasion, that is the level we have sunk to. I am personally ashamed to be a citizen of the United States. And I am doubly ashamed that people such as this soldier have to experience the trauma of war for reasons not worthy of their sacrifice.

So for him, and all those who are fighting and dying in this horrible and meaningless war, I offer the following song from Eric Bogle.


Willy McBride

Well how do you do, young Willy McBride.
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside,
And rest here awhile, neath the warm summer sun,
I’ve been walking all day, and I’m nearly done.

And I see by your gravestone, you were only nineteen,
When you joined the brave fallen, in nineteen sixteen.
Well I hope you died well, and I hope you died clean
Or young Willy McBride, was it slow and obscene.

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the last post and chorus?
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?

Did you leave any wife, or a sweetheart behind?
In some faithful heart are you forever enshrined?
Although you died back in nineteen sixteen,
In that faithful heart, are you forever nineteen?

Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Enclosed there forever, behind a glass pane.
In an old photograph torn and battered and stained,
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the last post and chorus?
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?

Oh the sun how it shines on the green fields of France.
There’s a warm summer breeze makes the red poppies dance.
See how the sun shines from under the clouds.
There’s no gas, no barbed wire, there’s no guns firing now.

But here in this graveyard it’s still no man’s land,
As the countless white crosses in mute witness stand,
To man’s blind indifference, to his fellow man,
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned.

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the last post and chorus?
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?

Now young Willy McBride, I can’t help wonder why.
Did all those who lie here know why they died?
Did they really believe, when they answered the calls,
Did they really believe, that this war would end wars?

For the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain,
The killing and the dying, they were all done in vain.
For young Willy McBride, it’s all happened again.
And again and again and again and again.

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the last post and chorus?
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?



Peace.

Please.