Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul?”
But it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll …..
Who Are You Tommy? Or rather, who were You?
Today we stand in remembrance of you, the fallen soldier. How many of us ever knew you, how many of us would have wanted to know you when you were alive?
Now you are feted as the ‘cream of British manhood’ – the Queen will bow her head to you – but when you were alive, who were you, what were you?
You weren’t that bright – you weren’t behind a desk in Whitehall directing operations, you were out there in the firing line. You weren’t that articulate – it’s not you the media interview when they want to know how the war is going.
Did you not fancy a job in the local steel works, or were there just not any going? What did they teach you at school – not quite enough to make it to university? Not even quite enough to get a job in the local job centre. Born in the wrong part of the country to be a ‘city trader’?
You were never going to be invited to smart dinner parties, no chance of your home featuring in the glossy magazines. One of life’s losers, Sharon said, when she dumped you.
Big lad, were you? Bit of a bruiser, given to a few too many fights after the disco turned out? Can’t have happened often, you were only just old enough to buy a drink. Only just old enough to vote. A few years ago you couldn’t even have married without Mum’s permission.
Those airbrushed women in the magazines weren’t queuing up to marry you though, were they? I hope you had a few fumbles with Sharon or Tracey – maybe you’ve even got a son now – but they weren’t queuing up to wash your socks either.
Your Mum had only just stopped nagging you to wash behind your ears when the sergeant major started nagging you to clean your rifle.
You’d escaped from a life of being the butt of advertiser’s jokes, the archetypical ‘English male’ – can’t figure out how to get back from Hong Kong without a women snatching the laptop and exclaiming – such brilliance – ‘we’ll get a plane’!
You escaped from the Dole queue, from Mum’s nagging, from a United Kingdom where you really weren’t wanted, or appreciated.
You’ve got a heart of gold, the regiment taught you things you never imagined, you remade your family amongst your mates – you would, you did, give your life for them.
Just look at you now baby face – for a whole two minutes, the great and the good will extol your virtues.
Enjoy your two minutes of fame and high praise. It’s more than your mates will ever get.
All you had to do was die. For us – and all the others who weren’t on the front line.
Ms Raccoon lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France, renowned for its fine wines and gourmet food, so she frequently finds better things to do than sit in front of a computer all morning. She is liable to take off traveling at a moment's notice. Consequently this blog only gets updated these days when it is raining - and it doesn't rain very often round here...
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Thanks for remembering Anna. We have lost too many of these lads whose sense of worth was to be found doing what many who claim to be leaders or opinion formers in this nation despise. Acting with honour. Bless them all.
Thank you – simply superb.
Seconded.
Does anybody actually know what they died for? It simply won’t do to glibly state that they died in the defense of King and Country – or to stem German territorial ambitions; history – as they say – is merely propaganda that’s shaped by the victors. This isn’t a theoretical question; there were members of my own paternal family who died on the Somme, but I’ve not yet managed to hear a plausible and coherent rationale for the hell of those trenches. All I can surmise is that it managed to cull a substantial proportion of the male population. Horribly. And it made a lot of money for those whose investments funded and sustained it..
The reasons must be as many as the people involved; for those ‘at the bottom’ some would be up for any fight, others wouldn’t have hurt a fly.
As for the reasons ‘at the top’ well that is one of the products of hierarchical ‘command and control’ systems where decisions affecting millions are made according to a list of a few figures on a single sheet of paper. The longer the chain of command the easier it is to make those ‘tough’ decisions and the bigger the ‘responsibility’ salary you can award yourself.
Best answer I can give is that those who died in WW1 and WW2 did so to stop the pursuit of power by those hell bent on achieving it.
What I can’t answer, beyond the glib, is why we are throwing away the lives of young men in Afghanistan (and recently Iraq).
So WW2 dead stopped Stalin achieving power?
WW1 dead stopped nothing much when you consider Versailles was just half time for WW2
WW2 was about stopping Hitler and was of course followed by a set of proxy conflicts between the West and the USSR in various places around the world.
WW1 was about stopping the Kaiser and the settlement terms imposed afterwards did indeed contribute to the rise of Hitler and thus WW2. The allies learnt their lesson and played things different next time round.
Dry political histories leave me cold, in the main.
Some years ago, I read of a group of farm labourers, in Sussex I think, discussing their imminent call-up.
“But what are we fighting for?” asked one.
Another bent down, caught up a handful of soil, and replied, “For that.”
It’s the nearest I’ve found to a rational explaination of unrational events, and whenever it comes to mind, I think of times spent in the quiet of natural beauty.
It’s not very good, but that’s the best I can do, I’m afraid.
Seen elsewhere….
The Final Inspection
The soldier stood and faced God,
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining,
Just as brightly as his brass.
‘Step forward now, you soldier,
How shall I deal with you ?
Have you always turned the other cheek ?
To My Church have you been true?’
The soldier squared his shoulders and said,
‘No, Lord, I guess I ain’t.
Because those of us who carry guns,
Can’t always be a saint.
I’ve had to work most Sundays,
And at times my talk was tough.
And sometimes I’ve been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny,
That wasn’t mine to keep…
Though I worked a lot of overtime,
When the bills got just too steep.
And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear.
And sometimes, God, forgive me,
I’ve wept unmanly tears.
I know I don’t deserve a place,
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around,
Except to calm their fears.
If you’ve a place for me here, Lord,
It needn’t be so grand.
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don’t, I’ll understand.
There was a silence all around the throne,
Where the saints had often trod.
As the soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
‘Step forward now, you soldier,
You’ve borne your burdens well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven’s streets,
You’ve done your time in Hell.’
That’s a lovely poem, Saul. You watch and bide your time and then come in with something with exquisite relevance. Can you tell me (us) who wrote this poem?
I think it is one of those “unknown author” poems that has been around for a long time. Here is another part to it.
It’s the Soldier, not the reporter
who has given us the freedom of the press.
It’s the Soldier, not the poet,
who has given us the freedom of speech.
It’s the Soldier, not the politicians
that ensures our right to Life, Liberty and the
Pursuit of Happiness.
It’s the Soldier who salutes the flag,
who serves beneath the flag,
and whose coffin is draped by the flag.
Excellent prose Anna, but after a second read it actually made me very angry.
It reminds me of a newspaper article years back when unemployment was reaching record levels and the young man stated that it was so bad he “may even join the Navy”. I’d love to have seen him in a Careers Office.
The Armed Forces are not the last resort for losers, and my relatives who enlisted to help their nation and who gave their lives at Ypres and in the Med had jobs and families. None of them were shiny @rsed journalists though.
Please remember them, as you sit in a country liberated by these lads possessing the freedom to demean them in this condescending manner.
p.s.
I did want a job in the local steel works.
I did O levels and A levels.
I dislike dinner parties.
My home will not be in a glossy magazine, however the one in Italy may be one day.
I have not had liaisons with Viz characters.
The price of peace and freedom is a high one.
It is right to remember, and reflect.
Actually – that’s just a pile of over-simplified shite (with more than a hint of snobbery in your assumptions too).
I am surprised at you.
Never let us forget how few politicians die in the wars they commit our Armed Forces to.
We are a warlike people. We always have been. We are always at war with someone. When in the last 300 years have we not been at war with someone? Anyone?
Our politicians and political leaders are defined by the wars they have been involved with. Churchill and WW2, Eden and the Suez Canal, Maggie and the Falklands, Blair and Iraq, Wellington and the Napoleonic wars, etc, etc.
Finally we are bankrupt and friendless, and the best of our genes and blood we left on the Somme, Waterloo, Balaclava, and Alamein. Only forlorn misfits, criminals and dependants survive the endless bloodletting and spending. Even the prat Cameron is defined now by Libya.
We’re not a warlike people. We just have leaders who like war.
Yes. They love it. We need a constitution that forbids war on any basis except invasion of the homeland or invasion of a neighbour with whom we have an iron bound treaty of mutual defence. Immediate neighbour, cast iron treaty.
Our involvement in WW1, WW2, the Falklands and the Napoleonic wars was in response to acts of aggression towards us, our lands or our friends (Portugal being our oldest friend). Dealing with the aggressors was necessary else we ourselves suffered.
Suez and Iraq 2 were unnecessary acts of aggression which rightly resulted in the end of Eden and the vilification of Blair.
Libya was us stupidly intervening in someone else’s civil war and Cameron may yet pay a price for that.
http://www.barefootsworld.net/warisaracket.html
Thanks for that link serendipity. I was going to add a poem from Kipling but my memory failed me.
Airman
Was the poem this?
Gethsemane
BY RUDYARD KIPLING
1914-1918
The Garden called Gethsemane
In Picardy it was,
And there the people came to see
The English soldiers pass.
We used to pass—we used to pass
Or halt, as it might be,
And ship our masks in case of gas
Beyond Gethsemane.
The Garden called Gethsemane,
It held a pretty lass,
But all the time she talked to me
I prayed my cup might pass.
The officer sat on the chair,
The men lay on the grass,
And all the time we halted there
I prayed my cup might pass.
It didn’t pass—it didn’t pass-
It didn’t pass from me.
I drank it when we met the gas
Beyond Gethsemane!
What DaveK said; also, you appear to know little about the armed forces or those who serve in them. And what about the women who serve?
The landlady provides a tribute to the underclasses who disproportionately have served their country and suffered casualties. Perhaps her nod to a wonderful Kipling poem was a little too subtle for some. It describes the very point she makes, here it is. (I believe ancient and tattered airman might have alluded to the same)
http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/tommy.html
And the point, for those who missed it. We oftentimes are too quick to criticize the unemployed, poorly-schooled young men who cannot find their niche in society, and yet given a chance they quickly become our heroes, just so long as we don’t have to deal with them.
As to the comments asking about the wimmin, the professional class of soldiers and snobbery, I despair, can we not praise one section of society without implying criticism of others? Or perhaps Percy is correct, all the very best were sacrificed, all that is left are quibblers and pen-pushers.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning.
We will remember them (All-I hope)
Thank you lads.
It is somewhat ironic that you describe those who have made sacrifices as “underclasses” – I accept that might not be your opinion of such people but the use of that word (anywhere) really rankles with me.
gladiolys…..I try not to torture the language, it is what it is. Family members who fought in the war would have been considered the working-class , they came from the East End of London, that’s not to say they did not have pride in themselves and would never wish to be considered upper-class.
Working-class obviously does not apply to the group, if you have a better generic description I would be happy to hear it.
I hope I conveyed my sincere gratitude to ALL who contributed to the downfall of tyranny.
As far as feminists are concerned the only things men are fit for are as ” cashpoints and cannon fodder.” Your excellent post reminded me of that quote.
It is so easy to sneer. Dont forget that most of the men sitting in fighters in the battle of britain were both educated and volunteers. And were patriots.
The russians did fight for patriotic reasons. Once the sophisticated socialists were removed from their command.
I doubt that any of you were actually there.
DaveK and Peter Thomas are, I suspect, missing a distinction, that is, the difference between the ‘civilians’ in the armed services who volunteered or were called up in both world wars, and the regular soldiers. Kipling’s ‘Tommy Atkins’, to whom Ms. Raccoon makes reference, was definitely in the latter group and I would say, based on 9 years in the infantry, that her generalisation was as accurate as you can be when trying to particularise one character from a huge group.
Also, may I try and dispel any notion that WWI was somehow not worth fighting. If France had fallen and the Germans had gained control of the Atlantic ports, and if Jellicoe had lost at Jutland, the German navy would have starved us into submission in a matter of months. The difference between Hitler’s Germany and the Kaiser’s Prussian Germany was minimal.
Poppies should now reflect all those who lost thier lives during world turmoil. Our brave british lads laid down their lives but also many German & Italian lads died , and had no chance— fight or be shot– they are victims as well. Even in Spain they had a terrible civil war, and many lost their lives in this.
Many Australian Candian, America South African, Indian lads died in WW2 and should be remebered
If you are looking at military casualties in both WWI and WWII, you should – without diminishing sympathy for Tommy Atkins – remember that the casualty rate among junior officers was significantly higher than for “other ranks”. It was estimated that the life expectancy for a second lieutenant in 1917 was THREE WEEKS.
Some of those above think only “other ranks were in the front line – I suggest that they go and read the War Memorials. Also, Percy, Churchill fought in three wars before entering Parliament and in WWI after doing so, Eden, MacMillan and Attlee served in WWI, so to pretend to define Churchill by WWII, Attlee by Korea, Eden by Suez is contemptible.
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