What they thought they sought
was glory; what they wanted was
to come home to proud parades,
to hold again old girlfriends,
rekindle the romance they’d left.
What they found was only gore
and mud in screaming trenches,
fires they truly hated setting, and
children like themselves, armed,
aiming at them across no-man’s-land.
It didn’t take them very long. Before
one flag came down and another rose,
and long before the guns ceased fire,
everyone knew the inevitable truth:
only peace is glorious.
—————[|||]—————
Poets United
———[||]———
Scrambled, Not Fried 
Yes. Only peace is glorious.
But there are the liars who say that the only way to peace is to make war…
You expressed this so well. I often think of how shocked young men must be to find themselves in the madness of war. As a species, we should be more evolved than we are.
Yes. If only we didn’t dishonestly glorify war. Your last line is pure truth.
An easy (if dishonest) sell?
Yes, the emotions and psychology of glory guide us down one path, and politics and history show us another. The truth is often smothered in PR spin even before it was called PR or spin.
How true, we must never trust anyone that believes in war as a solution to a countries problems.
If only another generation would learn from this one’s revelations. When the hype fails, what all solders fight for is survival. Good poem.
This poem evoked the words of Wilfred Owen who died shell shocked in the WW1. Politicos will never understand that only peace is glorious.
A thoughtful poem. Very well written
This is so true. The elusive peace we never seem to hold on to.