Welcome My Brave Friend the Great War

Hi my friend and welcome to my house take my hand you are now in heaven, Away from flooded trenches the years of sodden clothes you always wore, Eating tins of rat infested meat, maggots sharing your food your life, Tell me my friend how did you cope with the shells all day every day. You helped a young sixteen year old who took the kings shilling early, To him war was romantic he felt good when he wore the kings uniform, You were there and you helped him as he begged to go home to run away, You gave him some of your steel my friend you protected and taught him. The whistle went you climbed the ladder stood in no-mans land you waited, On a sea of thick and cloying mud that was once a fragrant colored meadow, You ran in front of him to take the first bullet the boy owed you his life, And when he fell you knelt by his side he wanted you to be his real father. In the torn fields you hated your trenches as much as any man yet you cared, I don't think anybody has seen so many men die before it was the war of wars, Fear makes men evil taking them to a level of darkness they have never known, There is always one that stands high above all and you my friend are that one.