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Off To War

He’d never ventured further than the next town,
He didn’t know what overseas did mean,
But wanted to be there for King and Country,
The biggest fight the world had ever seen.
He hadn’t anything against the Germans,
He didn’t know where Germany did sit,
But when he saw the sign “your country needs you”
With bravery he had to do his bit.
His mates weren’t sure that he had done the right thing,
Though thought him brave to go and volunteer,
They didn’t follow him to sign the papers,
Their loyalty replaced by abject fear.
The first day he lined up with all the others,
Most of them were nineteen years or less,
He didn’t know that he’d become remembered,
As just part of a sad and bloody mess.
He quickly learned he had to follow orders,
He couldn’t question any bad decision,
To win the war the orders had a purpose,
And had to be followed with tight precision.
At home he had his mates and had a sweetheart,
Now in the fields he was part of a pack,
They waved him off with wishes and some tears,
Not knowing that he’d not be coming back.
He followed every order to the letter,
Obedience as taught,  his was so blind,
And when he crossed the field as was instructed,
He didn’t know it was one that was mined.
Explosion happened suddenly but quickly,
He didn’t suffer any lasting pain,
But he and two of his new comrade soldiers,
Would never fight or even breathe again.
The day before he gave his life for freedom,
He’d penned a letter to his girl back home,
He didn’t say much, he was not a writer,
So it was only just a tiny tome.
It said “if anything should happen to me,
I want you to be happy, I am sure,
I love you but I had to do my duty,
But there must never be another war”.
Of course she cried her eyes out when she read it,
The telegram arriving with her first,
She wiped her eyes and felt her heart in pieces,
She told her mum this awful war was cursed.
In two years time when she heard on the radio,
The war was over and at last we’d won,
She told her mum the victory was hollow,
Her life was over ‘fore it had begun.
Each year with pride she wore her poppy proudly,
Thought only of her love who was so brave,
The epitaph to those who never came back,
Too young to be sent to their early grave.
The memory had never ever left her,
She never loved again throughout her life,
The final words she’d read in that short letter,
Were “if I come back, will you be my wife?”

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