Dulce et decorum est...

Ypres:1915

The age of Trumpets is passed, the banners hang
like dead crows, tattered and black,
rotting into nothingness on cathedral walls.
In the crypt of St. Paul's I had all the wrong thoughts,
wondered if there was anything left of Nelson
or Wellington, and even wished
I could pry open their tombs and look,
then was ashamed
of such morbid childishness and almost afraid.

I know the picture is as much of a forgery
as the Protocols of Zion, yet it outdistances
more plausible fictions: newsreels, regimental histories,
biographies of Earl Haig.
It is always morning
and the sky somehow manages to be red
though the picture
is in black and white.
There is a long road over flat country,
shell holes, the debris of houses,
a gun carriage overturned in a field,
the bodies of men and horses,
but only a few of them and those
always neat and distant.

The Moors are running
down the right side of the road.
The Moors are running
in their baggy pants and Santa Claus caps.
The Moors are running.
And their officers,
Frenchmen who remember
Alsace and Lorraine,
are running backwards in front of them,
waving their swords, trying to drive them back,
weeping
at the dishonor of it all.
The Moors are running.

And on the left side of the same road,
the Canadians are marching
in the opposite direction.

The Canadians are marching
in English uniforms behind
a piper playing "Scotland the Brave."

The Canadians are marching
in impeccable formation,
every man in step.

The Canadians are marching.

And I know this belongs
with Lord Kitchener's moustache
and old movies in which the Kaiser and his general staff
seem to run like the Keystone Cops.

That old man on television last night,
a farmer or fisherman by the sound of him,
revisiting Vimy Ridge, and they asked him
what it was like, and he said,
There was water up to our middle, yes
and there was rats, and yes
there was water up to our middles
and rats, all right enough
and to tell the truth
after the first three or four days
I started to get a little disgusted.

Oh, I know they were mercenaries
in a war that hardly concerned us.
I know all that.

Sometimes I'm not even sure that I have a country.

But I know that they stood there at Ypres
the first time the Germans used gas,
that they were almost the only troops
in that section of the front
who did not break and run,
who held the line.

Perhaps they were too scared to run.
Perhaps they didn't know any better.
--that is possible, they were so innocent,
those farmboys and mechanics, you have to only look
at old pictures and see how they smiled.
Perhaps they were too shy
to walk out on anybody, even Death.
Perhaps their only motivation
was a stubborn disinclination.

Private MacNally thinking:
You squarehead sons of bitches,
you want this God damn trench
you're going to have to take it away
from Billy MacNally
of the South end of St. John, New Brunswick

And that's ridiculous, too, and nothing
on which to found a country.
Still
It makes me feel good, knowing
that in some obscure, conclusive way
they were connected with me
and me with them.

-Alden Nowlan


Different war, similar feelings.

I find myself sitting in an office in China on this 90th anniversary of the Armistice, within 50 miles of Hong Kong Island. In the next war (after the Great one) my Great Uncle, Eddy Arseneau, was stationed with the Winnipeg Grenadiers to protect the Empire's "Pearl of the Orient." A late thirties Acadian, he'd been too young to sign up for the Great War, and had to lie about his age to be selected this time, too. By the time of this war he was too old, by army standards.

Found this little bit in a diary online. "Old Ed Arseneau went out to work today for the first time since the crash in the other camp." The man who wrote it was 34 at the time.

In October of 1941, his battalion left Winnipeg and headed for the Far East. On November 16th, they arrived in Hong Kong harbour. On December 8th, the Japanese attacked. By Christmas Day it was obvious to all that holding out any longer was an exercise in futility. After 39 days in theatre and 17 days under siege, 300 Canadians were dead and Eddy was a prisoner of the Japanese Imperial Army. He was eventually moved from Hong Kong to Japan, and was released sometime in late August of 1945.

I've seen the photo of him, taken on the day of his release. He was a skeleton of a man with sunken eyes and a ragged beard. There was no sign of joy on his face, no relief at his liberation. Weariness was all he showed.

Foolishness. A middle-aged Acadian defending an out-port of a dying empire that had committed an act of near genocide against his own cultural group. Under-trained and under-supplied, half way around the world from his family and home. This was patriotism? This was glorious? I don't buy it.

But still...

I can't get past Nowlan's words. "It makes me feel good, knowing that in some obscure, conclusive way [he was] connected with me and me with [him]."

For Eddy, and my other Great Uncles Ralph, Hubert, and Don, and my Uncles, Benedict, Henry, Lawrence, Crumley, Clinton and Seamen, my friends, Darin, Travis, JF, and all the others, take a visit to a cenotaph today, either physically or in your mind. No need for judgement. Just go. And remember.