Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC

Although the story in Gift hasn't got anywhere near this point yet, there is theme in it that I felt I had to share.
Whilst at Secondary School in Macclesfield, in History, one of the Subjects we studied was the First World War. Some thing that has almost fascinated me for a long time. It was a war that was a turning point for mankind, where battles were fought by machines at the cost of millions of human lives. But the commanders still thought in human terms, not in mechanical terms, and seemed to think that the more men you threw at an objective, the more likely you were to gain that objective.


I was reminded of the sheer pointlessness of WWI in a BBC Timewatch program, simply titled "The Last Day of World War One", BBC iPlayer , where, despite the armistice having been signed at 5:10 in the morning, it didn't come in effect for another 6 hours, and almost 1000 more lives were lost to the war that day.


One of the points of Gift is to show just how pointless war can be. Some wars can have a very good reason, to protect the general population, or the over all security of an area. But WWI was totally pointless, and ultimately gave rise to WWII.


Wilfred Edward Salter Owen is one of a handful of men that wrote poetry of the horrific scenes in battle, and I thought I would share with you one of his poems today, one that has quite close links to the main themes of Gift.


S.

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

"Dulce et Decorum Est "

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! -- An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under I green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.