"Feel free to post any poetry you like"
Thank you, FEBA. I am not a 'military colleague' but my family lost members in WW2 and WW1 (grandfather KIA first day, first Battle of Somme). So...
Anthem for Doomed Youth
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
-Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
Wilfred Owen
A great poet, himself KIA a few days from the armistice of 1918. These words of his pull tears from my eyes as surely as the BoBMF's Merlins echoing into a darkening sky over Croydon airport or Kenley at their annual tribute.