Wars Go Through Three Phases

It seems that all the wars that involved the United States after 1945 have gone through three phases:

• “Shock and Awe” and Waving the Flag and Glorifying the Power of Our Armaments.
• Disenchantment sets in as the carnage continues apace and our boys start coming home in body bags. This is the longest stage of the military engagement.
• The end where we just walk away call call the mess we have created a Glorious Victory. Followed by recriminations that last as long as the war.

Here is a poem from Lord Dunsany of Ireland, who fought on the British side in the Boer War and the First World War. He is better known as the author of such great fantasy novels as The King of Elfland’s Daughter and The Curse of the Wise Woman—not to mention scores of great short stories.

A Dirge of Victory (Sonnet)

Lift not thy trumpet, Victory, to the sky,
Nor through battalions nor by batteries blow,
But over hollows full of old wire go,
Where among dregs of war the long-dead lie
With wasted iron that the guns passed by.
When they went eastwards like a tide at flow;
There blow thy trumpet that the dead may know,
Who waited for thy coming, Victory.

It is not we that have deserved thy wreath,
They waited there among the towering weeds.
The deep mud burned under the thermite’s breath,
And winter cracked the bones that no man heeds:
Hundreds of nights flamed by: the seasons passed.
And thou last come to them at last, at last!