We’ve been looking for the enemy for several days now, we’ve finally found them. We’re surrounded. That simplifies our problem of getting to these people and killing them.
Attributed to Colonel Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller during the Chosin Reservoir campaign in Korea, November 1950.
Sonnet for 1950
Sonnet
by John Buxton
I saw men’s homes burst into sudden flower
. . Of crimson petals round each golden shell.
. . I listened to the whining bombs that fell
And felt the hard earth tremble at their power.
I saw bewildered eyes that hour by hour
. . Had peered through the rifle sights. I heard men tell
. . How many rounds they fired. I learned the smell
Of cattle burning in the byres is sour.
So much war taught me. And, when I return,
. . Because I did not cower nor shirk the fight,
. . But took a little part in this mad play,
Because I too have helped to kill, wreak, burn —
“You did your duty, helped defend the right,
. . You too were brave,” some poor, blind fool will say.
Fourteen Lines 
Buxton seems to be an example of a WWII poet capable of writing the kind of WWI “from the front lines” poems I wondered about in a recent post.
LikeLike