The war to end all wars

[altariel]

kathyh's post marks the 90th anniversary of Britain's entry into World War I. Four veterans laid wreaths at the Cenotaph this morning.

My uncle Francis (yes, my dad's brother) came home shellshocked from the trenches. I don't know details of his service record. He died in the 1940s from drink. A story is told on my mother's side of the family that one of my great-uncles side was conscripted and deserted, going back to Ireland.



There are some extraordinary pieces written by Tolkien fanwriters responding to Tolkien's own experience in the trenches:

Captain Tinkerbell by maelipstick

Chance's Strange Arithmetic by ithilwen


***

But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns,
That they should be as stones.
Wretched are they, and mean
With paucity that never was simplicity.
By choice they made themselves immune
To pity and whatever moans in man
Before the last sea and the hapless stars;
Whatever mourns when many leave these shores;
Whatever shares
The eternal reciprocity of tears.

Wilfred Owen, Insensibility