Did you enjoy this article? Be sure to like my Facebook Page, Patrick Carpen, for more!
For thousands of years, the elite used psychological tactics to encourage people to engage in warfare. Those killed in battle were called heroes on both sides of the war. Those who refused to fight were scoffed at as weak and cowardly. Warfare was glorified through literature, oral traditions, and film.
Because they profit from it, a handful of political leaders have, throughout history, used subtle psychological tactics to fan the flames of conflict by glorifying war. However, those who experience the horrors of war firsthand have a different, more painful, and more realistic story to tell. The poem, “Dulce et Decorum Est” is good example of the bitter reality of war played out against the backdrop of fallacious propaganda.
Editor’s Note: “Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori” is Latin for “it is sweet and proper to die for one’s country.”
Dulce et Decorum Est
BY WILFRED OWEN
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 gas-shells dropping softly 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 a 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.
