C'mon JB, don't make me fish out my French-English dictionary! It will be 11/11/2005 before I figure it out! Translation please.

My God, what a price your family paid!

Peter.

Let us indeed honor those who have fallen, but let us not blind ourselves to the horrors of war and the seductions of a too romantic view of death at arms:

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped 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.

Wilfred Owen

8 October 1917 - March, 1918

Pete,

The DAY OF the VICTOIRE
- Poem of Blaise Cendrars
In Paris The day of the Victoire when the soldiers return..
Everyone will want to see THEM
The sun will open early like a merchant of candy on a feast day
It will be springtime in the Woods of Boulogne or near Meudon
All the cars will be perfumed and the poor horses will eat flowers
At the windows the fatherless girls will all exhibit beautiful patriotic dresses.
Under the chestnut trees of the boulevards the photographers astride will poise their clicking eyes .
One will make circle around the movie operator who, better than a snake-eater will gulp down the historical procession
In the afternoon the casualties will hang their Medals on the Triumphal arch (l�Arc de triomphe, Paris monument under which is laying an anonymous soldier) and will return home without limping
In the evening the place de l�Etoile will fly up to the sky,
the Dome of the Invalides will sing over Paris like an immense bell of gold
And the thousand voices of the newspapers will acclaim the Marseillaise (the French anthemn).

Blaise Cendrars is a famous poet, born in Switzerland. He fought in the Legion Etrangere (like my grand-father) in the worst places (even along with the Brits in Galipoli) They have to attack during 5 years no end, leading the African troops who must fight at their best ASAP because they will die from cold and misery. They live more on booze than on bread. 95% of these Legion Etrangere boys were killed or maimed, even the generals died. Blaise Cendrars lost his right hand.
This Victory poem is atrociously caustic, bitter . He descripts a false joy, not speaking of 10% of a generation destroyed, 20% of the soldiers