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Please excuse the all capitals
ITS CHRISTMAS DAY ALL IS SECURE
TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS HE LIVED ALL ALONE.
IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE MADE OF PLASTER AND STONE.
I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE.
AND TO SEE JUST WHO IN THIS HOME DID LIVE.
I LOOKED ALL ABOUT A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE.
NO TINSEL NO PRESENTS NOT EVEN A TREE.
NO STOCKING BY THE MANTLE JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND.
ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES OF FAR DISTANT LANDS.
WITH MEDALS AND BADGES AWARDS OF ALL KINDS.
A SOBER THOUGHT CAME THROUGH MY MIND.
FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT IT WAS DARK AND DREARY.
I FOUND THE HOME OF A SOLDIER ONCE I COULD SEE CLEARLY.
THE SOLDIER LAY SLEEPING SILENT ALONE.
CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.
THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE THE ROOM IN SUCH DISORDER.
NOT HOW I PICTURED A LONE BRITISH SOLDIER.
WAS THIS THE HERO OF WHOM I'D JUST READ?
CURLED UP ON A PONCHO THE FLOOR FOR A BED.
I REALISED THE FAMILIES THAT I SAW THIS NIGHT
OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE SOLDIERS WHO WERE WILLING TO FIGHT
SOON ROUND THE WORLD THE CHILDREN WOULD PLAY.
AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE A BRIGHT CHRISTMAS DAY.
THEY ALL ENJOY FREEDOM EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR.
BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE.
I COULDN'T HELP WONDER HOW MANY ALONE.
ON A COLD CHRISTMAS EVE IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.
THE VERY THOUGH BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE.
I DROPPED TO MY KNEES AND STARTED TO CRY.
THE SOLDIER AWAKENED AND I HEARD A ROUGH VOICE.
'SANTA DON'T CRY THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE.
I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM I DON'T ASK FOR MORE.
MY LIFE IS MY GOD, MY COUNTRY. MY CORPS'.
THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER AND DRIFTED TO SLEEP.
I COULDN'T CONTROL IT I CONTINUED TO WEEP.
I KEPT WATCH FOR HOURS SO SILENT AND STILL.
AND WE BOTH SAT AND SHIVERED FROM THE COLD NIGHTS CHILL.
I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE ON THAT COLD DARK NIGHT.
THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOUR SO WILLING TO FIGHT.
THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER WITH A VOICE SOFT AND PURE.
WHISPERED 'CARRY ON SANTA ITS CHRISTMAS DAY ALL IS SECURE'.
ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH AND I KNEW HE WAS RIGHT.
'MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIEND AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT'.
THIS POEM WAS WRITTEN BY A PEACE KEEPING SOLDIER STATIONED OVERSEAS
THE FOLLOWING IS HIS REQUEST. I THINK IT IS REASONABLE.
PLEASE WOULD YOU DO ME THE KIND FAVOUR OF SENDING THIS TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN
CHRISTMAS WILL BE COMING SOON AND SOME CREDIT IS DUE TO OUR BRITISH SERVICE MEN AND WOMEN FOR OUR BEING ABLE TO CELEBRATE THESE FESTIVITIES.
LETS TRY IN THIS SMALL WAY TO PAY A TINY BIT BACK OF WHAT WE OWE!
The thing is: whatever my qualms about the Bush administration, and its foreign policy misadventures, I would never deny that soldiers have a rotten time of it just doing their duty. Or that they're under-appreciated back home. My Dad was from an army family, after all, I have immense respect for the service he and others in his family gave their country.
But there's no way I would forward this to ANYONE. It's quite simply ghastly. It's trite, over-sentimentalised, the rhymes are awful and the sentences are twisted up as if Yoda was saying them. And that awful line - "my life is God, my country, my corps" - has sinister echoes of the whole "My Country, Right or Wrong" crap that I thought was discredited in the west years ago. Not to mention a very Bush-like (and very un-Jesus-like) invocation of Christianity as some kind of justification of being overseas fighting.
Please don't be taken in by this rubbish. *ANY* email which arrives with the message "Please forward this to everyone you know" is designed purely to generate so much internet traffic it brings the whole thing to a halt. Especially if it's all in capitals. You know the technical name for it? Mailbombing. Ironic, huh?
Agaean (and others who've posted): I'm sorry, but as an aspiring poet I find it quite offensive to see this sort of doggerel lauded as a "very good poem". It's a bloody ghastly "poem". I could write an essay on all the faults in its structure and execution, without even getting started on the propaganda value.
And this poem is dreadful, truly truly dreadful.
I take your remarks as quite offensive as I received that from my ex son in law who is a staff sergeant in the BRITISH Army presently serving in Cyprus. Ex son in law he may be but that does not matter a jot to me.
It is people like you who demoralise those that need reassurance the most so please keep those hurtful remarks to yourselves
It is not the content of the poem that matters it is the meaning behind it, not everyone is born a poet or writer for that matter, I feel quite sure that you also had to learn. I take it you also believe that the poems coming from the trenches of the 1st world war and the concentration camps of the 2nd are also rubbish.
For your information as an ex serviceman myself and like every other soldier - past and present - I also loath wars of any size
I think I had better stop here before I lose it all together.
For this reason my contact with this forum is now at an end.
People have different opinions and I personally learn more and THINK more when confronted with views which oppose my own. Can you really validate your own opinions without seeking to challenge them? I dread to think of how you deal with rejection.
You cannot make an ommlette without breaking eggs, but no-one can force me to eat it.
And Hickey I can take critism from anyone at any level, for any reason. I wouldn't be here today if I couldn't
As for those of you who decry the efforts made by our serving troops purely on the basis that they are not conscripts. Shame on you. They dislike war as much as the rest of us but the work they do should not be condemned purely because they chose a military life against serving on a counter in Woolies. Every serving soldier, sailor, air-person, should command our respect for the work that they do, that perhaps they don't want to do, but they do it without too much complaint. Yess they complain about the lack of kit but that's fair enough. None of you would moan about the men who fought in the World Wars the way you are complaining now, and may I remind you that not every soldier in WW2 was conscripted.
I hate the fact that young people are losing their lives in wars they should not be fighting. I hate the fact that those young people are not being given the recognition they deserve. I hate the fact that the injured are given p*ss-poor treatment. I hate the fact that the Joe public don't give a damn. Remind you of anything? Try Vietnam and shut up!!
And, FYI, my first husband was a City of London Fusilier, a proud regiment with a proud history. I know army, too. I also know some people glory in war, which is why they become mercenaries when they leave. Do not blind yourself to the fact that some do enjoy war, the thrill of battle, the adrenaline rush, the comradeship, the risks. It's a knife edge life they appreciate. Why else would anyone enrol in the Army? They can't all be pen pushers. And I am not impressed that the poem came from a BRITISH soldier. Soldiers are soldiers, whether they are Cuban, Russian, Afghans or anyone else. Just don't start mail bombs, please, or this system we all rely on so much will come to a grinding halt and then no amount of soldiery will rescue the world from a massive unbelievable recession, the likes of which we cannot visualise. Just think for one moment of the amount of people making a living from this fragile thing called the Internet!
And remember that some of us know Army and we all know what we owe our soldiers, it is presumptuous to say we denigrate their efforts.
One last thought, could you not - after all - leave us? If that's right, then do stay!
I just get so inscensed with any criticism of all those fighting wars they do not want. Now as for leaving, no I won't as I find this forum very helpful, and sometimes a friendly bunch. I was just so annoyed.
To support coopers reply I also joined the army as I was fed-up of being in and out of work etc, I didn't join to defend - as they say - 'Queen and Country' I joined to get myself out of a rut, you don't think about wars of any kind when in that situation.
As Cooper says. No soldier whether conscript or volunteer, or difference in nationality wants to go to war for simply satisfying the useless idiots in power, I can't put it any stronger than you cooper.
Also dorothyd I agree there are those who get a high on inflicting pain and suffering on others to the point of death. I won't put here what I would like to happen to them, I will leave that to yours and others imagination.
On a final note I also hate mail bombs as I totally agree they can be nasty in all ways including to the point of a bullyish nature
ps
On a lighter note
if a person, certainly British goes to join any branch of the forces, in mine and coopers case the army.
They ask you why you want to join, If you said that you want to defend queen and country they would have shown you the door, as it shows them you have - for want of a phrase - 'A Gungho attitude' which is not only a danger to yourself but to those around you. Yes you are expected to do just that but what they wanted to know was what you wanted to do as trade that would be useful to them and you.
dorothyd I do respect yours and everyones opinion despite what you may think of me
I appreciate your last post and understand your sentiment. We would miss you if you left. Please don't!
dorothyd I do respect yours and everyones opinion despite what you may think of me"
I don't think it was you that was being criticised so much as the poem. Compered with some of the trivia posted to this site from time to time, the drift of the poem, despite its lack of what might be seen as 'proper poetry' did actually make a point. Capital letters (apart from suggesting SHOUTING in some message boards are, in this instance, neither here nor there.
My own poppy-wearing view is that it is bad poetry and incomparable to the war poetry of Wilfred Owen et al, which was good poetry on the same subject.
Yes, I keep going back to history. This I do because we need to remember that since time immemorial men have fought and men have died. Men have gone to war and men have returned, wounded, damaged, incapable. Nothing Has Changed. Nothing Ever Will. And Santa will bring little comfort to those who return so maimed and scarred. We do our bit in remembering, through support of charities and remembrance days. I do my bit, one of the things I did last Remembrance Sunday was send a soldier to the light, he had been trapped here.
Spiritualism mixed with modern thought, mixed with history.
And Neil is right, we were criticising the dreadful poem and the fact you asked us to send it on. We were not criticising YOU. It's like being rejected, it's the work, not you.
I'm Trying, there was no criticism of you intended, nor any disrespect for our armed forces. I know they are serving in an awful environment, ill equipped and with precious little public support for what they're doing. I also believe that, regardless of the underlying politics, what they are doing just now in Iraq and Afghanistan is trying to rebuild shattered nations and give people some foundation of stability. Just as they've done recently in the Balkans, in Sierra Leone, etc. That work will always have my respect.
So no offence was intended to your son-in-law or those he's serving with.
I hope I can make that much clear.