Thanks Dad, thanks Grandpop, thanks Uncle(s) Bud, Nicolas, Jim, Ray, thanks
cousin(s) Bill, Dwight.
Thanks to all my ancestor-soldiers, for being there from the beginning, and
staking out our own little piece of this insanity.
Thanks for telling Europe's nobility to bugger off. Thanks for trying to set
things right with the slaves even though you weren't slave owners. Thanks
for making us proud everytime America, right or wrong, placed the burden on
you.
And thanks again to you Dad, for making me understand when I was 18, that if
I was chosen to go to Viet Nam that I would be fighting for my family's
piece of America, and not for all the assholes who don't deserve to be here.
And finally, thanks to you West Point, for dangling the words 'Dulce et
Decorum est Pro Patria Mori' in my face and then turning me away for a heart
murmur.
Scout

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock--kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through the 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, bood-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 say with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
- Wilfred Owen