Arm Everyone This Way

. in regards to the title, not really... this is a descriptive poem, I am against this in practice .

Do not take yourself so seriously,
Do take what you do very seriously.

Indeed

Arm everyone this way...

Then make way for an army
Of the seriously unserious,

At the ready, beyond themselves.

To come home victorious in glory
From a campaign of very clever bloodshed.

Remorseless and honored.

In the vain of a great warrior-legend...

Or very dead and venerated,
Dragged home on a bloody battle shield
With even greater honor.

The greatest honor.

For that one is true fulfillment, the ultimate,
An honor beyond the self...
Honored among gods
Is the one who gave all for something more,
For something he could never see,
But always knew was there.

(the Spartans are f*****g retarded to me)

Reviews

[olla]

this really deserves a comment.. it is very well written.. we see it in every culture.. the idea that it is somehow glorious to sacrifice ones self for the greater good.. and we have to believe it is so or we could not send our sons to war.. even under the guise of peacekeeping....

[Davidgeo]

A lot of the old Spartan ideology is grossly inaccurate, that whole war culture story line was romanticized and exaggerated by historians. Surprisingly, the only surviving accounts from the time come from non-Spartans who idealized them in their writings for dramatic affect. There's even a term for it, it's called Laconophilia. Except Aristotle... he did not like the Spartans, at all... in the book "Politics" he had mostly bad things to say about them. Also, I think it's quite telling that Sparta as it was known fell around 200 AD while Athens has continued to survive to this day. Once the Spartans lost a few battles it all fell to pieces... Athens was conquered more than once but always survived in spite of that. On a side note, "peacekeeping missions" do not mean what civilians think it means to military personal... we always expect conflict, a simple presence of force as a deterrent doesn't work at all like it used to.

[olla]

well.. I will have to do a bit of research.. I like that.. but you are right about Sparta and Athens.. and I find that there are many things that are very different from civilian to military.. I am grateful to have been raised in the USA.. a gift from those who secured that home for me.. I do try to understand my ignorance of such things and to be open to edification..