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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=460437" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>0015 Aftermath of War</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Within themselves, they hold<br>more than any man or woman should be asked to hold; <br>they are the unsung heroes of the peace <br>which clutches at the coat-tails of a war; <br>and we can never truly know them; <br>only offer them love, support, respect…</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My first school had been an officers’ recuperation hospital<br>or final hospice for the wounded – in their body or their mind -<br>in the 1914-18 war; now<br>the dignified head doctor of few words<br>and his beautifully-mannered, voluptuous<br>ex-head-nurse wife<br>had made of it an ideal, loving school<br>for the new children of a new era after<br>‘the war to end all wars’…<br>The last resting place of warriors with screaming silent minds<br>who could not recuperate or<br>who found death so much more peaceful than their life<br>became, first the art room, <br>then the chapel: death, art, God and life<br>all together in one room.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My second school had as its teaching staff<br>several ex-officers who had chosen to shroud their memories<br>in teaching that new generation; but ironically, <br>were asked to run the cadet force which was<br>intended to preserve that lovely peace..<br>the sergeant-major who taught us PT and defensive war<br>had a face that was a repulsive souvenir –<br>like camouflage – brown, red, livid white, <br>almost the yellow-green of mustard gas<br>that had painted war upon him; <br>though he saved his lungs…<br>fine, stern, stiff-upper-lip teachers<br>shrouding their memories, until<br>some pupil tested them too far –<br>then their anger spilled, their canes and swagger-sticks<br>fiercely wielded, were memories for those (not us) who knew, <br>of discipline that might shoot at dawn<br>for the sake of lives then saved at dusk…<br>today, they’d be hauled into court for passing on 'abuse'; <br>we were taught by heroes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My third school gave me a housemaster, <br>another unsung, unsinging hero, a confirmed bachelor<br>so we thought, who likewise buried unknown memories<br>in devoted teaching; few clues except<br>the same occasional, devastating temper when aroused; <br>in his modest study, a few small<br>muzzy photos in silver frames, of comrades – dead or alive? <br>or did it matter? In his late fifties or even early sixties, <br>some inner torment of his memories transcended, <br>he surprised us all by marrying happily and producing <br>a large family. And once again, we had little clue<br>about the war he fought; or whether the nights<br>brought him tormented dreams…</div><div style="margin:10px 0">We were taught by heroes who were asked to hold<br>more than any man or woman should be asked to hold: <br>do we wish – or should we wish –<br>that we knew then what we guess now? <br>They, teaching us from all their memories of hideous war, <br>how to grow up in peace; only to see<br>a generation of those same boys and girls<br>demanded by another war..</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Autumn again; brown leaves fall like green lives; <br>soon, November mists and poppies<br>red as blood, red as children’s blood<br>from a terrible union, of heroism and futility<br>called war.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Michael+Shepherd">Michael Shepherd</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=460437" data-title="0015 Aftermath of War de Michael Shepherd" data-description="Within themselves, they hold
more than any man or woman should be asked to hold; 
they are the unsung heroes of the peace 
which clutches at the coat-tails of a war; 
and we can never truly know them; 
only offer them love, support, respect…

My..."></div>
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