I'd say - 'I used to know his father well; Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap.' And when the war is done and youth stone dead I'd toddle safely home and die - in bed.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- A soldier reflects on the heavy loss of youth in war and imagines a quiet, ordinary death at home.
- In plain terms
- War kills young people, and surviving feels like a rare luck.
- What can you take from it?
- Recognize the personal cost of war on individual lives and families.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What does survival mean in war?
- How do we honor the lost?
Another view
Some may view survival as a duty to continue fighting rather than retiring home.
More from Siegfried Sassoon
If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath, I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base, And speed glum heroes up the line of death.
Permalink to quote #7 You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you'll never know The hell where youth and laughter go.
Permalink to quote #9 Who will remember, passing through this Gate, The unheroic Dead who fed the guns? Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate, - Those doomed, conscripted, un…
Permalink to quote #10
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