In Profound Gratitude to Our Vets

(and with utmost scorn for the damp-handed, brutal, draft-dodging and flabby cowards in our halls of state who shovel them around like concrete, subject them to death, torment and immense strain on their families in our ruling class’ wars of empire and commerce, and then abandon a million of them to joblessness when they finally get home after multiple exhausting tours of duty):

Elegy in a Country Churchyard

THE men that worked for England
They have their graves at home:
And birds and bees of England
About the cross can roam.

But they that fought for England,
Following a falling star,
Alas, alas for England
They have their graves afar.

And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England
They have no graves as yet.
– G.K. Chesterton