The war to end all wars ended exactly one hundred years ago

That war failed in its objective of making war and bloodletting obsolete

Just like the bow and arrow is now outdated war was meant to be

The renderings of battle and conflict consigned to the history books

When children ask their parents: WHAT WAS WAR?

 

The answer should have started thus: Well child...

But that scenario never happened because war is still with us

The old soldiers never grew old and their memory lives on

As their great grandchildren prime their guns and prepare for battle

Places like the Somme, Ypres, Verdun. Paschendale and Flanders are here

 

Inside the souls of the Tommie, the Poilu, the Hun and more

Poppies commemorating the sacrifice and everlasting memory

Worn with pride by people like myself and my kin and my friends and family

Yet in places like Afghan and Syria and Iraq and Ukraine men fight and die

Death and destruction still rule the battlefield by blast and bullet

 

Weapons have advanced like smart bombs, jet fighters and missiles

Being a millennia on from biplanes, barbed wire and horses

Each soldier and each fight is mirrored thru history by another

Wars and battles complement one another in their ferocity and aim

Enemies must be defeated and military objectives achieved

 

Only the year and location changes while the soldier’s names fade away

To become unknown soldiers in our collective hearts and minds

Passing over before their time and entering the history books

Some are a footnote, others in heroic battles and a few forsaken

Every generation since the Great War owes it to the past to make peace

 

And keep hold of that peace forever more and spike the guns and grenades

So our world knows peace and harmony in an eternal Peace Dividend

The Military Industrial Complex being used for something better

Future warriors being out of work and doing new jobs

Think of the past and that awful Great War and what we can do now

 

Turn our world around and remember the sacrifice and cost of Total industrial war

Let no more warriors die in no more wars except in books, games and films

Remember our great fallen warriors and be humbly grateful and act their deed

Universally advancing world peace and making war obsolete forever