In the trenches of the first world war, the slaughter of
young men was unbelievably large. Young men with almost no training were sent to the
trenches and ordered to charge at the enemy's machine-guns. They were gunned down again
and again and again.
In the last 9 years of war in Iraq and
Afghanistan more than 5000 American soldiers have died. But on ONE DAY at the battle of
the Somme (In France), over 60,000 soldiers were killed (and this mad killing went on
for years)
So your quote is suggesting that the men who are
being sent to the front are all the same... doomed, lost and they will die for nothing
in their millions. They are all the same; merely fodder for the ever-hungry
guns.
Anthem for Doomed
Youth
What passing-bells for
these who die as cattle?
Only the monstous anger of the guns.
Only
the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of
mourning save the choirs,--
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles
may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of the boys, but in their
eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of
girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient
minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of
blinds.
by Wilfred Owen (who
was killed a few days before the end of the war)
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