The Ironist

Differing Perspectives

Forgotten Horror is a Sin

The Real Cost of War

Lindsey Graham, U.S. Senator, May 29th, 2023: “the best money we’ve ever spent is killing.”

My father’s Combat Report, after responding to a raid on Teignmouth, England, in which six were killed, many injured, and 183 homes and a school were destroyed.

„Absturz in See,“ the note said, “ditched in the sea“.

Someone wanted the truth to be told,

For the record to be correct.

Posterity matters, he said.

Someone, in handschrift,

Crossed out the German Military Archive,

Writing, firmly, it came down

“West of Cherbourg“.

Sure, it mattered to his family, his squadron.

It mattered to those who buried the

Stinking, burned bodies,

Recovered from the sea.

Most of all, it still matters,

For those who can think

Of the cost of that grave

At quiet La Cambe.

Today, who knows the damage of a de Wilde shell?

Who can grasp the panic of death?

Who knows the lifelong pain of the wife and her baby,

Widowed that day?

Forgotten horror is a sin.

Yet the sly merchant with malignant pleasure goads

Their loud, slobbering agents‘ claims and goals,

Glorying in their empty boasts,

„It’s fun to maim! Let’s kill some more!“

They are a type; you know them well.

They hound you, lying to start wars,

Relishing accolades,

Seeking money, fame, anything – just to kill.

And how different they are,

To that nameless scribe,

Crossing out incorrect words

Of some regimental hack, far from the battle scene.

Money was not an issue,

Fame was not a concern,

Truth mattered –

The record should be straight.

To remember

The cold bodies who fought

And found, too soon, the real

Cost of war.

An extract of the German Military Archive record RL2 III1184 showing the corrected death of the pilot my father killed

Contributed by Nigel Scotchmer

Author

  • Nigel Scotchmer

    Nigel’s peripatetic path in life gives him, he believes, a unique perspective on the world around him. He has worked at many occupations over the years from driving a truck, writing welding standards, to being an international salesman,\ accountant and business owner. Brought up in a family that believed that Antigone in the Greek myth was correct to stand up and die for her belief that fairness and truth were more important than the ranting raves of the unthinking mob – his father accepted the consequences of refusing to fire a homosexual in the 1950s – Nigel believes irony is the greatest tool for both encouraging equity and our enjoyment of life. Since irony involves the interplay between emotions, reality and chance, its appreciation can provide meaning to the often inexplicable world in which we live. He said, when interviewed for this summary: “No, we can’t all be heroes, and too often we make the wrong choice, for the wrong reasons – but at least irony can bring peace to us by helping reconcile the warring elements.”

    Nigel loves literature – especially books and poems that deal with universal themes such as love, war, and justice – and is now happily retired from the world of business. Ironically, (like countless retirees before him!), he says he has the ambition to be a great writer and is currently writing fiction full-time….

    Visit him at https://nigelscotchmer.com/

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