Rememberance Day poem

For the old men gathered at the cenotaph,
let us pray: These,
when they were hardly more than boys, stood
when the country said stand. Did
what the country said do. Did
what the country cannot name, now --
When they were hardly more than boys, these
set fire to cities.

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This is a not very good jotting of a poem. But to those writing to me about it: it's not critical of soldiers, but of war. Anyone who has read my World War II book Ghost Maps should know I don't make wholesale attacks on soldiers or veterans.