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Notes -
This is one of my favorite poems. I like and admire the aesthetic of these men, who sacrificed so much for so little. In the end it is one of the reasons why I like the Hock and believe in its transformative power: the Hock, freely and willingly chosen, purges weakness from the soul. Sometimes the body dies, too much weakness entrapped within it. Everyone chooses their own Hock - or not.
Hock my balls.
If you really believed these men were noble, you would listen when they told you that you were buying in to a lie. Really listen, instead of mining their words for what you already believed.
They may well be some overlap between “necessary” and “dulce et decorum”. Trench warfare ain’t it.
It is meaningless. These men believed that what they were doing was glorious, but instead they got ground into paste in the trenches for a few inches of mud. I contend that freely and willingly entering this Hell is itself noble, admirable, pointless, and perhaps idiotic.
What about the soldiers who were drafted?
As I understand it people were quite enthusiastic about it for the most part. Draftees that were ambivalent or worse were just unfortunate people in a terrible situation. The Hock is best if done willingly and freely.
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