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To Good Guys Dead

They sucked us in;
King and country,
Christ Almighty
And the rest.
Patriotism,
Democracy,
Honor—
Words and phrases,
They either bitched or killed us.

Notes

In line 2 Hemmingway is referring to no specific king but is, in fact, using a rallying cry from the British Army which was used for centuries (allegedly).
For example at the start of a cavalry charge against the enemy an officer (often a nobleman) might yell "For King and Country" to encourage his soldiers to fight. This goes back to the days when the monarch took a more dominant part in ruling the country than HM Queen Elizabeth does now.
The other phrases are similar rallying cries which are meaningless echoes of past days and he is using them to illustrate all the stupid reasons people give for wars and in doing so is trying to denegrate war itself.
Jim S

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Comments

1 - 6 of 6

  • October 25, 2007
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    how poignantly true in today's supposedly short incursions into Iraq and Afghanistan

    From guest Artis (contact)
    the entire country got sucked into the maw of a terrorist screams, and in seeking to silence it, lost far too many of the young boys of tomorrow, blown into oblivion. A bush war in the desert, meant to remove one murderer, but instead creating many more. Peace to you and yours Ernestly.

  • Catressa
    April 27, 2007
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    god I don't think I've ever read this.. But it hits home so much to me right now.

  • SurelyWritten
    November 27, 2006

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    ooh, my favorite by EH.... just his own personal explosion...
    I wonder how long he held this in before letting it out...

    wow,,, stunning,
    S

  • Senseless Violence
    May 12, 2006
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    Um...

    I don't think that was very good..

  • ea
    April 5, 2006
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    Short & Pithy

    just not that funny.


  • Kevin Moderators member
    April 4, 2006
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    So much bitterness!

    This beautiful piece embodies what I think of as a classic hemingway feeling.

    Look at his use of the period in line 4, comma in 6, em-dash in 7, Such a masterful use of punctuation, bordering on too much, but really fitting with this poem, which in a way, is all about hesitation.

  • Shepherdess
    March 18, 2006
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    simple but true

    So simple but so true the truth of war sumed up so quickly

1 - 6 of 6