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I was scanning old family photos to the computer and came across one of myself taken in 1932 near my first birthday. It was wrinkled with frayed edges and must have been carried in my father's wallet. A poem was on the back.

To My Son.

The band? Ah, yes! I hear it, son ---
But how it differs from Verdun!
A million years that seems away,
Yet in my dreams an endless day.
The marching feet of many men?
It thrills you now, yet half of them,
Shall halt forever in the dust
Of strange, scared fields --- devoid of
     trust,
Where dark, and dust, and bickering
     wind,
Shall veil their eyes and still the din.
That vibrant voice with ferfid flair!
Becomes a whisper Over There;
My son, you'll learn the answer then ---
Who speaks the loudest ---
     guns or men,
Where plaudets fall on deafened ears,
And glory's washed away in tears.
But go, and revel in your play,
God grant you never know my day.





                              And, like most sons, his grew to learn that lesson the hard way.



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