[BlueLancer]

There is something the moralists overlook,
Or more likely don’t give a damn about,
When they cry: “Pity the beaten foe!”
What they’re saying, in effect, is:
“Kill our fellows tomorrow rather than the enemy today.”
But they don’t care to have it put to them like that.
They want their wars won clean and comfortable, with a clear conscience;
Their consciences being much more precious than their own soldiers’ lives.

General Sir Harry P. Flashman
"Flashman and the Mountain of Light"
George McDonald Fraser

[Mollypitcher1]

“Ours not to reason why,
Ours but to do and die...”

R. Kipling