I have read over the verse and pause and once again to damn that war. I know of the raw deal that followed the armistice, for returning soldiers. Politicians had made many promises. Unemployment was rife in England. I do remember the many veterans of that awful war during the war years of 1930-1945. Naturally the talk was all about the "boys' serving at that time.
As a child I remember how it seemed that nobody wanted to hear the stories of the "Old Contemptibles". The British Expeditionary Force to France. The Kaiser had been deliberately misquoted, to have people believe he meant Britain had a "contemptible little army". Of course, the propaganda against Germany in Britain was deliberate and a tactic.
I remember the glances on the buses at the time on seeing certain older men who twitched and jerked. "Shell shock" was the whisper. I knew my maternal grandfather who was called up in 1916. He was in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He never claimed any heroics. Nobody would listen to him about that war, being all too engrossed in current events.
How easily were those veterans forgotten, though that is my view.
Whoops! War years of 1939-1945.