Marines Study Poetry as They Prepare for Battle

Reuters via YahooNews ^ | October 31 | Claudia Parsons

[2Trievers]

Marines Study Poetry as They Prepare for Battle

Marines Study Poetry as They Prepare for Battle

By Claudia Parsons

ABOARD USS PELELIU (Reuters) - U.S. marines poised for battle are taking time off between keeping fit and cleaning their guns to study anger management and World War One poetry.

``(The war poetry) gives them an outlet to maybe express what they're going through right now,'' said Captain Chris Picado, who teaches an English class to 18 marines on board the USS Peleliu warship in the Arabian Sea.

``If anything it'll make them better writers to their wives,'' said Picado, keen to be a high school teacher after she leaves the marines where she works in intelligence.

British poetry from World War One has been a popular choice, with Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est among the favorites.

``The way some of the poets describe some of the wars, it's very graphic,'' said Lance Corporal Garret Clapp from Michigan who prepares weapons for Harrier jets based on the ship.

``You look at the movies and the way they make things very horrific and lifelike with blood and guts -- to be able to take those same images and describe them so that I, the reader, can get the same effect, it's really amazing,'' said Geoff Newson, 23, from Portland, Oregon, a sergeant in the military police on the Peleliu.

``Just by what he said you actually can feel it, or you can get a mental picture of the death or the awful sights and sounds and smells that they were going through during that time.''

LIGHTNING MISSIONS

The Peleliu and two other ships in a marine expeditionary unit carry around 2,200 marines trained for lightning missions in hostile territory, from seizing airfields to emergency evacuations and raids.

The U.S. military will only say the unit is supporting Washington's ``Operation Enduring Freedom'' anti-terror campaign, now focused on Afghanistan (news - web sites). It has confirmed involvement in just one incident ``in country'' -- the recovery of a downed helicopter in Pakistan.

But few doubt the marines will play a role. The marines on the Peleliu say they are ready for anything.

That means the Peleliu is a stressful place, according to one of the ship's chaplains, Donald Troast, who teaches an anger management course to 17 marines on board.

``We don't judge anger as negative or positive,'' Troast said. ``It's an emotion that we all have. The folks who come to the class realize they are not acting it out as healthily as they could.''

Others have their own ways of dealing with the pressure of long periods on ship with little or no privacy and long working days.

Staff Sergeant Kion Clark from Philadelphia likes to go up on the flight deck at dawn each day to greet the sunrise for a few moments of solitude.

Colonel Thomas Waldhauser, commander of the marines on board, likes to run around the flight deck for an hour to gather his thoughts, while William Jezierski, navy commodore of the marine unit, reads Tom Clancy novels when he has a spare moment.

``I don't know anybody who actually writes poetry,'' said William Griesmeyer, 33, from Kettering, Ohio, another student of the English class.

Newson, who plans to join the police back home in Oregon when he leaves the marines, agrees that poetry is ``lost in our generation.''

``I don't really write it down. Nowadays we can e-mail, that's how to document how you feel, keep in touch with the outside world,'' he said.

``E-mail is pretty much my poetry -- writing my thoughts, my feelings so other people can understand what I'm going through.''

[SuziQ]

Kipling is Kewel!!

Yeah, they can read about the young British soldiers on Afghanistan's plains!

[Straight Vermonter]

Soon to be available in my wife's second book of poetry. Wipe Away the Rain

Come in
out of the rain
lay your soaked heart
on my sleeve.
I will
towel you dry
with no questions,
no need.
You must
open the window
between us
that blocks our meeting day.
I will
bring the sun
to mix
with all the gray.
And we will
see the rainbow,
colored courage
in the sky.
We will
share our stories
‘til the rain
outside goes by.
So come in
out of all
that wetness,
sit right by the fire,
We shall
lift the dampness off
and share 
all we desire.

[gunnyg]

Hey Scuttlebutt

I'm now only "astounded" that I can still be astounded by any of this Shit!!!

Semper Fidelis
Dick G

[gunnyg]

A lotta people seem to think, and have commented accordingly, that this wishy-washy BS of touchy-feely military has now fallen by the wayside, due to recent events.

Not so, I'm afraid!
This "conditioning" has been in effect many years now, and it will die hard or not at all. The conditioning is deep.

On the other hand, despite the sillyass ooh-rah BS, etc., I believe Semper Fidelis is stronger and deeper conditioning, and for Marines, it will prevail!

Happy to see the encouraging comments by you folks here--appreciated by this old jarhead!

Semper Fidelis!!!
Dick Gaines

[Colt .45]

I went when many feared to go,
I trod where they feared to tread.
My brothers were buried in waters so dark,
Their shrouds were weighted with lead.

We gave our best, what we had to give.
And some men gave their all,
For ungrateful people who betrayed our souls ...
Not in vain our boys did fall!

We watched our countrymen spit on us,
On our medals and ribbons worn with pride.
Perhaps because they had not the nerve,
And ran from the fight to hide.

We watched with sadness as they burned our flag,
An emblem proud and bold.
A flag we followed into the strife,
For a freedom we sought to hold.

We cursed them as they abandoned us,
Too selfish to uphold our war.
And watched as Hanoi Jane spoke out,
Like a filthy, traitorous whore.

We came home to an alien land,
A people we no longer knew.
We went quietly back into our homes,
War's stain, our souls imbued.

Time passed and people forgot us.
Our honor, sacrifice, the blood we shed.
Politicians led us on to new wars.
But we ne'er forgot our bretheren dead.

We served with honor in the thick of the fight,
Our pride in our country's call.
Remember ... remember that we too,
Gave this country our all!

Their names are now carved in granite,
Laid bare for America's sight.
America we were your beloved sons,
And we went willingly to the fight.

Turn not your face from us who served,
And honor those who now go,
We are a chosen brotherhood,
Who gave you the freedom you know.

[Elihu Burritt]

As the Romans discovered, the hidden pitfall of civilization is that it is civilizing. The good news is that it means you don't have to live in a cave with no fire like the Aghani's will be doing this winter.

It raises again the issue of whether there is any real value of fighting these people on their terms in their land. On our land on our terms, they are hardly a threat at all. Don't forget the WTC was done by educated Saudi's who trained or organized in Germany and the US and not by peopel who, for the most part, barely attain any education at all.

[RaceBannon]

On Top of Old Smokey, All covered with snow, I lost my true lover, for a courtin' too slow...

Remember it now?

[ladtx]

Poetry for the warrior is a old tradition. As an old cavalryman here's my favorite.

Fiddler’s Green

Half way down the trail to Hell
In a shady, meadow green,
Are the souls of all dead troopers camped
Near a good, old-time canteen,
And this eternal resting place Is known as Fiddler’s Green.

Marching past, straight through to Hell
The Infantry are seen,
Accompanied by the Engineers, Artillery, and Marines,
For none but the shades of Cavalrymen Dismount at Fiddler’s Green.

Though some go curving down the trail
To seek a warmer scene,
No trooper ever gets to Hell Ere he’s emptied his canteen.
And so rides back to drink again With friends at Fiddler’s Green.

And so when horse and man go down
Beneath a saber keen,
Or in a roaring charge or fierce melee You stop a bullet clean,
And the hostiles come to get your scalp Just empty your canteen,
And put your pistol to your head And go to Fiddler’s Green.

SCOUTS OUT!

[HoweverComma]

Wilfred Owen's poetry is an excellent introduction to war.

[HoweverComma]

They need to be stoked up and mad as hell. This is just another way to disarm our military.

Actively angry people make stupid mistakes. On the battlefield, those who make stupid mistakes are dead, and they do not get up and wash the Karo Syrup blood off after the director yells "CUT!"

[HoweverComma]

Also, didnt wilfred Owen die on almost the last day?

Yes, he did. In some ways, tragic; but there's a question as to whether he would have survived the arrival of peace by more than a few years. The really decent folks like him often didn't.

[SpringheelJack]

"I Have a Rendez-Vous with Death", by Alan Seeger (1888-1916).

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air---
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath---
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear....
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town;
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

[BlueLancer]

"For none but the shades of Cavalrymen Dismount at Fiddler’s Green."

Nobody's ever seen a dead cavalryman.
(Old Infantry Adage)

[Poohbah]

Amen to that!

Sheesh. Most of these people here have no idea what it's like on the boat, anyway.

[SpringheelJack]

"Cavalry Crossing a Ford," by Walt Whitman

A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands,
They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun --- hark to the musical clank,
Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop to drink,
Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture, the negligent rest on the saddles,
Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the ford --- while,
Scarlet and blue and snowy white,
The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind.

[Poohbah]

Oh, good grief.

God forbid that Marines stuck on board a floating gray box with nothing to do read some of the classic poetry from "The Great War."

[Poohbah]

Excellent choice...

[horsewhispersc]

I would not allow them to see a woman, have any sex not even masterbate, then I would unleash them into Hell! You want to see anger with no fear!!!......LOL