General Georege S. Patton's poem 'Peace---Nov. 11, 1918'

Learning that the General was a fairly good poet was a surprise. At poetry hunter there are 16 of his poems published. It provides one with an insight into the thought of a military leader who had to exist within that realm of murder and mayhem as the essential tool of statecraft.

World War one had 8.5 million combat casualties. It provides a little insight into the relationship of human epistemology or mind to body. Body parts strewn liberally about the battlefield inform us that the human mind is a fleeting, ephemeral thing that arises nearly automatically within a human body with D.N.A. designs allowing it to fully form without much intelligent thought involved.

We may experience the social phenomena of political inability to form good contemporary ways of life inclusive of all and oppressive of none. These politically broken or shallow forms of thought are developmental social inabilities within the human inhertited collective political epistemology that may some day be overcome, as improbable as that seems. Even so we may appreciate the perspective of Georeg S. Patton who executed his social role with enthusiasm, though it occurs within a largely dysfuctional social paradigm existentially speaking.

"I stood in the flag-decked cheering crowd
Where all but I were gay,
And gazing on their extesy,
My heart shrank in dismay.

For theirs was the joy of the 'little folk'
The cruel glee of the weak,
Who, banded together, have slain the strong
Which none alone dared seek.

The Bosch we know was a hideous beast
Beyond our era's ban,
But soldiers still must honor the Hun
As a mighty fighting man.

The vice he had was strong and real
Of virtue he had none,
Yet he fought the world remorselessly
And very nearly won…

And looking forward I could see
Like a festering sewer;
Full of the fecal Pacifists
Which peace makes us endure….

None of the hold and blatant sin
The disregard of pain,
The glorious deeds of sacrefice
which follow in wars train.

Instead of these the little lives
Will blossom as before,
Pale bloom of creatures all too weak
To hear the light of war.

While we whose spirits wider range
Can grasp the joys of strife,
Will moulder in the virtuous vice
Of futile peaceful life.

We can but hope that e're we drown
'Neath treacle floods of grace,
The tuneless horns of mighty, Mars
Once more shall rouse the Race

When such times come, Oh! God of War
Grant that we pass midst strife,
Knowing once more the whitehot joy
Of taking human life.

Then pass in peace, blood-glutted Bosch
And when we too shall fall,
We'll clasp in yours our gory hands
In High Valhallas' Hall."