Twentieth Century Wars: 1914, 1939, 1950, 1964, 1990, and more
If I should die upon this enterprise, Good company I'll keep with those before. Some living on in tales, the little while They linger in the public memory. Or in the dreams of those they once did know, And some with less than that. Our memory's short. The longest, like a chip upon these waves, Will lose itself, and with it, centuries. We like to note a Mozart must have passed Next to us here within some leveling blast, My messmate, Marlow there, or Arnold was. Deemed only for those worthies for their fame. Lives cut short deemed some honor to be won. At best, their minds perceive a hundred years, The songs they did not write may yet be sung. It is as if their art, some repeatable, ordinary gift. They haunt our thought to tell us "Do not mourn us in this brief surmise. Mourn rather, Earth burnt by our enterprise, For when earth goes, the music's purpose dies. Christopher Andrews June 1950 Rev. 2005 *Defense Casualty Analysis System Korean War Casualties