Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
Visiting the veterans of Britain's wars in their Nepali homes brings home how ungracious and ungrateful our government has been.
Lance Corporal Ram Bahadur Limbu won his Victoria Cross in a mostly forgotten war, the Indonesian Confrontation, in Borneo (East Malaysia) in 1965. First, he charged a machine-gun nest, knocking it out with a hand grenade. Then he made two forays into open ground to rescue wounded comrades, and another to retrieve a Bren gun. He used it to charge down and kill what was left of the enemy.
When I decided to look up Lance Corporal Limbu a few years ago, it was a simple matter to find him – I just went to his hometown in eastern Nepal and asked for "VC". Although his simple little cross, forged from a cannon captured at Sevastopol in 1855 and hung on a plain red ribbon, had been stolen with the rest of his luggage while he took the train home across India after leaving British service, he had been given a replacement. It was not his only connection to Britain: in his concrete house, off a narrow alley, he showed me the invitations he has received every 10 years for dinner at Buckingham Palace, as well as a photograph of himself and other VC holders with the Queen.
Many of the thousands of Gurkhas who served in the Second World War and in every British conflict since have never been to Britain. But the hills and plains of Nepal are scattered with men who have been steeped in our country's traditions for decades, and to whom we owe a profound debt. A few miles down the road from Lance Corporal Limbu's house, I found a veteran of an earlier generation, living in a bamboo hut in a refugee camp. Lal Bahadur Rai was at Singapore when Lord Mountbatten received the Japanese surrender in 1945. He had a treasured bundle of press cuttings that included a photograph of Mountbatten and another of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen's mother. He uttered their names and repeated them with gravity and emphasis. Continued here...
