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."
Spiked : After years of being denied justice, England’s
grooming-gang victims appear to have been let down once again. Survivors
in Oldham, Greater Manchester have had their calls for a government
inquiry into the abuse they suffered rejected.
GB News
reported this week that the Labour government’s safeguarding minister,
Jess Phillips, has refused to initiate a national public inquiry into
historical child exploitation in the area. Phillips told Oldham Council
last year, after it had voted in favour of a national inquiry, that the
government would not heed the call. Instead, she wrote: ‘It is for
Oldham Council alone to decide to commission an inquiry into child
sexual exploitation locally.’
There had already been a local review, but the council and survivors
believe this did not go far enough. In 2022, the Greater Manchester
Combined Authority led an inquiry
that ultimately found that both police and social services failed
multiple times to protect children from sexual exploitation between 2011
and 2014. In one case, a 12-year-old girl attempted to report to the
police that she had been raped, only to be turned away by officers who
thought she was drunk. She was then taken from the police station by her
abusers and raped again, multiple times, by five different men.
