An Antidote to Wilfred Owen

I feel alive at last and full of joy,
Last night I killed a German boy,

I didn't know I had until I had,
But when I knew I had my heart was glad,

This is the work that I came here to do,
The point of all the training I went through,

The point of digging trenches in the mud;
The point of bloody war is shedding blood.

I know the conscripts hate it and I try
To cheer them up, talk sense and when they cry,

I tell them why we're here, and tell them jokes,
It matters we should win, the other blokes

Are human but they're Hun; the killing 's fun,
When you do it from a distance with a gun.

The great thing is to put your mind at ease,
Imagine that they're cattle with disease.

Don't think of them as friends or as your brothers,
Don't think of their poor sisters and their mothers,

Just think of how much sooner we'll be back,
If we get stuck in, don't give them any slack.