The Other War -poem

This is the poem acoompanying my picture, mediating on the fate of the rarely-lauded soldiers of world war one. Not the men behind the guns, but support staff, nurses and particularly the animals who did so much to save lives, keep morale up and generally be REAL fuzzy wuzzy angels on the frontlines. For those of you not versed in galipolian lore, Simpson and his Donkey are an often heroisised pair. They were part of the medical corps and saved quite a few lives under heavy fire, going up to the frontline and carrying wounded back to the relative safety of the reserve areas, they were both eventually killed, however. The other event worth knowing about was that due to quarantine laws of the time, the cavalry divisions were forced to abandon their horses when the evacuation was called at the end of the campaign. Rather than let their 'mates' starve to death, most of the soldiers were forced to shoot them. It's one of the few stories that consistently chokes me up every time I think about it.

Anyhow, hope you enjoy the poem