"Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori".The old lie

Sometimes, we tend to make comments lightly about issues in general . These issues might be related to different realms of any nature; some of them can be relative to matters such as daily life, for instance, while others can be connected to delicate issues, such as war. Regarding the latter issue, I have heard some comments about this topic as follows: “If there were a war, I would go without hesitating; I would die for my country if necessary". Probably that person said so since he felt the duty to do it, at the same time he ignored what war involves because of  never being in that situation.

However, someone who really knew about what it means to be in war was Wilfred Owen. He witnessed first-hand what war means and involves. He saw friends to die; he was wounded, even killed in battlefield. He would probably tell the person who made the comment above that: “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori is the old lie”. War is not a matter that should be taken lightly.

All the experiences that he had in World War I made him start to write about the horrors of warfare. “Dulce et decorum est” is one of his poems that has to do with experiences in war. It shows us how devastating war can be. Every single verse in this poem enables us to realize how difficult to be there would be.

Let’s pay attention to the next extract of the poem:

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

This extract, at least to me, impacts on the reader in the sense that it illustrates how tough to see a partner or friend to die can be. Just let’s imagine being there and witnessing an event like that, would our life be the same after seeing such event? If we think about it, we will probably understand why a large number of ex-soldiers suffer from different post-traumatic stress disorders, for instance the shell shock which even Wilfred Owen suffered from.

Let's also consider the next one:

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud 
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues.

In these four verses, the selection of vocabulary is crucial. To my mind, what Owen was trying to illustrate by doing so, was to shake the reader to some extent that he/she is able to feel the harshness of being in war. It makes you rethink about the idea of being in warfare defending your country just because you feel the duty of doing so. And in order to reinforce this idea, he adds the next at the end of the poem:

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest 
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Nevertheless, if there are no winners in war; only losers, why does humanity have to commit such horrible crimes? Isn´t a fact that there are horrors and negatives consequences involved in these actions? Do we have to kill each other in order to accomplish what we want to? Does each one of us have to be in a war sometime to realize what war causes, by any chance?

We know that to think about a world without killing, losses, opinion differences, war conflicts, etc. might sound as a sort of utopia; however, it is necessary and mandatory for us to try to put a lot of effort into preventing ourselves to carry out more terrible and punishable actions like war, which only have negatives consequences for the world; if we want to make a change, we have to do it now and once and for all.

References
Owen, W. (2004). Classic Poetry Series. In W. Owen, Classic Poetry Series (p. 83). Classic Poetry Series.