28 May 2017
Conscientious Objector. Say this word in front of someone who served in the military, and you may get a dirty look . . . an ear full of venomous words. It brings up a bad taste in their mouths. Reminds them of a time in America when too many young men, dressed in fatigues, gave their lives in a war that was not ours . . . when too many young men and women, dressed in ratty clothes, spat upon them as they returned home . . . when society turned their backs on and continued to ignore damaged soldiers who had no where to turn. In the late 60's and 70's, The Vietman War . . . on the heels of the Korean Conflict . . . seemed to pit those who followed order into battles against those whose chant was heard everywhere: "Make love, not war!"
I want you, however, to have THAT picture in your mind.
While they've always been around . . . as long as wars have been fought . . . this group of people served more as a symbol of objection than anything else. There were a lot of "conscientious objectors" during the Vietnam War, but the difference here was they were very vocal about it. Between 1965 and 1970 more than 170,000 people applied for that status . . . some of those hiring lawyers to keep them out of the military . . . many of them serving time in jail for the refusal to recognize the draft.
This post isn't about war . . . it's about poetry . . .
. . . and death.
But you needed a bad taste in your mouth before going on . . . at least I hope that you've grown up to support our men and women who serve in our Armed Forces . . . who sometimes have to do things they'd rather not do . . . who still go because they're called.
I've read a million or more poems, and while I do not recall them specifically, sometimes I'll hear a sentence or phrase and think it reminds me of one. I heard this line just recently and realized it was from a poem I'd read years ago . . .
"I shall die, but that's all I shall do for death."
Here's the full poem . . . by Edna St Vincent Millay
Conscientious
Objector
I shall
die, but
that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;
I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,
business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle
while he clinches the girth.
And he may mount by himself:
I will not give him a leg up.
Though he flick my shoulders with his whip,
I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where
the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;
I am not on his pay-roll.
I will not tell him the whereabout of my friends
nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much,
I will not map him the route to any man's door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living,
that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city
are safe with me; never through me Shall you be overcome.
While Edna was a pacifist during the first world war, she became an ardent supporter of the military during the early 1940 . . . wrote poems supporting the war effort and later for propaganda. This poem was written in 1934 . . . obviously during her years as a pacifist because she probably believed we didn't have a place in World War I . . .
I don't read it as a pacifist though . . .
. . . to me it's a simple poem about Death . . .
. . . if you want to personify Death as a simpleton.
I do not.
He's unavoidable, but we do not invite him in. He is the interloper that shows up . . . unwelcome and uninvited. At 5, he was a myth . . . at 10, a whisper . . . at 12, a reality . . . took my grandfather . . . my first brush with him. I hated him!
I still hate Death, but I understand him more at 50. I read a book once where Death actually narrated a book, The Book Thief . . . I hope you read it one day.
Losing my mom was tough . . . I wanted her to live forever . . .
Read the poem again. Does it say something to you?
"I shall die, but that is all I shall do for Death"
He started acting about 1945 . . . he was 18 . . . bit parts really until the late 50's when he was cast as the lead in the TV series Ivanhoe. He'd go on to play in a number of TV series, but is probably most well known as Simon Templar from The Saint. It was kind of a cool show in which he played a modern day Robin Hood who drove around the world in a white Volvo . . . stealing from rich criminals . . . but since stealing of any sort is illegal, he's pursued by Chief Inspector Claude Teal. No doubt this character is the one women fell in love with . . . the one men wanted to be . . . long before he would become Bond! 
