The endless line of trenches that stitched the war torn land,
Were fought for, won, and lost again in fighting hand to hand,
The strands of cruel barbed wire that clutched, and held, and tore,
Were cursed at by both friend and foe, caught up in mindless war.

For four long years the armies swayed across the fields of France,
Where a thousand souls were the cost of each mile of advance,
The flower of the allied youth as well as of the Hun,
Were cut down in the thousand by the chattering machine gun.

The generals in their chateau’s surrounded by their staff,
Had no care for the common man cut down as useless chaff,
But as casualties mount, and families weep, the politicians finally heed
The futility of a war that had begun to appease the Kaisers greed.

An armistice signed at Compiegne ended senseless years of slaughter,
As father and son returned to the arms of wife, sister and daughter,
The happiness and joy that exploded across the land,
Was tempered by the loss of sons, buried in foreign sand.
A generation lost ‘tis said, to keep peace in our time,
As we cynically recall the words of nineteen thirty nine.