Make us as proud of you as we are of him!

"The extremely restricted space within which trench warfare was fought in the Great War, combined with British policy against return of the dead, simultaneously ensured that soldiers would live with the corpses of their friends and civilians would never see the fatalities of war . . .. Civilians were therefore able to maintain a consistent vocabulary for talking about war throughout its duration: never having to confront its grisly details, they were never forced to modify their notions of 'honor' or 'heroism.'"

- Allyson Booth, "Figuring the Absent Corpse: Strategies of Representation in World War I"

"Think of so many who are ingloriously stricken by accident in time of peace. War is another kind of life insurance; whereas the ordinary kind assures a man that his death will mean money to someone, this assures him that it will mean honor to himself, which from a certain point of view is much more satisfactory."

- Alan Seeger, Letters and Diaries of Alan Seeger

 

Percival George Waine

Percival George Waine, died 1915

Photo courtesy of the Photos of the Great War Web site.
Used with permission.