This is the first movement in The Infantryman Cycle.  This poem and Suicide in the Trenches by Siegfried Sassoon bookend the cycle in such a way that it accomplishes my goal of showing the seemingly endless cycle of enlisting men and women to the military and sending them home broken.  They both describe a veteran attending a military parade.  Both show disgust and anger at the idea that war should be celebrated.  Both say that these parades should be more solemn to the point of reverence.  I agree with them. 

Text by Robert W. Service.
Performed by Brandon Stewart (tenor) and Felix Arifin (piano).

"Don't Cheer"

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