Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,?   
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,?   
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs?   
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.?   
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,?   
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;?   
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots?   
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
   
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,?   
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;?   
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling?   
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .?   
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,?   
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;?   
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, -?   
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.

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

The old lie translates into: It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.

The medal was one of my Dads, he luckily survived, as did my Grandad from the horrors of the Somme. There are millions out there who didn't and they deserve nothing less than for us to remember them.