The Perpetual Soldier

There are few generals as famous as George S. Patton and some may have found it hard to believe if it was not documented in his poem that he wrote "Through a Glass Darkly" exactly how he felt about the topic.

On his first assignment in France during world war I he was in Langres, France which is an ancient town of Rome and a French liaison officer offered to guide him around. It was Patton told him he knew the place quite well and he ended up giving the Frenchman a tour. He knew where the amphitheater was, the forum and even the temples to Mars and Apollo. Some of those buildings were no longer there but he knew where they used to be. He even showed where the military drill field was and even a place where Julius Caesar once put up a tent because he recalled he had served on Caesar's 10th legion. “Still more clearly as a Roman, can I see the Legion close, as our third rank moved in forward and the short sword found our foes.”

He remembered fighting with Alexander the Great at Tyre invading the Huns. “See the goal grow monthly longer, reaching for the walls of Tyre. Hear the crash of tons of granite, smell the quenchless eastern fire.”

He called fighting under Henry V at Agincourt. He also believed himself to have been a confederate soldier in the battles of Winchester and Gettysburg and said himself, “I Damn Well Know there are places I've been before, and not in this life.” He said in his own poetic words:

Through the travail of the ages,

Midst the pomp and toil of war,

I have fought and strove and perished

Countless times upon this star.

In the form of many people

In all panoplies of time

Have I seen the luring vision

Of the Victory Maid, sublime.

I have battled for fresh mammoth,

I have warred for pastures new,

I have listened to the whispers

When the race trek instinct grew.

I have known the call to battle

In each changeless changing shape

From the high souled voice of conscience

To the beastly lust for rape.

I have sinned and I have suffered,

Played the hero and the knave;

Fought for belly, shame, or country,

And for each have found a grave.

I cannot name my battles

For the visions are not clear,

Yet, I see the twisted faces

And I feel the rending spear.

Perhaps I stabbed our Savior

In His sacred helpless side.

Yet, I’ve called His name in blessing

When in after times I died.

In the dimness of the shadows

Where we hairy heathens warred,

I can taste in thought the lifeblood;

We used teeth before the sword.

While in later clearer vision

I can sense the coppery sweat,

Feel the pikes grow wet and slippery

When our Phalanx, Cyrus met.

Hear the rattle of the harness

Where the Persian darts bounced clear,

See their chariots wheel in panic

From the Hoplite’s leveled spear.

See the goal grow monthly longer,

Reaching for the walls of Tyre.

Hear the crash of tons of granite,

Smell the quenchless eastern fire.

Still more clearly as a Roman,

Can I see the Legion close,

As our third rank moved in forward

And the short sword found our foes.

Once again I feel the anguish

Of that blistering treeless plain

When the Parthian showered death bolts,

And our discipline was in vain.

I remember all the suffering

Of those arrows in my neck.

Yet, I stabbed a grinning savage

As I died upon my back.

Once again I smell the heat sparks

When my Flemish plate gave way

And the lance ripped through my entrails

As on Crecy’s field I lay.

In the windless, blinding stillness

Of the glittering tropic sea

I can see the bubbles rising

Where we set the captives free.

Midst the spume of half a tempest

I have heard the bulwarks go

When the crashing, point blank round shot

Sent destruction to our foe.

I have fought with gun and cutlass

On the red and slippery deck

With all Hell aflame within me

And a rope around my neck.

And still later as a General

Have I galloped with Murat

When we laughed at death and numbers

Trusting in the Emperor’s Star.

Till at last our star faded,

And we shouted to our doom

Where the sunken road of Ohein

Closed us in its quivering gloom.

So but now with Tanks a’clatter

Have I waddled on the foe

Belching death at twenty paces,

By the star shell’s ghastly glow.

So as through a glass, and darkly

The age long strife I see

Where I fought in many guises,

Many names, but always me.

And I see not in my blindness

What the objects were I wrought,

But as God rules o’er our bickering's

It was through His will I fought.

So forever in the future,

Shall I battle as of yore,

Dying to be born a fighter,

But to die again, once more.