A Soldier's Declaration

The following letter was written by a soldier in combat to the powers that be back home:

I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of agression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them and that had this been done the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops and I can no longer be a party to prolonging these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.

On behalf of those who are suffering now, I make this protest against the deception which is being practised upon them; also I believe it may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share and which they have not have enough imagination to realise.

Sound at all familiar?

It was written by Lt. Siegfried Sassoon, 3rd Battaltion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers, in July of 1917. It was a statement to his commanding officer declining his return to duty. It was read aloud in the House of Commons and printed in the London Times the following day.

I'm just posting it here without any comment on my particular feelings toward the ongoing war in Iraq because as I read it I thought, "Wow, this could very well have been written today." (Save the last paragraph; I hardly think we are "complacent" back home.) I guess my point is, in part, that history repeats itself; that the full effect of current events is not realized until years, often decades hence; and that no matter what the era, conflict, or reasons for it, violence as national policy is an unfortunate (but sometimes necessary) evil.

Source: Wikipedia.org