Armistice Day Quotes

“Ne'er Fade Away by Stewart Stafford

The hillside piper's requiem,
Guides old soldier's bones,
To slain brothers of his youth,
No longer a marching memory.

His scars, Valhalla's roadmap,
His medals, coins for Charon,
His conquests, the beacon fire,
His blood scours the path ahead.

This churned earth is now home,
Weeping craters, foxholes beatified,
Barbed wire hands joined in praying,
The minefield of life cleared for us all.

© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“The Armless Tics by Stewart Stafford

Never again, the blustering brass said,
Inked in blood, my generation dead,
Human meat carved with lunatic aplomb,
No cowering allowed from gun or bomb.

Lice, rats, and mud—war zeal’s reality.
Trench foot and poisoned-gas lethality,
Churned hellscape, where no man can be,
Scribbling letters home to preserve sanity.

The artillery’s heartbeat, now silent, aghast,
Shells raining on future, present, and past,
On a last keepsake bullet, I etched “11-11”,
Through influenza, faint prayers to Heaven.

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford