Coming Home

A few words of explanation: During the Iraq war, our war dead were brought back to a military airfield, then a convoy of hearses would transport the coffins to a military hospital where they would be handed over to their families. The convoy passed through a small village called Wootton Bassett, and each time a convoy came through, all the villagers would line the main street in silent tribute to the fallen. This is what I wrote at the time:

No take-off nerves, no in-flight drinks,
No airline meals, no raucous badinage;
They come off the back of the plane
Like cargo, like freight,
Carried by bearers, covered with a flag;
A careful inching down the ramp,
Then slid into the waiting hearse
To drive off in formation.
Through the streets of the little town.

And always, the silent crowd:
The men, the girls, the old, the young,
The weeping wives and families,
Pale and stunned with loss too vast to bear,
And the babes in arms, not knowing,
But lulled to wide-eyed silence
By the weight of grief around them.

We owe them this; they went for us -
Not solemnly, with frowns and lawyers’ words,
But cheerfully, with young men’s open smiles,
And boisterous jokes and cracks about the food -
And now they’re back.
They’ve given all they had, we must give them our thanks,
It is the very least that we can do.