To the victims and all the survivors of war,
Who never forgot the terror they saw.
To all the civilians, both friend and foe,
Who lost everything and had nowhere to go.
To the officers who had to decide
The right time to shoot and the right time to hide.
To the school boys, who signed up so young,
Thinking the war would make them strong.
To the RFC, the aviators,
Mapping the trenches and the craters.
To the men of the land who committed no crime,
But whose farmyards and fields became the front line.
To the children lying awake in their beds,
Not knowing if Brother or Father were dead.
To the factory workers, who created the tanks,
The bombs, guns, planes and sent them to France.
To the women at home whose husbands had gone,
Who could only pray and try to stay strong.
To nurses who cared for man after man,
Who patched up their wounds and held onto their hands.
To the men in the trenches, who with no word or cry
Had to carry on fighting after seeing friends die.
To deserters, those whose bravery lapsed,
Shot for this crime - they would never come back.

It’s clear to see, one hundred years on,
The names on memorials of those that have gone.
Thousands of crosses mark out the graves
Of eternal soldiers; the eternally brave.
But we should not, we must not, we cannot forget
The millions who lived with pain and regret:
The shell-shocked, the mourners, the orphans and more,
All those affected by the Great War.

For all those who feared, for all those who cried,
For all those who lived and for all those who died,
We must remember

Susie Coreth

Listen to the author read her poem.