Homecoming and Carnival

The first two pictures were taken at the Homecoming Parade of officers and soldiers of A Company 4th Battalion Rifles, as they marched through Dorchester from Poundbury barracks. The people of Dorchester remembered those killed in action in Afghanistan. The parade consisted of 150 uniformed men. Exactly half the number of British soldiers who have died in Afghanistan.

The second two pictures of the parade of tanks and army vehicles were taken at Dorchester Carnival Parade. The World War II tanks took apart in cooperation with Maiden Newton at War.

I am reminded of William Barnes' poem "Dorset Rifle Corps' Song"- but it doesn't seem appropriate in connection with Afghanistan:

"Come, lads, shall men of Dorset lag
Behind old England's onward flag?
Or fear to take a true-man's ground,
Where England's trumpet-call shall sound?
...No, no, my lads, fall in, fall in-
Now don't let Dorset ranks be thin.
For Dorset: Hip, Hurrah!"

For an alternative point of view, see http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/afghanistan-impossible-choice

Or read John Cowper Powys' poem, "The Recruit".

"Apples be ripe" he sang to them;
"And nuts be brown" they answered him.

A song that speaks to me most powerfully on the subject of a soldier's homecoming from war is Tom Waits' "Day After Tomorrow" (on the "Real Gone" CD).