JARAMA HILL (A SON’S TRIBUTE)

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You didn’t march as soldiers should,

Or stride with head held high.

But strode with purpose in your face,

Beneath the cloudless sky.

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Your greatcoat bore the weight of Hades,

Its shadow told of war,

And ghostly columns of comrades’ past,

This path was marched before.

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Your cause is half forgotten now,

Those paths are sleeping, still,

The small arms fire, the fear and pain,

Lie on Jarama Hill.

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I stroked the grainy photograph,

With care, as though in wonder.

Unravelling the wisps of time,

That tore us both asunder.

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Mícheál Walsh Poetry

“Kit was obviously dying. He was in terrible agony, and yet his one concern was that he might have been responsible for the slaughter that had taken place. Six hundred and thirty men had entered the line, and there were not more than eighty left unwounded, and the percentage of those killed was very high.”

“It was hard to convince him that our fighting had taken place in the toughest, bloodiest battle of the whole Spanish campaign, and that it had been decisive in the defence of the Madrid-Valencia road.”

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WITNESS TO HISTORY Mike Walsh The international bestselling epic of the Third Reich 1918-1959. ‘Of all the innumerable written source materials I have read during the last 70 years concerning Adolf Hitler, Witness to History is the most compelling, realistic overview of the Third Reich in print because its events are told by those who made them.’ ~ Marc Roland. https://barnesreview.org/product/witness-to-history-the-reich-legend-uncensored/