I picked up this meme from Stilgherrian (they are catching like colds those memes) and thought I’d give it a try too. The results are interesting.

Grab the nearest book.
Open it to page 161.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
Don’t search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Use what’s actually next to you.
And the sentence is:

“Then to bed, perhaps for a smoke, with dire consequences always possible in a straw barn.”

The book is Death’s Men – Soldiers of the Great War by Dennis Winter. I’m reading it today because it is ANZAC Day.

The sentence doesn’t make a lot of sense by itself, but the chapter that contains it is called ‘Into Rest’. It is about the rests behind the lines that the troops experienced on the Western Front in World War I. The horrors that the troops suffered are almost inconceivable, but it does show what amazing things the human spirit can endure. Reading this book I have utmost respect for people who can go through such awful experiences and then return to society and live a ‘normal‘ life.

People who think war is a good thing should really read this book – it is a dreadful waste of all resources and an inhumane activity.

They shall grow not old,
As we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun,
And in the morning
We will remember them. Lest we Forget.