The Pomp of Yesterday

The Pomp of Yesterday

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The Pomp of Yesterday by Joseph Hocking

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1918

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The Pomp of Yesterday

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It is now fast approaching four years since our country at the call of duty, and for the world's welfare entered the great struggle which isstill convulsing the nations of the earth. What this has cost us, and what it has meant to us, and to other countries, it is impossible todescribe. Imagination reels before the thought. Still the ghastlystruggle continues, daily comes the story of carnage, and suffering,and loss; and still the enemy who stands for all that is basest, andmost degraded in life, stands firm, and proudly vaunts his prowess.

Book Excerpt

ust now, you returned the salute.'

'Did I? I didn't know. Perhaps I saw you doing so and I unconsciously followed your lead. But I don't think I do know anything about soldiering. I remember nothing about it, anyhow.'

This conversation took place in the early spring of 1915, just as England began to realize that we were actually at war. The first flush of recruiting had passed, and hundreds of thousands of our finest young men had volunteered for the Army. But a kind of apathy had settled upon the nation, and fellows who should have come forward willingly hung back.

I had been fairly successful in my recruiting campaign; nevertheless I was often disappointed at the lack of enthusiasm manifested. I found that young men gave all sorts of foolish excuses as reasons for not joining; and when this stranger volunteered, as it seemed to me, unthinkingly, and without realizing the gravity of the step he was taking, I hesitated.

'Of course you understand that you are doing a very important

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