All my family for generations have served in the British Army and I was raised with a real insight into what 'War' actually meant to those poor unfortunates caught up in it, and those who fought in it as 16, 17 and 18 year old boys or young men only a little older.
Our home was often full of ex-soldiers meeting up again - especially at Christmas - when the Second World War was still relatively not that long ago, and I remember that I'd never seen so many grown men weep whenever the time came to raise their glasses to the boyhood friends they'd lost in battles on foreign soil.
One of the songs they'd play on our old gramophone was 'Lily Marlene' by Marlene Dietrich, and to this day I cannot hear it without thinking of what these ordinary men
really endured on our behalf. It is one of the most beautifully poignant songs I've ever heard and the lyrics which are especially moving to me are:
"When we are marching in the mud and cold,
And when my pack seems more than I can hold
My love for you renews my might
I'm warm again
My pack is light
It's you Lili Marlene
It's you Lili Marlene"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBi5j7yPwd0