I read this after reading that the Iron Maiden song, "The Trooper," was inspired by it. Any thoughts or interpretations?

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People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
-George Orwell

my father made me memorize that poem, amongst others, when I was 11 years old. Back then, it was just a chore and a string of words...now it is a sad and poignant allegory....

military professionals will always throw themselves headlong into any mission they are sent on.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred."

even today, it is not the military that blunders, but they always pay the ultimate price for those who do.

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"In a rich society, no one should be allowed to suffer from deprivation such as homelessness, starvation and illness. This ideal is essential, not simply as a matter of human good, but as the price we pay for a measure of domestic tranquility. "

John Kenneth Galbraith

I am afraid it was a "military" blunder that the charge occurred. I suppose you could argue it was politics that put them in the Crimea.

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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

both. the point I was making was that military professionals have historically saluted and gone off to do whatever their chain of command asks them to do. Iraq is no different.

I grow tired of people here and elsewhere attempting to mischaracterize my opposition to this administration's foreign policy as some sort of denigration of the military that is doing their best to implement it.

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"In a rich society, no one should be allowed to suffer from deprivation such as homelessness, starvation and illness. This ideal is essential, not simply as a matter of human good, but as the price we pay for a measure of domestic tranquility. "

John Kenneth Galbraith

The poem isn't historically accurate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_T...rl_of_Cardigan

Interesting article about the bloke who did it.

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I've seen the wild horses, I've heard the bull roarers

You mean because there were more than 600? The charge was through a valley with guns in front and on both flanks. The Charge did reach the front guns and then the men returned through the valley.

Explain what is inaccurate please?

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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.

I'm not getting stuck into Tennyson, I rather like him, "nature red in tooth and claw" and all that. But he did write it from newspaper reports.

Now I'm not going to start picking the poem apart. It's a poem, not a documentary. It was written, I think, as a paen to celebrate the courage of the troopers who fought and probably to obfuscate the stupidity of their officers.

It's a great poem but it's first and foremost a poem. It's pretty right but there are some historical inaccuracies that even Tennyson himself acknowledged.

"Six is much better than seven hundred (as I think) metrically so keep it."

He needed to keep the galloping meter in that part of the poem.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

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I've seen the wild horses, I've heard the bull roarers

In other words because he didn't mention every cavalryman it was inaccurate. The poem is pretty damn accurate from historical stand point.

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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

I don't know where this is going RGS but it's interesting. Why does the poem have to be historically accurate? Poems generally aren't. Le Chanson de Roland, which I have admired since I was a kid (in translation, I don't speak French) is a great poem but not accurate, militarily speaking. But it does capture the bravery of Ronald of Roncesvalles. Whoever composed it wasn't at Ronceveaux, but so what? The spirit of the battle lies in the poetry.

Poetry is an art form, it has many purposes and they depend on context. Exact accuracy isn't required. "The Charge of the Light Brigade" has historical innacuracies. Not that they matter. It did its job.

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I've seen the wild horses, I've heard the bull roarers

Plural again, what else is inaccurate? For a poem it is very accurate.

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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

I could suggest that it glorified a really, really stupid military decision where these days an inquiry would probably sort out the fool that gave the orders and cashier him. But that would go against the spirit of, "our is not to reason why..."

Tennyson was pumping up the Brits over the Crimean War. He had to put a spin on a military defeat by making it a legend about the bravery of the Light Brigade. He was in fine company. He may have been thinking about Horace:

"How sweet and lovely it is to die for your country:
Death pursues the man who flees,
spares not the hamstrings or cowardly backs
Of battle-shy youths."

And Wilfred Owen put that in perspective later when he wrote:

"If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori."

Tennyson's poem is, I think, stirring poetry. But it was a poem, not a field report.

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I've seen the wild horses, I've heard the bull roarers

In other words the only "inaccuracy" is that for purpose of poem meter he wrote 600 instead of 678 or what ever the number was. Yet you keep talking about inaccuracies, PLURAL , as in more than one.

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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

I forgot again...how many angels CAN dance on the head of a pin?

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"In a rich society, no one should be allowed to suffer from deprivation such as homelessness, starvation and illness. This ideal is essential, not simply as a matter of human good, but as the price we pay for a measure of domestic tranquility. "

John Kenneth Galbraith

do we really think that ALL the world wondered what was happening there?

are we SURE that the prevailing winds were carrying the battery smoke to a place where the Light Brigade had to actually PLUNGE through it?

were there actually cossacks AND russians there?

are we SURE that those cossacks and russians were actually both shattered AND sundered?

important questions, all.

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"In a rich society, no one should be allowed to suffer from deprivation such as homelessness, starvation and illness. This ideal is essential, not simply as a matter of human good, but as the price we pay for a measure of domestic tranquility. "

John Kenneth Galbraith

I'm still counting, now if I could only stop the interruptions....

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I've seen the wild horses, I've heard the bull roarers