What a great scene, profound, moving and thought-provoking. I really believe they should screen YIJones to all school-children as it is very informative.

Robert Graves was one of the great prose and verse stylists after the war, and his war poetry is more about camaraderie in the face of despair than utter despair itself. Sassoon was more erratic in output, his gritty poetry is viscerally charged, but his other poetry is flaky. Wilfred Owen wrote two great poems that have ended up defining the British view of the war; probably because his bleakness captured the perspective people had looking back at the trauma.

PebbledBeach, very well said. I find myself wondering the same thing quite often. I tend to believe that because there is such a small percentage of combat troops, there is no outcry for justice. I have experienced first hand the lack of empathy when I returned from Iraq. The notion of an "all volunteer military" creates an idea that multiple deployments, stop loss, etc., are acceptable since we (soldiers) have, at one point, volunteered.

Where are the Sassoons of today? The world hasn't changed - aloof politicians far removed from reality sending innocent young men to die for a cause they neither understand nor care for. It isn't their sons and daughters dying in Afghanistan etc - Siegfried was a hero to stand up to the Establishment. Today our resolve is weak - we are satiated in consumption - we care only for Nintendo and X-Factor!

dude like wheres the other part to this???

@tankerphil I have recently begun to doubt the wisdom of a volunteer army. If we still drafted people we would be involved in far fewer wars. The political outcry would be to great.

Poor research, Graves and Sassoon should be wearing the flash on their uniforms. Makes it unwatchable.